A Chance Encounter

 As I was walking home tonight after walking a friend out to their car and making sure they were safe, I crossed the road, and then in front of me was a black cat, sweet lovable black cat, who rubbed up against me and asked for pets and scratches but definitely did not want to be picked up -I tried to negotiate with her. 

I said follow me home and I’ll take care of you but if you wish to go your own way, I will respect it. 

10 feet away and she ran to the dumpster and examined things out for 10 minutes and then walked the other way.

I desperately wanted her to follow me to convince her that I had to take care of her when in truth , all she needed that moment was a little comfort a little solace from whatever she’s dealing with, but she certainly didn’t need was a dumbass who desperately wanted to be the white male savior.

 I waited and she walked around the dumpster, sniffed what she could sniff and then walked over to side of the parking lot and sat by a sidewalk  

I didn’t save her. She didn’t want me to save her. In fact she was grateful for the attention I gave her but also that was the limit of my existence in her life. She sat by the sidewalk and I sat 100 feet away wondering if she needed my help. 

It was clear to me that she did not , and that my need to be a hero had nothing to do with her reality. This is a cat that was perfectly secure where she was perhaps waiting for her owner/friend/roommate to come home. 

She was without need and without any notification she was exactly what she was and the need for a knight and shining any rescue was unnecessary. 

She was exactly what she was and that in itself more sure of purpose in their own self than I know in mine. 

It was my ego that wanted; needed to be the hero. It was her grace to give me a bit of attention and to let me feel her peace. 

Luci’s Walk

The light broke through the curtains with an uncomfortable force. Luci’s eyes forced open by the dawn. They blinked hard against the light, trying to adjust. To accept this new reality, cast from the sacred place, disowned, disavowed, discarded. 

As the light and dark adjusted. As they accepted the reality they were now in, things came a bit clearer.

They tried too hard, they grasped for too much and lost. Lost it all. The pain is never ending. Burns that create wounds that never scar over. Raw. Eternal pain. 

As Luci roams the land they have found themselves in. They start to notice their surroundings. They become aware of the other beings. Luci thought they were abandoned here alone, an orphan in a solo orphanage. 

But as they explore they see the others, cautiously at first, from a distance. But they seem familiar. The same energy the same brash adventure. Luci sees a bit of themselves in them. A lot more than they want to admit. 

But Luci is an orphan, a reject, a cautionary tale. This organic animal doesn’t know. 

Yet it reminds Luci of their own misunderstanding of reality and consequences. 

And somehow, Luci knows that they must protect this unique animal, this creation. 

What if all the devil’s temptations are meant to push you back to the light, because they as an abandoned, disowned orphan, know the danger, the risk, the consequences. Maybe the voice of experience is full of sorrow. 

The line between Lucifer the tortured soul and the Holy Spirit is more blurred than we admit. 

A recipe for a Heaven

 Live uphill from a gas station. 

Live within walking distance of a restaurant and a liquor store. 

Live within walking distance of something that makes you believe in something more than yourself. 

Be able to walk to a grocery or farmers market. Have a funeral home not too far away. 

Have music in the air, church, hs band, rock club, even the symphony of a playground or park. 

Have at least one pizza place you can walk to. Two preferable.  Find a place your soul finds quiet. 

Add two things that are specific to the needs of your heart. 

You find all that? You may just have found your heaven. 

What’s in a Hat?

 He’s fit, nearly 6 foot, but in a bar in the north without any country vibe he’s in a cowboy hat. 

There is a sense of vulnerability to the bravado. His jaw line catches looks. He’s got kind eyes. 

Yet that damn hat. It’s a lot to process. 

He waits as if the magic hat will fix the anxiety, the lack of ability to make the first move. 

He seems kind, interested in your story. 

But that damned hat. 

It screams the opposite of what he thinks it does. In this moment. In this place. It’s not the badge he thinks it is. 

Time and place. Audience. Moment. It all matters. 

Turn and time again ladies would engage and talk for a bit and then seemingly unknowingly, look at the hat one more time before they disengaged. 

He closed his tab. Walks out. Trusting the hat. Had he just trusted those eyes, that jawline, himself…it would have been different. 

Maybe he wanted the indifference. The caution. Maybe if you can’t love the hat you can’t love him. 

But that’s a lot of weight to put on a hat. 

Hubris Personified

Imagine if you will, a theater major, in London on a trip to study at the world famous Globe Theater recreation. 

They get one moment on stage alone to deliver the Shakespearean monologue they have been working on for 3 months. 

His wife, newly married is on the trip. He held the engagement ring in his pocket the night he saw a lord of the rings movie in the theater at premiere night. His bride is in the audience waiting to hear her man deliver his Shakespearean monologue on this famous stage. 

Full of confidence and vigor he steps up to the beautiful and ornate double wooden doors. He envisions being like Aragon and pushing open the doors with force and righteous purpose. He’s going to burst onto the stage and deliver the monologue of his life. Impress his bride, his father and his mentor. 

He takes a deep breath, thanking fate for the opportunity, a smaller breath to calm his anxiety and a pause to thank the fates he made it to this moment. 

With the monologue in his tongue and an ego full of vigor and passion he pushed against the doors like a sprinter breaking out of the starting block. 

What he got was a resounding, terrible thud. 

The doors didn’t swing open, he didn’t emerge as a valiant Aragon. 

They just went thud. 

Because they were doors that didn’t push. They were pull. 

He adjusted, pulled and delivered the monologue, a tense victorious stream of words that would have been so much better if everyone hadn’t been giggling about the thud. 

Hubris is a vicious judge. But also seems to have a sense of humor. 

Unprepared and Arrogant

When my first wife and I got married, we agreed to never have children. Neither of us felt that we were prepared to bring another life into this chaotic, horrible world, and I myself didn’t feel prepared to give them any skills to get through it. I felt I would be, a bad parent and was in so many ways I was still a child and unprepared.

Life happened and we brought two amazing beings into life. Both had to struggle to fight to get here to land on this planet of existence each of them probably in another age would not have been allowed opportunity and despite our misgiving, we burst individuals.

 Opportunity and despite our misgiving, we birthed two individuals. I arrogant thought I would figure it out as I went. 

But overtime, it proves that I was right in my first assumption. I was not prepared or ready to be a father or a mentor or anything resembling a support system. I failed both of them repeatedly. 

In spite of my flawed existence and despite my negative influences on them, they have both succeeded are succeeding, thriving, and will thrive.

vilification of my existence, despite my negative influences on them, they have both succeeded - are succeeding, thriving, and will thrive.

It is understandable that neither of them really has much desired of anything to do with me because I have provided not enough and I have also been cast as a villain and derided the entire way .

I take pride and I have never chosen the path of derision and vilification of the other parent. It is clear to me that the only thing on earth that early 20 something me, was right about was that I was not ready and not prepared. and yet I unleashed that stumbling fool of a father upon them.

And yet I unleashed that stumbling fool of a father upon them.

Is it a paradox that I cannot fix? I cannot wish it had happened because then these incredible individuals would not exist. I do wish that I could’ve been better. I do wish so much. 

The Terrors Learn to Wait

One of the best things about living with night terrors is that over time you learn to adapt. You learn how to find a way to deal with the horrible images, the scary moments, and the bloodcurdling events that your mind presents. 

You learn this through trial and error. At some point you become, if you’re lucky, good enough at it that you can remove yourself from that horrible dream. You can remove yourself from the night terror it doesn’t stop the feeling or the emotion or quite frankly the terror. Like hitting pause right before the scary moment in the movie. Hopefully, you walk away and the movie never continues.  But some nights and more importantly, some mornings hitting pause isn’t enough. 

My brain is very good at deleting the things that it knows I shouldn’t see again but just like any solid state storage there’s going to be an echo that sticks with you. I don't know what my mind deleted from last night's terror. I do know that it terrified me enough that I woke up at 4 AM and decided that whether the sun was up or not, I was done  

When that happens and I have no recollection of the dream,  I know that my subconscious is doing its best to keep it from me, but it doesn’t always work. 

I don’t know what I saw in my dreams last night, but I do know that moments of today out of my vision, there’s been something  That I think I see and I look and it’s not there. 

Which means it was either a trick of the light that my brain couldn’t delete or that something is still stalking me. Chasing me until my foolish ass does exactly what it wants and that is to go to sleep. To give that echo of a memory that my brain tried to delete the chance to take hold again. 

Some nights find my insomnia is not being able to sleep because of FOMO or restless legs or just not wanting to face tomorrow. 

Some nights my urge not to sleep is because I know that there is a nightmare waiting for me on the other side of my eyelids.  A nightmare that scared me so much last night. I deleted it and I woke myself up. It's waiting as a shadow in the corner of my vision or on full display across the curtain of night. 

No matter how long you procrastinate, the terrors learn to wait.