If you really wanna know…
May 9, 2008
Hi!
I do have more to say and I do want to respond to the love and care that has been given to me here in a very serious time in my life.
Someone wrote to me and said that they weren’t sure there was any such thing as real friends anymore; that maybe it was just a word in the dictionary. There were some really good posts I wrote that I reread tonight and thought it might be a good time to really describe how I feel about the people who have really been by my side, on my side and with me in heart and spirit.
Who knows - maybe it might stir some feelings up in others and ring a bell in folks heads about friendships and what they really are and how they might fit in - or not. Maybe it will get some people to think about who they really are, how they really are. All this stuff about I’m here, I love you, I’ve been by your side…. I just don’t understand people sometimes. I guess it’s just all about them sometimes.
- http://rubyshooz.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/love-is-action-in-relationships/
- http://rubyshooz.wordpress.com/2007/09/14/the-door-was-always-open/
- http://rubyshooz.wordpress.com/2007/05/24/real-friends/
I’ve been very sick since last couple of weeks but this last week was really bad when they tried a new med on me and couldn’t eat for the last three days. I’ve also had some problems with pain in one of my wrists, up my arm and down the right side around my ribs.
I went to a neurologist who did some nasty elecrical and needle testing the other day and she seemed to think that I might have a pinched nerve in my elbow but wondered why they hadn’t done any x-rays of my neck etc. so she’ll be reporting to all my doctors in the next day or so - prolly advising them to send me for more x-rays.
I don’t wanna go, I don’t want any more x-rays, I don’t want to see any more doctors, I don’t like my doctors and when I went to the pain management clinic there was a problem with them mis-medicating me then blaming it on me and getting on my case for following their directions. The time before that they said about three or four times , “Geez, you look stoned!” No matter that it was an appt. at 7:45 am and we had to drive an hour to get there or that I’d only gotten three hours sleep.
I’m not feeling too peaceful today but I did want to say at least something - Mark, I’ve been leaning on you and I thank you for having such a strong shoulder.
Like I said, I want to, and shall, respond to the comments that you folks who care have left me. There are times I feel utterly alone and it’s hard to explain here but I just wanted to let y’all know I’m here, somewhat and I do read what you’ve said here.
I am committed to responding to each and every one of you….especially to Mark/TWM who has been my other rock and to my brother Reg who very much deserves a personal letter.
One last thing, Di - if you’d wanted to write to me you would have. I have too but don’t know what to say to anyone anymore. I’m just feeling very insecure in the world here at this time and in this space. We’ve both missed you too Di.
I do need to give my wrists, my emotions and my self some rest and to go to that place that Mark/TWM has intimated in some of his posts.
Peace, love and understanding - no matter what.
(If you read part of this in my last comment in the last post, you’re not seeing things - I did repost it here with some changes since it seemed like it needed a bit more exposure.
May 9, 2008 at 4:02 am
I’m sorry you are going through such a rough time in your life right now. Ruby, I’ve been coming by here for a while now and think you are a very special person. I can see you struggling to make sense of things, and I can understand that too. If I could, I’d come with you to your appointment and hold your hand. I am disgusted that you are being treated as if you are not taking your responsibility with the meds, if I were there, and they spoke to you like that; they’d get the smack down. I’m very protective of those I love. I do adore you, your spirit, your writing, your loving ways…
Hang in there and know I’m just a email away if you ever need to talk….
Take care Ruby! Much Love!
May 9, 2008 at 7:16 am
*sigh*
Makes me sad that they just do NOT get it.
How can they do what they do and just NOT get it?
*sigh*
And hugs–cuz it ain’t fun…..
None of it.
Three days of no nourishment–did that one myself recently and it alarmed the world around me moreso than it did me. Stupid thrush….*muttering*
You just do the best you can do…as you can do……when you can do.
One moment at a time, eh?
Cool image with the post, btw.
(Made me sad, mind you….but it really is a cool image.)
May 9, 2008 at 10:02 am
Ruby~ I went and read your old posts.
Sat with them for a while.
I thought of you a couple days ago while I was out walking my labyrinth. My thoughts seems to go to you and to the words you always seem to share,
Peace
Love
Understanding.
In the center of my labyrinth I lit a candle, and said your name.
I often wonder if in that moment, of care
of Love and concern for someone I have never met in the physical world, I am not some how connected.
If I am, then today in my thoughts I hold you with the gentlest touch, that you might know peace, rest and Love.
((HUG))
blessed be
May 9, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Hello, Ruby….
I’m so sorry you’re going through such a difficult time. With your permission, I’d like to send you Reiki. You can contact me through my email if you’d like, to let me know if you’d like to receive it.
On the rest of your post and the prior one, I don’t feel qualified to remark because there are too many missing pieces to the puzzle for me. However, I just wanted to encourage you with the thought that from an outsider’s point of view, it certainly appears as if you have a very massive stream of Love coming your way.
May you find your inner peace and those feelings of connection again soon, Ruby.
May 9, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Thinking of you, Ruby.
I wish you peace and love, no matter what.
May 10, 2008 at 4:13 am
Ruby, Ruby…Hey I finally made it to sleep. Damn it was a long time coming but I woke up at midnight (or so) with drool all in my beard, the dog that killed a bear looking at me like she might just be ready to pounce, and the wife tuning up for her regularly scheduled sleep time.
Ha ha ha ha ha It’s a matter of perspective I guess, some need 8 or 9hrs. But when you are used to 3 or 4 hours of sleep, something in the middle seems like a luxury. Especially since it has been more than a year since I have slept more than four hours eh?
I woke up at the crack of (moon, dawn?) and actually was rested and more pain free than I’d been in a long while. So I guess the treatments are worth the effort. Remember though this is an initial report on them. The anesthesiologist who is doing them already told me they were patches and plugs with varying results as to length of effectiveness.
Time will tell.
I read your post a number of times and wasn’t really sure how to respond. Me? personally? You don’t owe me anything Ruby. Not a reply, response or a ‘how do you do.’
You owe only yourself darlin,’ you owe it to yourself to regain that Namaste peace and flow. If by knowing you are not alone here in this path you’ve had forced on you is something that these words abet then it is a good thing. But in all things we truly are never alone sweetheart, there is camaraderie, not only between humans but also in that Dharma of the universal thought and God breathed wisdom. It is a real environment and easily attainable if we but look.
Ruby, Nora, you know this. I allow that it is a not hard road when we have seen and bathed in the Dharma when we are at peace, and so much harder to get to when we are not. This is the proof though, of faith. That we reside in peace no matter the condition of our residence. This is God’s word and the ultimate end of that word; our own peace of body, soul and, spirit.
The beauty of being a reformed preacher who tends to sermonize is that I get to decide when the sermon is over. The sermon portion of todays post is over with these words; May the Peace of God, the Peace that goes beyond our own ability to understand it, fill you, take you to new heights, thoughts and, in doing so show you the way to your own blessing and health. As you will, so be it Ruby.
Musically speaking today we are all over the map from Bruce to Danny Kirwin and his blues thing. I like the blues no matter how rested and content I am in the moment, especially when it is way early in the morning before there is any hint of sun light. Oyay, the blues has gots me now. ha ha ha ha
Nothing but freedom has me right at the moment Ruby. Raise your glass up and together we will toast our freedom.
Peace
mark
May 11, 2008 at 2:25 pm
GRRRRRR. I caught your blog host doing server maintenance when I posted this morning ruby. It told me to wait five minutes refresh the site and the post would be made. Bwaaaa I did and it didn’t set the post.
Well, Happy Mothers day!
I’ll see you in the wee hours tomorrow my friend.
Peace
mark
May 12, 2008 at 2:57 am
Hiya kiddo.
Paul McCartney is telling me about Rocky Raccoon. I like the Beatles best during their LSD and India transition days. The early work is good old R&R as they made their name. But it was once they could no longer do live shows that they really took off in creativity. You knew they couldn’t do live shows right? The noise of the tweens was to loud for them to hear themselves play. ha ha ha ha be careful what you wish for you just might become a self defeating cultural phenomena.
Not much is really happening today Ruby. I have to go get blood work done and then zip!…back to my routine of daily nothingness.
I really don’t know how some people deal with this time filled life? Personally I would prefer the hectic day. The day filled with different stuff, good and bad, over this rolling undulating progression in age with no real daily accomplishments.
Ha ha ha ha, I guess we wound up the game early and should just relax through the rest of the trip. This is Bike to Work week. I’ve read a few of the accounts people have of riding to work. Sub zero temperatures, hills and, dogs. I do believe that I would still drive to work. Riding a bicycle sounds too much like work before work.
Yet although we don’t labor anymore it is still work enough to simply keep on moving along some days eh? We don’t labor for profit anymore but for peace of mind and obliteration of obstructions to that peace. I think this is a more worthy endeavor for the world.Almost anyone could learn to do my jobs, but not everyone can learn to acquire peace. Yet it is so simple once one quiets the nagging voice and hears the calm, serene one.
Whoa look at me so easily slipping into preach mode. Ha ha ha ha ha ha Rather a laughing Buddha than a teaching one, better to laugh than it is to use words. It is the example that teaches best. So laugh. Laugh at all of the mundane shit that comes your way in the course of a day.
Most times it is but a temporary road block that we can do nothing about anyway ‘cept to get beyond it and live through it.
Now if wordpress allows this post I will laugh at yesterday and laugh today when they stick the needle into the back of my hand because they are not very good at finding less painful veins.
Peace Ruby
Laugh
mark
May 12, 2008 at 5:48 am
Glad to see that I’m not the only one who had their words gobbled up by the Moof Monster….
*hugs*
Hopeful that your Mother’s Day was a wonderful one–
*thinkin’ of you*
May 13, 2008 at 3:55 am
Ruby, you are a gracious brave lady.I believe you are fully capable of handling any situation in your life.
My best wishes.
God bless.
May 13, 2008 at 5:51 am
Morning Ruby!
It must be the weather, I swear I’ve had a hard time this morning putting two coherent thoughts together. Weather or age, maybe senility is catching up to me. ha ha ha.
I walked all through everyplace I usually go this morning and didn’t feel like leaving a footprint any where but here.
Oh Lord the mighty mouth of Detroit has been silenced…only a temporary burp. Been through these lack of word moments before. Some days I just don’t care to involve the fray into my world, preferring the silence.
Here though I can just be. Not the writer or the poet or or or or or anything else that I am. I can just roll on through here and after stopping for a bit, gather myself and move on. See that is testimony to you and what you have done in touching people.
It is a cool water on a desert day. A bit o’ sun in a gray world. This garden spot eh?
*Sigh* it appears though that for this morning I am simply not very wordy so let me not babble on and just say
Peace
mark
May 13, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Rubes,
I wish I could say something that would help and make it all go away but there don’t seem to be any words.
If I was there I would just give you a hug and listen to what you had to say. I’m not though.
So instead, I think of you in my crooked prayers.
I wish you strength and peace.
BC
May 14, 2008 at 2:48 am
Ruby see? You have not been forgotten eh?
Today is a better day. I think the day off has helped me focus. I probably shouldn’t have written my attorney’s office with medical update letter yesterday. Ha ha ha ha ah ah ahhha I think from the reply I recieved that they think I am mightily depressed. Well they really don’t know me now do they?
Attorneys, doctors and, journalists have a very special sin to apologize for in my opinion. So much education and so much poor molding in the courts of people service. No ma’am I wouldn’t want either of the three sobriquets attached to my name. Better to be an uneducated bum and go along peacefully than fight the war in the battle of human endeavor. It is so inane.
Bah talking of them is the same as talking about politicians eh? Politicians have a different, more egregious sin, to explain away at the entrance to the Dharma. Better to speak plainly and without subterfuge. Why the hell does anyone want to lead other people unless it is to the path that leads to calming waters and green pastures. A place where they think for themselves without the burden of someone else telling them what to think and ruminate on.
Freedom, freedom of thought is another one of those ideas that is so easy to know and so hard to attain. I let go of other peoples ideas and came to my own conclusions. I may now be hard headed but I listened along the way and only accepted that which the Maker proved as true. Is it ego to believe I am always right? Pride? I’ll be damned if I know anything other than I believe that which was shown me and given me as truth.
Did I ever tell you about the days of Jesus freekin’; Lordy Ruby, those days at the very beginning of this path. a year or two before I left home at 17. I was a passionate advocate for Jesus. 36 years ago, so much time yet so short a length of space compared to eternity.
Until I realized Jesus was Buddha, enlightened, and not a object of worship. Shit that was a day of revelation. A first step in the right direction. That was the day, after about seven years on my path, that I stopped calling myself Christian. It was also the day I first truly heard the whispering voice of the One who created all within me. From that day to this I have never wavered in my faith that God is with me, and with all them who seek in the darkness. It is by being blind that allows the Spirit to enlighten one.
Preaching again I am. Forgive me. It is enough to know that I am as you are. Deep down shrouded in light.
Be at
Peace today Ruby
mark
May 14, 2008 at 3:19 am
Sometimes a “babble” of words is not needed…
…a single raindrop can cool the brow…
Peace…
May 14, 2008 at 9:15 am
Oh gorgeous Ruby, how awful not to be nourished for three days. I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time of late. I’m sending you all my love darling woman xxx
May 15, 2008 at 4:47 am
The blogospere is shuddering this morning Ruby. Quaking in indifference and self loathing. So many stops today are way too introspective and filled with self doubting words eh? Fear, fear for the future and what it will bring.
Sorry Honey; to me that is a fools game. Any fear is an impediment and fear of the future the worst one of all. Damn, how can you change the future if you fear it?
Maybe I am stupid, I see the horror of the present world wide condition, and I am not appalled by it, nor taken to run and hide from it. What good would that accomplish? None…better to look it square in the eye and change it through demanding it change.
Like I said, maybe I am stupid, but when one of my neighbors was bemoaning the lack of spring rain, I asked him why not change it. He didn’t get it as rain drops appeared in a cloudless sky. They easily dropped onto his bald head and he still questioned the weather.
Personally, my mother taught me to come in out of the rain, so I said nothing more and went about my business. It stopped raining when the conversation ended. I didn’t mind though it was a beautifully warm day after a few months worth of cold ones. But a few days into the future it did rain and his grass did green up. He quit fearing for his lawn and it got taken care of.
I do not like the cold. I am better suited now for a place near the equator. But as in all things the rain came in its season. And with it colder temps. My damn furnace just came on.
You know, Spiro Agnew was pretty useless as a Veep, sure not as horrific as Chaney, but all in all he was simply an office holder. Yet he did give me on of my all time favorite quotes…”Nattering nabobs of negativism.” He was referring to the media but I apply it all over the place.
Not only is it a wonderful piece of alliteration it is indicative of what negativity will do to one. Turn you into a dime store toy, the ‘chattering teeth.’ It may be fun for some to jump and hop around on a table but really, what good is it?
Yeeeup what good is fear? Not much that I have ever been able to suss out. As a child I feared all the fear I am ever going to fear. Now I am a man and I will quietly, simply be of good confidence that all will work out.
Peace Ruby
love
mark
May 15, 2008 at 1:02 pm
My dear friend.
My own pain and needs and my own co-dependancy issues were overwhelming me to the point where I had to take myself away from you and the love I felt for you.Love which was getting really obsessive. I took myself away for a bit for you too dear Nora.For both of us.
I’ve wanted to write to you so much, but I’m just as scared and just as insecure as the next man.
I send you loving thought’s and loving energy every single day. I live in hope that you recieve it. I’m so so sorry to read about more ill health. I just want to put my arms around you. That’s all I want to do, just let you know I am for real. I am Diane and I am your friend who loves you like a best friend does.
I better leave it here. I’d love to write to you.
Always loving but sometimes a bit fucked up.
Di.
Nora, I love you. PLease feel it.
May 15, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I’ve just read your post’s about friendships.
I’m very tearful and feel very… OH! I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. You write beautifully. Your writing touches me,you touch me.
Maybe one day, maybe not in this life time we will meet, maybe we have met.
OH!
To tearful - got to go. I miis you like mad.
May 16, 2008 at 12:27 am
I’m touched as well in many ways here. I don’t know what to say any more.
Thank you for your responses. I’ve been trying to formulate my own responses to the many comments here and in the last post and I’m just tongue-tied I guess.
I’ve said it all so many times in so many ways and get the same thing - it’s Aaron and I - and the phone doesn’t ring, people don’t come over unless it’s my sister and her family (rarely) or children (even rarer).
I’d thought so many times I’d been on the verge of having some very close friends via the internet but well, from the response above, that’s just one example. I tried again to reach out but no. Damn.
Mark, you’ve been a rock for some reason I can’t comprehend and I cannot see one reason why you do it except that you truly care and I care about you as well and can identify with most of what you say. So many times I’ve wanted to reply but the words are stuck and have been for a long time.
I guess I don’t know how to be friends anymore and it doesn’t make sense to me at all because I AM a fiercely loyal, caring, loving person. Nothing makes sense to me and I know it’s folly on my part to be opening myself up in this medium.
Like Claudia, I never meant to hurt anyone. I did my very bestest to be the very best person I could be - and I wind up here like this.
Man, no more, I’m off to bed if I can get warm first.
I do love you Diane and there’s nothing to be afraid of. I have a feeling I already know what’s been happening and why you continue to not write. Okay. Have it your way. I only wanted the best for you always. That goes for everyone else as well.
Peace, love and no understanding.
May 16, 2008 at 4:42 am
Sheeeit Darlin’
What don’t you understand? It simply seems that you have lost the light in your own path, and I am disposed by that One within me, to try to give it you again. It is not me in that regard, only m’ fingers. There wrap your head around that.
Have you ever considered that in being stripped of the humans you knew; the reason was not some almighty punishment, but rather the vagary of the human condition. We are a sad lot in that regard, yet we are the most glorious of all God’s creation, despite our weakness’.
In lacking what you consider friends there is One within you calling in the darkness to be one with Her. (Male/Female created he them)He never leaves us but we forget at times to leave the door open to wise love.
You have an illness in your body and it affects your soul, but why move away from your beauty, that is the spirit that you built up here? Not a new spirit to be sure, but an ancient one. One of loving acceptance of all that comes your way…eh? Even though it was a known by the creator, it was hated when man moved away from him to earthly affairs.
You accomplished here, in your understanding and the outpouring of words, that true spirit of LOVE. The love that passes understanding. Sadly all of us at times forget that One, that Spirit within, when we are assaulted in our body and mind, but this is the time we should seek refuge in that spirit, not forgo it.
I have been thus assaulted Nora. Not with a cancer but a very, very long list of broken bones and accidents that could have crumpled me as well, but because of that Spirit I simply put all of the pain, anger, misery aside and leave it behind. There is no other way to Peace. One has to forgive to be forgiven, so to them who most recently caused my pain, I forgive them, not only that I might be forgiven but so I can move myself back to center unburdened.
The center, the great Om, the immersion in Dharma, that walking in Christ, becoming Buddha, Brahman. These are words pointing to the center. so many words that aren’t truly accurate as no words can be, but those who have once touched the place, know it. Want it. Have it still. Take yourself there honey.
My kids don’t call either. When my step son calls even though I have been the only father he ever knew, it is his mom that he spends an hour on the phone with, They laugh together and it is good. My biological children never make the effort either, but I assume they do call their mother and step father. It is good as well, they never wanted this Walking Way.
People I have met and had an affect in their lives (hundreds) never call either. That is ok as well, my time in their life was always known to be temporary.
Do what you can for folks and comfortably let them move away. This is how love is spread. And it works the same with them biologically connected as well Ruby.
What I do know is that when one or a large group moves away there is always that Spirit to fill the void, and more eventually will come. This is what works to keep all of us filled who leave the door open, unashamedly, without criticism, lovingly, peacefully for any who want to enter. If none are with us in the current stream; take of the Spirit and fill the void. Actually He is funny, calm and generous, whats not to want eh?
We are moved away though by thinking that the darkness in our life is authored by Him, it is not. The pollution of the planet, the insipid lack of knowledge and understanding, the devil, these are the authors of our pain.
So even after all of these words Ruby the last word, the key to attaining all is not unknown to you but it is…simply…
Peace
mark
May 16, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Sorry to hear about the pain…..Sounds like it comes and goes when you least expect it.
I’m never “expecting” anyone but family to look my way, but others reply & they don’t.
Real time, with real people is really where it’s at, but most people around the internets seem pretty OK.
Remember, if you’re ever this way, give a holler. ; )
Cheers!
May 17, 2008 at 3:11 am
Imagine theres no heaven,
its easy if you try.
No hell below us,
above us only sky.
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine theres no country. it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too.
Imagine all the people living life in peace.
You, you may say I’m a dreamer,
but I’m not the only one.
——————————————————
Love is real,
real is love.
Love is feeling,
feeling love.
Love is wanting to be loved.
Love is touch,
touch is love.
Love is reaching,
reaching love.
Love is asking to be loved.
Love is you,
you and me.
Love is knowing we can be.
Love is free,
free is love.
Love is living,
living love.
Love is needing to be loved.
{Imagine & Love, John Lennon }
He got it Ruby.
Peace
Your Brother mark
May 17, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Hi Rooooobeeeee!
Just stopped by and thought I’d say “Hi”.
So, “HI!”
Thinking about YOU!
May 17, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Ruby… friendship on the internet is a fickle thing at best. In real life we expect a little more. You know I speak from experience when I say that when someone is sick… fear of our own mortality sometimes prevents us from being there when we are needed the most. You taught me to forgive myself for that. You came into my life when I needed you the most and I will always cherish that. It may seem like empty words to you right now but I do think about you often. You don’t need to respond… just hang on to those closest to you and know that you are loved by many.
May 18, 2008 at 3:07 am
I have written to you, I sent three emails trying to explain.I quess other people’s explanation’s and sense at point’s in our life makes NO SENSE as our own sense’s are unsure.
WE all think we know what’s going on for each other. I hope you got the eamils. I’ll wait for a reply if your going to send one back.
Loving
Diane x
May 18, 2008 at 6:20 am
See Ruby…you have greatly touched many people. I’ll be back tomorrow. Stay well
peace
mark
May 19, 2008 at 3:30 am
Good morning, good week ahead and a How do you do Ruby,
I’m not exactly sure what is happening of the ether of the internet, Maybe it is spring or something, people seem to have gotten over the winter “I’m freezing my ass off” blues and pushed away from their desks.
I suppose if I had to work today, I might have pushed away from mine as well, but I am still freezing my ass off and the weather hasn’t done much yet in the past month or so to change that.
I want 80 degrees of free heat. I want said heat to soak into every object I have and then s l o w l y radiate back to me when the sun ain’t shining. I actually spend more time doing things and looking around when the sun is heating the other side of the earth than I do in the daylight of Michigan.
That may be an oxymoron, daylight and Michigan but I am not going to wax loquacious about that now. My hands are too dang cold for that. My mind may be numb as well but the debate rages whether that is from the cold or brain mass thickening. Personally I would opt for the thickening simply because the cold, while a smaller molecule than hot, mass is mass and the thicker the better for repelling cold.
Yep give me a r10,000,000,000,000 value for my brain, something that insulated would repel all of the cold in the world eh? Unfortunately though at best I have only been able to insulate my skull with a hat.
Maybe i should swap out the knit hat for tin foil eh? I am getting Venusian waves taking me away. ha ha ha ha
Peace Dear Friend
mark
May 19, 2008 at 6:08 am
*hugs and love and all good things*
Never alone….
And now I’m humming John Lennon, which is a very good thing.
May 19, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Just popping in to send another Hug and thoughts of you…
(((be good to you)))
May 20, 2008 at 1:42 am
Thank you thank you thank you all.
I’m still dealing with this wrist thing which is one of the reasons I’m not writing here anymore. I care about y’all and/but I just can’t be writing and the sitting isn’t easy either.
Please - if you want to contact me personally, it’s okay. I’m in for any healing thoughts, reikii (Grace), warm vibes and anything else.
Just wanted to let you know that I care too and offer love to all.
Wishing you all peace, love, understanding, beauty, light, and warmth.
Mark, be easy on you, you are loved as well.
May 20, 2008 at 4:09 am
Ruby never fear for me. I am always easy on myself. Really, there is no other way to keep a steady pace along this path. You know the old saw about the race goes not to the swift but rather the deliberate.
I am not exactly sure what is going on with my own hands and wrist lately. At first I just thought that maybe I’d slept wrong, but now after a few days I am pretty certain it is the old mans arthritis come to roost.
*Shrug* it’s not that big of a deal, its not like I have to fix things that require heaps of manual dexterity anymore. I find that I have more than enough hand eye co-ordination to stick one finger out and type away and that is all I need.
I go see my PCP today for the first time in 5 months, she’ll say something, and then offer something I won’t take and away we’ll go for another few months. I’ve gotten used to being Doctor free (nearly) and have no desire to return to that state.
Not for a hundred years or so, then they can do what they will. I should be beyond care by then. Eh? For today I have Led Zeppelin playing since 1am, and enough coffee to get me through the darkest portion of the night and then comes the daylight.
Just as long as it comes up warm I will have no earthly complaint regarding myself and my own being, That is when one is able to most easily turn to the needs of others and give them some…
Peace
May 20, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Very nice blog! Keep on going!
May 21, 2008 at 5:06 am
Morning Sweetheart! I have Brian Setzer giving me dichotomous fits this early morning. If you expect birds and gently rising sun, I have big band swing. Ha ha ha ha.
Nothing like a blasting horn section to wake on up eh? I would dance but the floors would creek and moan. Not to mention the headphones have a really short cord. I don’t think the wife would appreciate the mambo so early in the am. But then and again I do like to test my limits with her. She is the her that had made me her him about a quarter century ago. Testing keeps it all fresh no, even when the body is weak but willing…
Speaking about the body, I did go to the PCP of mine yesterday. She has been my doc for over 8 years now. I think I got her pretty much out of residency. Now that i have her thinking the way I want a trip to her isn’t so much of a pain in the rumpus maximus.
She was very happy that I stopped all the drugs and assured me enough to assure the old lady that I ain’t dying this week. Of course I knew that but now I can refer all questions to the doc.
It plays with the doctors mind that i have been smoking cigarettes for 45+ years and she had gotten to the point of quiet acceptance until I asked for a drug to help with cessation. She wrote thay damn script before I even had the discussion about it out of my mouth. I certainly hope she realizes that i am pursuing this not for a health not compromised but because it is just getting to damn expensive to smoke a tank of gas every week! That is a twelve gallon Honda tank. $45 something isn’t right with this picture. I am composing the protest poem as I write this.
Working on the poetry and shorts is so much easier in the dark of early morning, something about working under a cloak allows the light to shine. Shit I really don’t know maybe it’s biorhythms or some such. All I know is that when I write in the day it is darker and more curt.
*Shrug* that kind of work has its place as well. But the daylight is for laying around and feeling like I did something. ha ha ha ha ha ha See I AM backwards. Like I should have bought a pack of cigarettes yesterday evening instead of having to go out in the early morning for ‘em. I just figured they would be cosmically better if I waited for the productive time to spend a quarter tank of gas.
Peace my Friend
May 21, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Ruby,
My thoughts are with you, may you find peace, love and health.
May 21, 2008 at 7:27 pm
*hugshugsandmorehugs*
There ya are!
Now…..go rest and know that people are caring aboutcha….LOL
<—knows all about not wanting to DO another round of doctors and medications and tests and GUNK…..
Sheeeeeshhhhhhh….darn good thing it’s not required that I haffta wanna do something to actually do it, huh?
If you have the luxury of rest and solitude, I say ya GO for it!
*sending peace-filled thoughts*
May 22, 2008 at 4:33 am
Running behind this morning Ruby. I have to go get an epidural into the ol’ neck. Maybe I will make it back this way later to let you know how it went, if not I will see you in the morning.
Peace
May 23, 2008 at 3:42 am
Well ruby, It has been an interesting 24 hours. The epidural was a trip. There I was laying on my stomach, neck exposed, hair in a dishwashers hat and the doc sort of in a rush to finish because he was catching a mid-afternoon flight. He had the needle in where he wanted it but couldn’t find a spot for the final push into the cord.
He was muttering and saying things like that is a huge bone. Duh it’s where there are four fused vertebrae. Later he said he was just about to give up and move to a less desirable spot. It was then that God took over, I twitched and the needle dropped in to touch the Dura, he whooped and pushed it home. I felt the burn of the steroid, and it was good. Within a couple of hours I was 90% pain free on my left side.
It was then that time started stopping and going, never finding its usual cadence. First it was slow and an hour never seemed to pass then bang! Before I knew it three had gone by in the blink of an eye. I think this is a side affect of the no smoking drug, which is working in tapering the craving. Slowly I am slowing the smoking down until I hit my quit date next Wednesday. Shhh your the only one I told the day too. Our secret.
This drug also appears to be having an affect on my appetite, strange I ate like a feeder pig yesterday. Everything looked good and I did indulge. That is not my usual way. I can go three or four days no problem with very little intake.
Oh well I’ve been fat before and lost it before. I am not going to worry about any side effect at the moment, because I seem to be tolerating it OK. Just strange mental things eh? No problem there though seeing as I have been insane for 50 years.
“Insanity it’s ok, just a different path”
Speaking of paths, thanks for being with me yesterday when the needle was going in. I thought of you and took a bit of strength from you to not move while they did this too me. Thanks.
Anyway moving on it’s getting late and I have words to write.
Peace Darling One.
mark
May 24, 2008 at 4:15 am
Morning Rubinski…is that Polish or Russian for Ruby?
Strange morning as I walk through the blogs I visit daily. It seems as the wordsmiths are tuning up to finally join the protest. Gas here hit a high of $4.20 and people are rolling down the road in pain. I have to laugh in a way at what the market economic has done.
No more 90 mph down the side streets with the bass blaring and rattling windows, (its an inner city thing), no more wild and fast driving from stop light to stop light, traffic has definitely decreased with people finally learning to consolidate trips out.
I read that in the first quarter America overall consumption of gas and diesel has been reduced to levels not seen in 10 years or so. yet prices overall aren’t going to come down. It’s good though because as different market forces, like supply and demand, are taken out of the price equation it exposes whats really behind the current run up in prices.
Jaysus now speculation over the Atlantic hurricane season which doesn’t officially start for two weeks has driven the market up another two plus dollars a barrel. Can we say profiteers making bets against future production capacity. Ha ha ha ha ha ha I will that they lose that bet and have their principle take a huge hit. They too need to feel the pain eh?
It wasn’t that long ago that we were able to live a peaceful life writing about love and beauty, peace and wisdom. Now that time is past and it has passed faster than a speeding train through a rural Montana crossing. Less than 12 months and the entire social, political, economic landscape has changed. *Sigh* Time to go back to war, a war of words and understanding, a war of getting as far off the grid as possible.
Oh well the wars of our youth are not so far gone as we don’t remember how to fight the powers eh. Same war, different adversary, different weapons because we now have more economic power than then eh? Time to use it wisely in peace.
see you later Rubinski, more words of encouragement to taper to the moment and write.
Peace
May 24, 2008 at 7:11 am
*hugs and love and all good things…*
(cuz I can)
May 25, 2008 at 4:10 am
Dear Ruby,
Thinking of you and sending you love, health and piece of mind. Hang in there.
Miriam
May 26, 2008 at 2:15 am
Hey what happened to yesterday? It was here i have flashes of moving through it but then I woke up and it was gone, moved on in favor of today.
Ruby, whatever happened to it I don’t know, maybe because yesterday was like a second Saturday, it threw me off.
Either that or I wanted (needed?) to sleep most of the daylight hours away. Hell sleep still isn’t a grand friend but I do seem to be getting more than before all the pain treatments.
Just when I was used to being sleep free…now I am turning and getting used to being fatigued because of too much zzzzzz time.
Sigh, aging is not a golden pond eh?
Peace
May 26, 2008 at 7:52 am
oh my dear Rubby,
Peace to you and thank you for … thoughts about you make all good emotions the tangible and the wonderful fragrance of love becomes the reality of the world that sinks in worry for self and breathe out the hatred.
I rarely wrote to you, but you were and are a sip of fresh air to me on my daily menu. Thank you once again.
Everything that is the best bellow is yours dear Rubby
http://www.artmajeur.com/colourrain/
http://candleday.wordpress.com/
http://trustlight.blogspot.com/
http://arthiker.wordpress.com/
Peace and love
Tomas
May 27, 2008 at 4:51 am
Well Ruby the day has arrived. 46+ years of smoking winds down to this, a dirty ashtray and one cigarette waiting for the sun to come up. I don’t think it is going to be all that hard to be honest.
It’s not that I love money but when I see a tank of gas costing the same as a carton of smokes I figure, we need gas but not smoke. Ha ha ha ha I can feel my throat tightening up at the thought of no more smoke…Damn wouldn’t it be funny if I choked from a lack of smoke? A most fitting end to my final addiction.
Strange how life long habits begin eh, 1962 or thereabouts and my older brother didn’t want to break the law alone. So there i was with him, smoking KOOLs no filter. It was what the pops smoked for years before he went to a filter. My bro stole ‘em I smoked ‘em and two years later had the first one on front of mom. Ha ha haha haha
Since then the brother and siblings all quit thinking it would improve their health. Damn that I say, I will quit to improve my pocket book. I am anti tax more than pro health. I do have a theory about the health thing though. I think that despite the evidence to the contrary, that by polluting the body there are some with a genetic disposition that use the pollution to acclimate to a dirty world.
Could that be rationalization, *Shrug* if it is I guess I am a rational being. Rationally insane eh? Yeah that works for me and I suppose it is a good thing that the wife goes back to work today after the long week end. She will not have to watch my face melt when it doesn’t get its nicotine rush at about noon or so…arggghhhhh I’m meeeelting…
peace
May 28, 2008 at 7:01 am
*sending good thoughts to Mark*
And thinkin’ aboutcha, lady.
Hoping today’s a sunshine and warmth day….cuz boy would that be welcomed!
*HUGE hugs*
May 28, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Much much love to all once again and I’m very sorry I cannot be here. We’re having a family emergency (or maybe two or three?) and it’s taking a toll and one I’m unsure I’m able to pay.
All my love, always.
May 29, 2008 at 3:15 am
Didja miss me? Yesterday was a day gone by in some sort of weird “nothing to say” sort of thing. Late in the day I was able to rectify it though with a very strange sort of flowing prose about the seamier side of my world.
Thanks for the thoughts Mel!
Ruby, paying the God damn piper is never an easy thing but with the right attitude (fuck it) payment really isn’t that dear.
What good, honestly, is family if they can’t present you with a crisis every now and then? In a way my own family crisis’ are so small I rarely think on them anymore. Crisis me? Sure as hell eh? My family crisis is being ignored and marginalized by every one of my blood kin. Not to bad to be honest, in a way it motivates me to produce more for the progeny because I am determined that words will be their only inheritance. They may never understand them, but you know as I do; there is potency in them.
*shrug* The bluebird of happiness rarely sings in this world anymore but…the cawing of a murder of crows is a blackbird singing in the dead of night. Crows too have wings eh?
There is one thing that you do understand if you look honey, freedom from other peoples bullshit…I look at it, smell it maybe even touch it to see if its dry enough to make fire with but all in all the the thing I won’t do is eat the shit. No no that is never good.
Right on computer selected music Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
Ok I am going on to revel in this strange insanity that fills me, it is good, I like it, it is me.
Peace my loving friend…just revel in the peace you have,it;s not gone anywhere, it sits and waits for you.
Peace
May 30, 2008 at 4:41 am
Morning Ruby…it would seem that the seratonin levels have increased and the epinephrine levels have gone down. Or just maybe it’s the moon. That great arbiter of tides and wish making in the still hours of the night. Wishes are good but magic is better eh?
Now if we measly humans could simply come to an understanding of what magic is eh? Abracadabra! Poof wanna see me pull a rabbit out of my hat? Pick a card any card but don’t tell me what it is, now show the others…never mind about that mirror, the smoke will hide your card (suckerrrr). I know slight of hand is considered to be magic for most but I have come to see that there is real power in this place if we but into it. I would have said even as short a time ago as a year that there is danger in tapping into the unseen forces that surround us but, there is no danger in doing what is natural eh?
Why would there be danger when you live up to the full potential of your humanity and why would this power be able to hurt you if it is there for your benefit. There is a “trick” though, in order to see the great potential you have to believe there is potential.
Yea baby, but that does sound like a catch 22 doesn’t it. But its not, not at all. Once you believe, you see and once you see you believe more and the more you believe the more you see. Now that is rolling thunder eh? You hear the first pop as the lightning executes some molecules 20 miles away and slowly the rumble builds until it washes over you, then you believe in thunder.
I like thunder, especially when it’s quiet thunder. Now that is a duplicitous statement eh? A great oxymoron, dichotomy. Quiet thunder. Obviously though it is not the noise kind of thunder but the thunder of power used for the great good of them who see the power and its potential.
Now ponder on this eh?
Peace
May 30, 2008 at 12:38 pm
My Friend
God isn’t far away
But surrounds you with his love.
It was him who opened your eyes this morning,
It is his strength
That will carry you through this day,
And it is in his peace
That your heart will find rest tonight.
God isn’t far away.
He is the light of this day,
He is the sky above you,
And the earth beneath you,
And the life of every living thing.
God isn’t far away.
He is in every smile,
In every thought that gives you hope,
In every tear that waters your soul,
In every moment you can’t face alone.
God isn’t far away.
He is the love on a loved one’s face,
He is in the friends along the way,
In strangers you’ve yet to meet
And blessings you’ve yet to receive.
My Friend,
God isn’t far away.
He is in every good thing that touches you.
He is in every step you make
And every breath you take.
God isn’t far away
For He is with you always…… …
May 31, 2008 at 6:46 am
<– likes the quiet, rumbling thunder in the distance
(Does NOT like that BOOM when it’s on top of you.)
(still sending positive thoughts for that stop smoking quest, Mark)
(((((((((((( Ruby )))))))))))))))
Go and do what you can–cuz that’s ‘good enough’.
People know your heart.
*thinkin’ of you and yours*
*sending prayers and positive thoughts*
Sometimes we just can’t pay the toll. I’d like to think that’s about us being smart enough to know what we’re capable of–and the Big Guy’s way of keeping our hand out of a till that we just don’t need to be in, yaknow?
June 1, 2008 at 5:35 am
Peace
June 2, 2008 at 4:53 am
Same time same place eh Ruby. I don’t really know whats been happening lately. i have developed an irritating tinnutis, this persistent high pitch squeal in my head and ears. And not sleeping again. It is a drag, which means i will have to go to the old witch doctor again and see if there is some voodoo which can be done.
Maybe swing a headless chicken in the front yard? I could call it exploring alternative medicine. ha ha hah
I wouldn’t care so much but the wife figure is on my ass about it all and that bugs me. So I will call and go traipsing away today if I can. If nothing else it will get me out of the house and give me a chance to find a birthday gift for said wife.
Hmmm maybe a gasoline card. It would be pointless because I pay for the gas anyway but it is the thought that counts right? I do not like shopping.
It has been crazy here in the Detroit. Nobody seems able to pull themselves out of the lethargy that is here and it drags everyone down. Bad pols, bad economy, bad housing situation…just overall bad here.
I wonder what it’s like overall in MD? i have been there a few times and always liked it but I get a different perspective as a visitor than I would as a resident. My resource tells me that all of the cities are not doing so well, which is a harbinger for the nation.
Time to head for the hills? ha ha ha ha ha i think not, no one can do any good if they are not on sight eh?
Stay the course is all one can do and it is a piece of good advice at any rate.
i hope you and your old man are hunkered down and everything that was a trouble last week is just a memory now.
peace
June 3, 2008 at 6:00 am
Morning Rubes…this is a short I wrote a while back…a good thing for a Tuesday, the most tedious day of the week.
Peace
——————————————————–
THE TRIAL
You turn to your lover and look at me. Your motion is fast enough to make the short black hair swing away from your head, the fire in your eyes barely reflects the intensity of the one burning in your belly.
“You Bastard, why bring that up now? Can’t you ever fight fair, you always go back to THAT well and drink from it and to be honest I’m tired of the spit that comes from it.”
I wished I could be stunned at the tirade that was being performed around me now, but I’ve seen it before. “It’s a deep well sweetie and one that the water always comes up fresh and new every time I pull from it.”
What we argued about never really made any sense we simply liked to fight and argue, always drawing the line before it got violent; violent in physicality anyway. I know it and she knows it as well; that if a blow was ever struck by either one of us, the line would be crossed. No… It’s better to leave the spanking, hitting and, biting for the bedroom where the make up sex was always good.
“You’re not going to make me cry.”
“I don’t care if you cry or not, make’s no difference, you did it and you enjoyed it and for the fun of it…you, my dear have to pay. What price though, and how many payments until the debt is paid off?” your lip trembles now, your position gone from openly defiant to the quieter one of distraction.
I’ve seen this trick before as well, this calming which always try to draw me in. I’ve seen it before and have the scars to prove it. I know to never again bring a knife to a gun fight. You have plenty of bullets in the chamber too. I know I have not have been perfect over the last six years of being together.
“Well? How much longer do you want me to pay for something you wanted me to do in the first place?”
“I want you to pay ‘til the well is dry and it’s not that I wanted you to rob the bank and run off with the teller, simply robbing the bank would have been enough.” You understand the metaphor perfectly and it causes the fire to rise again.
“Look you asshole, I came back didn’t I? I just got tired of your virginal ways. So when you give a license you have to let the licensee drive.”
I wish that I’d never brought the subject up. Her metaphor hits the mark, again. Yes it had been a game that we liked to play, going out to a place and me following as she practices picking pockets.
“Why did you go on the spree? Why did you ditch me and go shopping on the credit card and spend the money. You know that was probably the whole of Christmas for the Olin Family.”
“So which is now that you’re pissed over, that I went and had a good time on my own without you or that I ruined Marcie Olin and her family Christmas?” You ask this knowing I care less than nothing for Marcie and her family but you give me the option and I take it.
“You’re going to hell you know that don’t you…the Olin Christmas was a bunch of little kids crying around a heat grate where the tree should have been, with no presents being warmed by the furnace air.”
“No dear, I am going to hell because I live with the devil.”
I have to accept that because I set myself up for it and she pulled the trigger with a certain happy expression in her fire lit eyes.
“Besides for once I didn’t want to give the wallet back, that ‘here you dropped this’ was getting old and besides I do the work, why shouldn’t derive some pleasure from it” You ask this like it was logical.
“Because it wasn’t supposed to be about robbing people, it was about slight of hand and movement, dancing with the danger of being caught and not being caught, practicing for the stage.”
“We could fuck in broad daylight in the park if that’s the thrill you want. We could run though traffic forcing people to slam their brakes and have the car behind them crash and run away if that’s what you want, but from that point forward you flirt with humiliation or death, now I just take a few credit cards and use ‘em once and keep the cash I find, it’s still the same ‘thrill of not being caught’ but there’s reward as well.”
You throw it all back to me like a hairball you coughed up and had no better sofa to throw it under. I am silent.
“You were the one who started me on this shit anyway, you and your birthday party magic and rolling that damn Kennedy around on your fingers.”
I remembered quite well it how I entertained you, seduced you the day we met. “Pick a card any card is a little different than keeping the goods taken from people who can barely afford it. Now if you want to rob a Rockefeller go ahead.”
“This is easier, I’d have to get into Rockie’s limo to do him and who knows if I got in I might be caught and swept off my feet and do him, never to return to your sorry ass.”
I see the bullet coming and it hits direct in face, right between the eyes. You’re thinking of leaving and now the argument is circular. “Go ahead, leave then I don’t care just don’t call me for bail money.” It’s not bravado; I am not brave with the thought of being alone again, without you. I am not of a mind to wake up without your tits pressed into the small of my back and your hands nestled near the crack in my ass. It’s a dare that I hope leads you back to me and I sit on the knife edge waiting for the next words from your mouth.
“No, you leave. I pay the rent with the ill gotten goods of my road to hell. You get out and once your gone, don’t bother to call me for any money either because I ain’t going to have any when you need it.” You say this with all the Italian conviction your Sicilian ancestors bred into you for a thousand generations of crime before coming to New York.
I consider it briefly, not even a moment of thought of life with out this, without you, but a consideration none the less. A new first for me until this moment I never would have even let my mind wander this far. “My names on the lease for this cockroach motel, remember? And besides I pay a share of the living expenses too you know.”
You swing all the way towards being the antagonist now, gun hidden somewhere and the knife in your fist right at my throat. “If you’re going to stay then you’ll just have to stop whining about my new career. I finally found a job I like and one that I am good at; so just shut the hell up or get out. Fuck whoever’s name is on the lease. You know as long as the fat ass land lord gets paid he gives a shit less who is doing the paying. The few groceries that you buy, which you know usually go bad because we eat in restaurants that I pay…or more specifically that the Marcie’s pay for… so no more fucking bitching; Bitch.”
I am not going to rise to the bait; at least I’m not going to let her set the hook. “You know that’s not fair darling, I pay the check sometimes and from the money we get at the theater we have enough where we don’t need you to do the other.” She loves me.
“Enough is never enough; my father slaved away from three in the morning until six at night trying to get ‘enough.’ Making calzone and canole for gumba’s who cried every time the price of flour went up. Besides I never ask you to come out while I play anymore and that way you have deniability, so what’s the sweat padrone?”
I see the sweat as the same as you leaving, except this time it’s you being taken away and me having to spend the next five years working with someone else I have to train and on my days off taking the upstate railway to the prison they put you in. I love her.
Like a storm that is quickly blowing itself out this argument is passing…You look at your watch; “We have an hour before we have to leave for work.”
Your eyebrows rise up and down in the Groucho question as your brown eyes move to the bedroom. How can I refuse the invitation to make a memory that is going to help you and I get through the sentence the court is going to impose?
June 4, 2008 at 5:43 am
I remember quite well that writing takes all forms and styles and a good writer will practice all eh?
Now Ruby the question is who or what fills the definition of being a good writer. Certainly there have been many but in todays literary world the hew and cry is going up that there are no good writers left. Mark Twain was the last great American author. What a diaper load that is.
I am a great writer. I have paid my dues in many different ways but mostly in experience. Many people wonder why I opt out of the publishing game eh? It is very simple really, why sell my words to enrich someone else? I’d rather give them away and do on a daily basis. I don’t get rich, no publishing house increases wealth and any one who takes my work for themselves and puts their name on it will not be able to remake it when it is critical. Ergo with a bit of research into my writing voice, my work is as recognizable as any Gauguin and Picasso.
It is good for me this not constrained by any need. It allows me to explore just what English can be twisted and shaped to be. I never talk of writing too deeply anywhere, but today it is what I feel like writing about. Near on everyday I go to blogs, blogs of established and professional writers and to me it seems that they still don’t really understand it’s not the power from words but the power of words. One, the former is an end result and the other, the latter is an ongoing work.
i would rather write and then write some more then have a singular or a couple of great pieces that can never be duplicated. I believe it makes one lazy, this resting on the laurels of success. The Beatles, Dylan, The Stones never stopped until they decided it was time. Circumstance or desire slows them down. But before then they produced a huge body of work and then let go to move on.
When I can no longer type, or see the keyboard or hold a pen, when I can no longer muster a starting point. Then it is time to stop. But I already have an entire lifetimes worth of work saved and put up, way more than most writers but I rarely speak of it other than in context to mention what I did in one of the novels.
What good is the past and what you did there eh?
No the present is all that counts and for me I will continue to tell of a better world today.
Peace Ruby. This is just a moments worth of thought.
June 5, 2008 at 2:59 am
Mark Dear,
On the down low? I’m laying low and hope to be able to say more at another time but for now, I’m crushed.
Soon.
I love you too.
June 5, 2008 at 8:28 am
Better to be on the down low than low down sweetheart…following is todays post at TWM:
And in the light of day when your feet are weary and you realize you’re near your paths end what can you tell me about what you have seen? Have you always been shaded from the scorching sun and near by the water that cooled you and fed you? Or do you take the path less traveled, the one that allows you to know the trouble of man? Have you known thirst and hunger, the blistering heat of a sun not kind? Have you seen the birds drop from the sky, have you seen the fish brought to shore not in a net but by some loveless tide? Have you walked and discovered all that is within you, diamond and coal? Have you walked and, looked, tasted, touched and, seen; are you walking bold to become the one you are meant to be or have you never cast your eye right nor left, never tasting the dust of a long dirt road? There is a difference between strolling comfortably bind and stumbling awake, all your awesome power to find.
Find your peace, you do qualify Rubes
Love you too.
June 6, 2008 at 4:22 am
Ruby…I don’t know what happened to yesterdays post but it’s gone into the ether. *Sigh*…damn ether will chew on anything, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Ruby not knowing what is crushing you is hard for me. I can not help you as much as I would like in this trying time…but in a very general way let me reiterate this thought, it makes no difference if it is blood kin or strangers that beset you with problems, it is best to let them drift along in their own path.
Most turmoil in life is human in origin, trace back and look. Most people really can’t muster a ton of compassion and direct to a situation they are afraid of, it is easier to shun and be repulsed than it is to care.
The diseases which trouble us sometimes do become too much, but only for a moment. In peace they can be more heartily accepted and dealt with, so don’t sorrow for anything…ever. I am firmly convinced that whatever outcome happens it is the proper outcome. This is the Walking Way. Christianity says it best in “That all things work together for good to them that love God…” notice it says God, not any deity or specific face of God. Follow your heart and do what you know you must dear.
Also I am convinced after a lifetime of people, places and things trying to destroy me, that i am stronger than these situations. I believe I was attracted to you because you posses this same strength, even though you don’t see it in yourself any more, it is still there patiently waiting for you to blow away the uncertainties of your heart. Get the dynamite out! Light the fuse and stand the hell back!
Be well my friend, simply cry your tears, water the earth with them, wipe your eyes and commit to being well and whole.
Peace
you do have my email eh?
June 6, 2008 at 4:28 am
Lil sis,
I’m sorry I have not been here as of late. The thoughts of you within my mind and heart have never faded. I wish that there were some words that I could come up with that seemed clever and helpful………truth is, I know no such words….and it makes me feel as if…I’m found wanting. If any possible chance that I could tell you that perhaps I know what crushed means and feels like……I’m not sure even that would help…..
Love you my lil sis,
reg
June 9, 2008 at 3:32 am
Ruby I have been a very lazy writer of late.
Random Thoughts
In being angry what exactly did you accomplish? Did your anger hold back the floods or cause them? Did your anger stop the whirlwind or create it? And the opposite of anger, indolence and acceptance of situations as fate accompli, what good does that do you?
The first thing left by the wayside during troubled time is always the thing that is needed the most…art. Paints lose their color, music its tone and, word their meaning. The one thing that can lift a soul to the heights of freedom is forgotten for the need to struggle, never knowing that it is the creativity of thought that allows the struggle to be won.
If the Saudi’s and the rest of OPEC are waging economic war on the West, why are we not fighting back? Why are we subsidizing this madness without any return? We have everything that Saudi Arabia needs, from well head equipment to food. Why haven’t whatever it is the West sells them gone up in price commensurate with a barrel of oil? It seems to me to be the only way to keep apace with the costs. If they turn the taps off *shrug* will they eat sand or drink oil? Trade war is trade war.
Today is the old lady’s birthday. No we don’t do the present thing anymore. I got her a Hostess cupcake. Cuz she’s my cupcake.
Detroit is so damn mean even the worst stormy weather won’t cross Eminem’s 8 mile Valhalla; matter of fact neither will Eminem
It is hard for me to think in silence because the noise is so loud.
There was no need for war in Iraq to accomplish the mission Chaney and bush set. If we, the American population, would fart and consume oxygen less there would be plenty of environmental credits left for the coal burning power plants and the cows to live in peace. This would accomplish less use of oil for transportation and long hauling and allow the government to store more for when it’s really needed as well as satisfy the war on terror. Fewer of us for the government to defend means an easier job in defending the ones they want to lay with…the ultra wealthy.
If supply and demand are not fueling the current market than profiteering is.
What good is having bio-fuel if people can’t eat?
Will everyone in America buy me a lottery ticket?
June 10, 2008 at 7:10 am
And this Ruby is a compilation of what the folks said in their random thinking,
Love You Kiddo.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ivan…People are sheeple because it’s a difficult situation to understand…
Donnetta…Yep, the first thing to fall by the wayside is “art.” And art can mean many things related to creative thought and beauty.
Charles…Why don’t folks see what is right in front of them.
Sandy… (referring to a $2500 car about to be released in India) Now that petrol prices are up people including me won’t think of it. Would decrease traffic and pollution…
Alec aka Raymond Valentine…For people to acknowledge that a human (or even an animal’s) life is more important than the accumulation of material goods would be far more difficult than simply going along with the herd.
Noisysmile (good handle)…people don’t think that the teensy tiny things add up, and that’s the problem.
Dianne…I’ll leave the rest of the world for another day
Lori…Why do I have air-conditioning? I can’t afford to use it…
Ruth W…Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just turn back the calendar a few years, and do it over again.
Odat…I’m staying in positive mode today!
June 10, 2008 at 7:11 am
I DON’T WRITE I DODGE WORK
I am going to go off the usual rant and rave and post about writing. Writing is the longest single continuous thing that I have been doing , well there is masturbation but when you get right down to it writing is a form of masturbation, (ahhh don’t stand so close unless your wearing your Maid of the Mist rain poncho, this could get messy.) That is to say it is mostly a solitary occupation.
I started writing one day not because I had read a lot of great books that inspired me to want to tell stories, hell I was a big ass liar as a kid, ergo I told stories all of the time and (applause) I told them well. I started writing three plus decades ago as a subterfuge, a way to ignore all the bullshit that surrounded me and forced me to be a big ass liar. Yes the adjective is appropriate, because as the fat kid of the litter, I was considered to be the runt. While not the smallest or the one struggling to get to the teat, I was rather large by the prevailing standards of the day. Because no one else in the house tended to the robust, I was considered a dullard.
It was no problem being a slacker; you do know us fatties are just basically lazy right? It’s true we would rather, much rather, get you skinny folk to do it for us than to get our manicured hands dirty doing it for ourselves. That’s why I married a skinny woman, she lives to labor, I only labored to live. But the writing, hell it was a way to keep my head down, grunt a response and simply sit. That it drove my father and brother’s bat shit was just a side benefit for me. I liked writing; it was a reason to not play football or baseball or do anything that was remotely connected with teams.
From the ages of 13-17 my mother’s husband, the one that loaned seed to the egg would do just about anything to get my lazy ass moving. He wasn’t very successful because by the time he got serious about it, it was too late. And I was seriously, as he put it, a sissy because I would rather write than get hit by some moron in 50 pounds of protection. I simply figured if someone wouldn’t hit me without the pads I wouldn’t hit them at all. I learned early on that bare knuckles don’t hurt so why would I want pads? What a waste of time. Yes to your supposition, I have never seen an entire football or baseball game from front to finish. I like hockey, or rather liked it when Gordy Howe and the Production Line played, sans pads.
I always liked the sports page pictures of one of them missing a tooth or three, because they dropped the gloves, was their way of writing. Now to me that was, albeit blood, sport and poetry. If they were going to use fists I could at least watch them do it. But then along came helmets and shields. The last great hockey play I saw was about a decade ago when Detroit was coming off a seriously long Stanley Cp drought and the goal tender took a slap shot right to the ten ring; his testicles. His cup broke on impact and he was praying on the ice, either that the puck didn’t go in or that his family jewels would go in again at some point. Hockey players are a strange lot so my money is that it was the puck he was praying for. I am not a fan though I am a writer.
So what are the mechanics of writing? An idea doesn’t hurt but is not necessary. Some vocabulary beyond two or three syllables helps but again is not required. Some horrid hags dressed up in dark blue that profess some inside track to God hurts like hell but also is not required. What is required then?
A pack of cigarettes to help you appear as if you’re thinking while smoking helps, even though you know you’re just feeding an addiction. A massive amount of any substance that doctors say is not good for you. I’ve fulfilled this requirement with many substances in the past; whether it affected the quality of writing I can’t say. All I know is that writing hung-over is not an option but writing with a super caffeinated mind is not so bad, especially if you have used many depressant type drugs to take the edge off the caffeine. So it is balance I have to have when I write. I like music on all of the time, even when I have the TV on. It soothes me and allows me to massage my mind. I like writing to music because my fingers strangely type out the back beat of the music.
Another thing that I do before I write is swinging either chickens or children around in my back yard, either one is ok, but if you do the neighbor children it keeps them quiet while they throw up and go to bed. The children are harder to catch though after they have been swung circularly by their ankles once. Chickens are not as bright as kids and you can always eat them if you are blocked for something to write about.
When under the auspices of the nuns, I was told to never even think about writing as a career. I almost failed their English. Hey from the start they liked to hit and they would use fists so I simply let them and they simply moved me along as a dull marginal student. The best though was on individual composition papers that took some thought and telling of tales (lies) I slipped in a few “A” papers along the way. Of course no one paid any attention to that. Not even the old doctorate father who was desperate to not support me into my fifties. The best part of that writing time was I got put into the typing class, I wasn’t a very good typist but the chicks did like my writing; they got it. Alas though outside of the classroom doors I reverted to fat kid status. But three times a week, I understood the beauty of a harem; unfortunately I never did consort with any of my wenches. But I did write.
So writing, what the fuck is writing other than arranging strings of words in a reasonable coherent way? This I can do. This I have done for a long time, I don’t consider it any big deal and am not in awe of the ability as some talent given by God. Some strings of words I have wept over, some laughed about and some would never show any other human. That’s writing to me, if you do enough of it eventually you’ll get some of it right. Now if I could just find some skinny person to do the typing for me I’d be a happy fat man
June 11, 2008 at 3:53 am
SOMETIMES THERE IS NO TITLE
Give to me your love for the ages and I will lay mine at your feet. There is no better thing that I have for you to find at your doorstep. Sing me a song from the vaults of eternity and I will live in it. From the stars overhead I will give you my light in return for the sound of your voice. Show me how to not cause foolishness that I will have to dwell in for generations and for this I will give freedom; it is yours to have if you simply take it.
June 11, 2008 at 11:44 pm
MorningMark - and to anyone else who may still be sticking by or checking in… Mel, Reg, Dawn…seems like the most likely folk…
Mark, I keep making these false starts here trying to respond to you but you’ve outrun me by miles and miles! So many things I’ve wanted to respond to but I think I’ve said that before. For right now I do want to make a huge point of thanking you for sharing The Trial with me; with us; and really for everything else. I can’t believe the beauty of what you so casually write.
The feelings that I felt during reading that (The Trial) were many but the one that stood out most for me was the familiarity of it. Have I lived it? Parts of it most definitely. There’s much of me I haven’t shared here on this blog just because so much of what I’ve lived is so connected to others that I don’t feel free to let loose. I wonder if anyone else feels that way? Another thing about The Trial and the familiarity - it reminded me of something that I wrote once in response to someone’s post on a blog. She had asked:
How do you answer the following question if you consider yourself an “old soul?”:
“If you didn’t know your age, what age would you be?”
My answer was as follows:
About my soul:
“If you didn’t know your age, what age would you be?”
I’ve always known.
I’m older than the trees, older than the old hills I stand and live upon, older than the music that comes and goes and changes with the times, older than the words, the styles and thought processes and notions that flitter through time and space.
Older than the New Ages, the Old Ages, older than the deja vous I feel and know and have always and forever felt;
eternally timeless.
~ I’ve always known ~
(Wowie, I don’t know where that came from, maybe being up all night hurting but I am going to have to cross-post it because it turned into my first piece of poetry ever and….
I HATE poetry for the most part, sorta - except some. I do like yours Mark; it sings to me!)
So now I can’t write for a few reasons. One very big one is the problem I’ve been having with my wrist. It’s odd, one of the veins swells up and it feels like a stabbing searing intense sort of pain that I’m sure is exacerbated by the act of typing so I can’t type for you (I’m not skinny but I’m not huge either - I’m five foot tall and 108 lbs.) and I can’t much type for myself either. Another reason is that I’m just not really a writer, nor do I want to be one. I can write but don’t consider myself any sort of beautiful writers like you whose words just come flowing like water down the river. One of the other reasons is I really think I’m through with this blog except for reading here, every day, the beautiful things you’ve posted. I’m wowed by your words Mark. I should probably write to you personally and ask why you continue but here I am now - pondering the whys and wherefores. Am I perhaps the chicken in the backyard that is being swung around? It IS fun.
I’ve been pondering this for some time now and for tonight I think, I’m going to lay my weary head down and read a page or two from my current book about King Arthur’s father, Uther, then try, once again to sleep. The sleep thing is another that I wrassle with; sleeping about an hour or two only and getting maybe four hours a day. Did I say weary?
One last thing:
If you call me Rubinski again I may have to come over there and have some words with you since knuckles don’t hurt.
With much love, I bid you goodnight/goodmorning.
June 12, 2008 at 5:51 am
Rubinovich :-P,
For someone who is not a writer you certainly have some skill at stringing word combinations together. Never ask why sweetheart, there is no reason for insanity or need for a reason, as long as you enjoy what is being done here. Yes I write…a lot. It is the curse of a mind that never stops, rest is what again? It has been a long while since I have rested, silenced all that is within me, and just stood in the streetlight illuminated darkness and was quiet.
I don’t mind the dialog, I know who speaks with me and it is that which is our connection, that timeless ancient place filled, imbued with all that is not mortal and finite. We sought out and struggled the struggles and then were allowed entrance. Once inside it is. We are, simply are partakers of the everlasting. The Dharma is a good enough explanation of it for now. An explanation that will surely change once space is entirely illuminated.
So for now don’t question, just accept eh? I will stop when I am told to stop or am unable to place the metered foot one down in front of the other, whichever comes last. yet you should know who it is that speaks through the words eh?
I am well pleased that you actually understood the underlying current in The Trial. Yes I ripped it off in one sitting and yes I have subsequently tightened it without changing the tide of it. Most readers of mine will understand the top soil of what I write and like it well enough, but few see that everything I write (except the political) is written with an eye on the eternal. It is all I understand, all I ever understood after moving down the ways I have set my foot on. *shrug* To me it is not a big thing.
Born of woman, died as man and born again with spirit eternal. Sounds like the plan to me. If this was the guarantee of a painless life then everyone, every man woman and child would seek it out. So for that I am not overly sorry for the pain of this way, until man the One who creates never had another like himself to sit and chat with. It is good to be among them that are like minded with God. It is rest.
Sleep is good when the train pulls from the station of that there is no doubt, but like you I hit mine in fits and starts. It has been 6 or so years now that it has been this way and after a time I got used to it. Now the days seem to meld from sunrise to sunrise and unbroken string. I suppose science says that is not good but I say if it that is what you get then, that is what you get. I can’t find myself worrying over the amount or even the quality of the unconsciousness that would only make it worse no? Harder to get to, so as long as I’m not behind the wheel or in the middle of a knife fight then I guess I will just fall off when I fall off. A few minutes here, a few there and thats what is called good.
The physical pain in the wrists (and other places)is a major suckfest. I was going through that a few weeks ago, both wrists about useless as flexible joints, so don’t sweat it. You respond as you’re able just as I write.
So Guinevere, read on and I will write on eh?
Oh and by the by at 5′11″ and 230 hairy pounds i doubt I will be much intimidated bu a shrimp. ha haha hahaha hahahaha haha <–sort of maniacal laughter.
Much Love and Great Peace Nora. It is what your fate is.
June 13, 2008 at 2:15 am
THISTORY
Time is
the ace in the hole of thistory.
Time outlasts
all of the foolishness of them
who would
be special king or commander
over belongings
and realms not theirs, frogs too.
Time doesn’t
even think about who or what,
only when.
Time is either right or wrong
according to
the souls within it but it simply
is accordingly.
Time is of the essence when speed
is required.
Time has only one speed, heartbeat
by heartbeat.
Time is used, abused, accused, shot,
short, long
and dead but is fecund birthing seconds,
a continuous
litter of an unbroken millenniums long thread.
Thistory plays
its ace correctly…always.
June 15, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Ruby I haven’t forgot you …this post just took awhile longer to write is all. It is another short that I wrote. It is a bit longer but it does fall under 5000 words therefor qualifies a short.
Peace
mark
………………………………………………..
1936
When he came down out of the mountains he thought something imperceptible had changed. It wasn’t that he had more oxygen than he was used to in the reaches of the rocks, and he knew it wasn’t that people had learned to clean up better than they had when he made his camp many inches of hair ago. Something though had changed, people were nonplussed by his appearance and they smiled more than he remembered.
When he bought a meal in the first town he came to; the man behind the counter didn’t tell him to leave his pack outside and he also noticeably didn’t wrinkle his nose up at the smell of him. He knew that he had an odor on him, all creatures do, but he didn’t smell washed and polished, he knew this.
“Whatya have pardner?”
“I haven’t been in a restaurant in awhile, what’s good?”
The man laughed a right laugh; “Hell old man this place hasn’t ever been called a restaurant…ever!” The belly on the counterman moved with his laughter
“Uh…well sir, this is the finest eating establishment I’ve been in, in awhile, you have store bought chairs and tables so that qualifies it as a restaurant in my book. But the sound of your laughing’ is good to the ears too, almost worth the price of admission, as some would say…so what is good here in this..uh establishment?”
The aproned man looked him up and down, eyed his kit lying against the wall, not suspiciously but just trying to get the measure of the eater before he answered. “You vegetarian?”
“Nope just hungry is all”
“ground meat’s fresh yesterday, so is the turkey for sandwiches; can make you eggs and the fixin’s if ya like that instead.”
“How about a hamburger with anything you have to go on it and…do you have Pepsi, I’d like a Pepsi it has been awhile?”
“Got Coke in the bottle?”
“Coke will be fine.” He was not disappointed.
The counterman apparently doubled as chef, but before he switched into his other self he reached under the Formica and handed the man a paper to kill some time while he waited. The place was empty but for the two of them.
“Thank you, that’s kind of you.”
Both turned to their assignments of the moment. The man fresh down from the mountain looked at the first picture he’d seen in awhile and almost protested, it was a car smashed to a pulp. He caught hold of his mind remembering that he’d seen such before; scanning headlines he saw that what was reported for history hadn’t changed. Wrecks and storms, robberies and threats, political malfeasance and general havoc run amok in the land. But he knew because he could feel, there was something new spreading here right now.
He didn’t often leave his comfortable spot. He was in fine fettle there and needed for nothing. He also knew that when the days didn’t appear to be as full as they’d been, when he was restless and not particularly mindful of all that was good about him, that soon enough his feet would be itching for a walk. Once he started to busy himself with the necessary portion of leaving he became comfortable knowing he was doing what he was supposed to do. Once everything he couldn’t or didn’t want to carry was stored he gathered up the years old gear and all the food he could pack. He intended to leave some lower down the mountain, either man or animal would get so it wouldn’t go to waste.
Once he set his foot down through the tree line it was easy enough to pick up increasingly larger animal trails to lead him off the mountain. It’d been early spring when he went up through the melting snow. The berries had been all eaten now, temperatures were falling higher up and the leaves were gathering their breath to make a final blow of color on the land before winter.
He had spotted this town, “Providence POP 632” the sign had said when he entered, to the east from where he had been; somewhere above 4000 feet and keyed on it as a direction to go in. Seven days later he walked into it on the main highway.
All along people had stopped and offered him water, a ride or a place to sleep the night on a bed. The old man hadn’t been ready for such yet he was grateful not hesitating to say so, but he also wasn’t ready to give up his bed of earth either so he politely declined all but the water and walked on toward his destination.
As the chef laid his plate before him he saw fries on it and a huge patty of meat sticking out over the side of the bun. The counterman emptied his other hand of the side dish with the berry pie on it. “Just made this pie this morning thought I’d get yer opinion of it.”
With a smile the old man asked “you new to making pie are ya?”
“I’m new to it every morning, old timer, just thought you’d like some is all.”
“Tell me, what’s your name sir?”
“John”
“John, thank you for the kindness, it is well taken. If you’d have an opinion on the look of it first…” He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed while he looked at the pie. He swallowed and said “well the crust looks a bit heavy, with a juicy pie like that it’s to be expected, but the color of it and the berry are a delight to the eye of one who is slow enough to look eh?”
John, the chef, looked a bit heavy in the face. “Everyone says my crust is a bit heavy but I really don’t want more lard in it…had a heart attack and now…well, I sorta’ watch how I cook as well as eat.”
“In that case John it is a fine pie and if she tastes a third as good as she looks then the berries will have served their purpose.” The burger was almost gone now and the old man relished the bit of grease and a different flavor, not heavy in the meat but there none the less. “Mix a bit of lean turkey in with the beef, do you John?”
John knew he was caught again, “Yea sure do but you’re only ta secon’ one to say anything in a year a doin’ it.
Grabbing a napkin out of the stainless steel holder the old man wiped his lips “And a fine thing it was too, added a different flavor to the meat, good thing it wasn’t free range though might be too gamey for that. Now let’s try that pie.”
John never bothered his customers while they ate but this time he was drawn to the man eating his food, for some reason he wanted the man to be well fed and to like what he ate. He sat down with his own piece of the pie and some coffee and ate in silence while he took another measure of the man.
Side by side they ate neither speaking while the pie was consumed.
It wasn’t long of a wait. “That sir was some very good pie, not too much sugar to drown the berries, tart but sweet enough to last on the tongue. Thank you for a fine meal.” The old man reached into his shirt pocket and handed over a paper president. “This covers it?”
“I…uh, don’t have change enough for that but if you hang on a bit…uh thanks ‘bout the pie…like some uhh coffee to warsh it down with?”
The old man rose: “sure coffee would be great, let me get it.” He didn’t ask he just went behind the counter grabbed the fresh pot and poured a top off for John then filled the cup he’d taken from the green wash basket beneath the counter.
He’d seen the eyes of the cook; he was pleased with the kindness he saw there and the trouble beneath the kindness. He chuckled to himself, he knew there was not enough money to break the bill and he also knew that for the moment money was what John thought would fix his problems.
The whole of this had only been less than a minute but John knew as well that something was happening here yet he had not the words to put to his feeling. He only knew that he would leave his business to go get this man the proper change and that this old guy was someone he would like to talk with given the opportunity.
“John, quit thinking that you have to find a way to get change and quit thinking that I am some sorta…whatever it is you’re thinking eh?”
He sat and blew on the coffee looking at John out of the side of his eye, a smile beneath the generous face hair.
“But, it’s a hundred? Tops yer meal was three fifty,”
“It’s a piece of paper John, I have more. I have enough. You need some and so call the change a tip.”
No fool John knew he wasn’t going to argue about too large a tip but there was that something…”What’s yer name if’n you don’t mind me askin’?”
“Tom.”
“Where you from Tom?”
“Now that’s a good question but be more specific, where am I from recently or longer back then that?” He pointed to the west and the mountain that dominated the view from the flat land.
“How long were ya’ up on the mountain?”
“Oh a spell, couple of years, I think two maybe three winters went by, what year is this?”
“2011”
“2011? A bit longer than I thought, let’s see I believe it was 2007 when I left the highway and started walking up…hmmm yes sir a bit longer than I thought.”
Incredulous “You were up there three or four years? How did you make it, there was heavy snow last year and no one saw you?”
“I wasn’t hiding John so I don’t know if anyone saw me or not, no one came into my home.” I saw a couple of people once but they weren’t in yelling distance, they seemed to be lost when I caught up to where I saw them, they were gone so I left some food in different places I thought they might happen on. Never did see them after the second time…” His voice and thought trailed off one to silence the other back to that time.
“Mister…was it two folk? A boy and girl?”
“I only saw them from afar, I don’t know who or what they were sir.”
“Why you’re a hero in this town, once them kids found their way to lower ground the search party had given up and a hunter stumbled on ‘em. It was the Parham kids, they daddy took ‘em up to see the meteor shower, did you see that? He lost track of them when the little girl wandered off. He went looking but as near as anyone could tell they all went in opposite directions. The boy found the girl after a night but they never could find they daddy. He’d come down the mountain and got the sheriff to search. They all looked by air, foot and, horse back, never did find ‘em. Seventeen days later was when the hunter found ‘em and brought them back to their daddy.”
John was rushing through his story now “Them kids said they kept finding food enough to keep eating and walking, berries and dried meat. All wrapped up nice for ‘em they came back thinking that there was some watching over ‘em. They kept the skins you put the food in Tom. Nope; no sir the party went up and tried to find out who took care of the kids but never saw no one.”
Tom didn’t say anything for a few seconds, in his heart he was glad that the people made it out, all this time he kept them in the back of his mind and was relieved every walk he took on the mountain that he didn’t come across any bones.
“My, my; that is quite a story John. Glad those children made it off the mountain in good shape. Well sir, I am not disposed to being a hero so by your leave I will just take mine eh? ” Tom was ready to go but he did want to experience a toilet again before he left. “One favor, even though you’ve already delivered me many kindnesses in a short time, don’t tell anyone what you just said here eh?”
“But people have been looking for whoever gave them kids food for over two years now. It’s like there’s some goodness came off our mountain with them kids and that was you, your food, your watchin’ out for ‘em, This whole town owes you Tom and we know it. People would like to thank you proper…the kids momma had passed and they daddy was…well just say when the kids come back to him healthy and all, simple enough to say this town changed along with him…people still talk about it.”
“No sir; please don’t say anything John. I just did what you did here, you gave me food, it served the same purpose as any that the kids found; in my book you’re the hero not me…any goodness to come to your town here, well that was inside all of you all the time, I would hope that it didn’t take two lost kids to bring it out of you. I’d like to use your facility before I go.”
“Mister…you got a home? A family? People?…”
“I have what I need John, except a toilette.” Tom wasn’t uncomfortable in his thinking about all of this folderol. It wasn’t in him to be anybody’s hero. He saw the sign he was looking for on a wall it said “men” with an arrow pointing the way. He just shook his head certain that the chef wouldn’t do anything and moved off with the last words ringing in his ears.
In the washroom, after he flushed the commode, he took off his shirt and dug a piece of thick terry from his pocket. He turned the water on and wet the cloth. It was then he looked into a mirror for the first time in years. He dropped the cloth into the sink, the water was running. His hair was thinner than he remembered and long, his beard was to his chest and gray. But it was his face that rocked him back, it was weathered, worn, the eyes were surrounded by wrinkles and dark circles. There were a few small scars that he couldn’t remember what caused them. He was old. He looked old and knew that now he would never again think of himself as young. The picture he carried around in his mind was from the last time he looked in a mirror, he remembered doing it and now that picture changed in an instant.
The years before flooded into his mind, the wars, the killing, the money and success, the women, the kids, the life before now all rushed back on him, p