Here comes the Sun

It dawned on me, just in perfect timing with the Equinox, that the Universe has a unique sense of balance, and a quaint sense of humor.

I had been detained again after my Great Escape, and it's always a downer, so help me, it is, the cold light and the cool air of the North after all the warmth and the colors of the South. I was tempted to wallow in some serious subcontinental homesick blues, my head and heart about to burst from all the beauty and the experiences I had breathed in.

I had to exhale, to get it all down, or as much of it as was sensible, usable and memorable, including the far from Kodak moments. Especially those. But what about the things that defy language and explanation? Those are often the things that would best describe what you miss and love most about a place. Those also happen to be the parts that get lost in translation, the things that would die with you if you were the last known representative of culture X, since you could not satisfactorily capture the meaning and true essence of something.

Still, I was about to get to it; try and do the seemingly impossible and breathe life into things without names, as writers tend to in their pathology. It makes for horrible convoluted senseless ramblings. It makes for fresh ways of looking at things, observations many have felt to be true somehow but haven't been able to voice or put down in writing. I can only hope that as time and talent progresses, I will do more of the latter than the former.

Ready to explode as I was, I came back wishing I had more time to write. Boys and girls, it is true what they say about being careful what you wish for: the Lord Marshal of employment made it so. But, drum roll...I had gotten my first literary callback, if you can call it that. I just did. Homesickness healed in record time, my stinky stinging pride was soothed. One more moment defying description; I am beyond elated. Like Jenny and her folk singing career in Forrest Gump, I'm the proverbial penniless poet, even if I can't write verse to save my life. (Threaten my kids and I'll get iambic on you.)

Truly, believe me when I say that no matter what the outcome on this one is, the encouragement and boost I got will more than make up for the disappointment I may be heading towards. Until then, BICHOK it is.

Blood spangled banners

I sit here on the northern corner of the planet and watch the world burn. All is quiet here, all is peaceful, in comparison at least. The sky blazed with fireworks last night and we watched rapt with sweet delight. Different kinds of rockets bulleted the night sky and city streets, fires raged, some new and some unquenchable, in other parts of the world. Those rockets and blazes were welcomed with quite disparate shouts and spirits.

Stoke it up, put it out or ignore it and hope it will go away, the choice is yours. Let them fight it out among themselves. You didn't start those fires. Why should you care what is up with them, somewhere else, anywhere but here? But do we really want to be part of a race that seems to have lost the 'human' in humanity? Doesn't it demean us, all of us, the evil and the beastliness?

We're all capable of it, and we're all capable of putting it under wraps, starting with ourselves. Maybe only within ourselves. You can be a good example or a horrible warning, to mangle that old adage, but you're setting yourself up for failure when you try to change someone else. If they don't want to, they won't care how much you want them to. (So take this with the proverbial pinch of salt or toss the container at me, but bear with me.)

Don't delegate, downsize or avoid the issue, complain or explain when hatred, prejudice and pettiness raise their ugly heads, especially within you. Don't sit and wait doing nothing because you can't do all that much. Do what you can. Some random act of kindness or a carefully planned premeditated one.

Those phone calls you've been putting off because so much time has passed you believe it will be awkward. That message you meant to write an eon ago but somehow never got around to sending. Those words you can't get out because maybe they'll laugh or think you're strange or stupid, a fruit cake, or fruity. Maybe they will, but let them think what they want; that is what they will do anyway.

I sit here on the edge of the world and promise to try and tame the devil inside, to use it's rage only to help keep up hope. And it's one of the toughest games in the world, hanging on to hope. It's not for the faint of heart. Think how much time and nerves and resources giving up on others and yourself would save. We can't afford to. This is an emergency, and we're all on call.

...look closer.

I submit to you
That love and peace are verbs,
They are doing words,
Compassion is the marriage between heart and intellect,
Reason a bully when not a thing of beauty,
That being of service has been sadly mistaken for servitude,
That pessimism, loneliness and hatred are mass murderers,
We do teach our children the value of money but not the indispensability of a warm heart,
Constant instant gratification equals serial dismay,
No one is born evil, only disadvantaged,
Multitasking is looking busy while getting nothing done,
Those who choose not to believe in Santa are not eligible for gifts,
And Groucho was right: If you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.

Truth - Beauty - Freedom - Love

Enough said.

Heads will roll

I'm a movie buff who happens to like Tim Burton's stuff. I decorated the door to my den with a poster for Sleepy Hollow on Halloween. Not the one with Johnny and Christina even though they are beautiful together, aren't they, but the one with the headless Hessian Horseman. That is one hauntingly beautiful, and grisly, image, too.

My kids are old enough to not have him riding into their nightmares waving that axe. They are also young enough to respect his authority when they haven't respected that closed door. Halloween went by but the Horseman stayed. The kids think it's a cool poster, a little scary but not too much. They stop to stare at him as he watches over me. And they forget to knock. They forget to barge in altogether.

So I'm hanging onto my Hessian fiend of a friend and letting him hang on my door for the time being. He has worked wonders for my writing peace if I've indulged while the children are still awake. They have seen Mom's head on fire when interrupted for the twelfth time in twenty minutes. The fact that the Horseman doesn't have one is ten times more effective.