Semi-Daily Scribbles

Endless Probabilities

Our Bodies in Reverse

Selective memory has atrophied the ability to see situations clearly.
But do we not do the things one ought to do?
Like?
Like paying bills.
Playing it safe.
The What-If Game takes up more and more of our time as we find ourselves stuck in a groove from decades ago just like the old timers we once despised.
The mirror is not going to become kinder as we try to pass by without stopping to stare, so best to call that reflection what it really is.
The version of you that was never supposed to come true.
Is she still in there? The girl who'd eat the world for breakfast and serve it up as something transcendent for tea.

A Story Unfolds

We stared at a map on the wall
During a break from paying our dues
Just you and me and the man in the tree
Lens focused on capturing what cannot be seen
A howl from the other room warned of a time to come
That would define us all too soon

Like brilliant silver light from a dying moon
Like a tangled romance getting bad reviews
Life doesn't always fit the narrative you choose
And love isn’t a commodity to be consumed

We eventually stopped staring at that map
Found a road that’d take us where news traveled slow
Like a pattern on the loom we began to emerge
To live our lives without the urge to edit and reframe
We are like a vine that can’t be trained
Disparate threads wind their way to disarray

Like brilliant silver light from a dying moon
Like a tangled romance getting bad reviews
Life doesn't always fit the narrative you choose
And love isn’t something to be misused

Fold back the corners to align the pattern
This highway is long and the journey rough
The signs marking the coastline invite you to stay
But only if you don’t mind perpetual sunshine
And if you can find the throughline along the way

We never found our destination but ended up in heaven all the same
The sea still roars, waves crash even when no one’s around
The two of us left behind the blinding light of recognition
Forever to wander the sacred enclaves of truth and intuition
The stars burn for you and me in our perfect patch of desolation
No song sweeter than the murmurs that call us home

Like brilliant silver light from a dying moon
Like a tangled romance getting bad reviews
Life doesn't always fit the narrative you choose
And love isn’t something to be refused

Allow the Impossible to Happen

Hey '23! Embrace the new role of Chief Intuitioner. Set the intention to create, not ruminate. Read more, scroll less. Doom is in the eye of the idle. Don't expect the goal line to move toward you. A wish that leaves no heartbeat quickened is bound to become another daydream that'll lead you further from your purpose. Learn to recognize the reflection that shimmers on the surface of memory. Is it an image you'd want others to see when engaged in reverie? We sometimes need a reprieve from ourselves. The power inside you, once wielded with carelessness, must now radiate for those whom you do not know. More magic, less trash must be left in one's wake. Surrender to the silence that tried for years to grab your attention. You always did have a way of giving a good thing a swift kick in the teeth. Here's to another year to learn the lessons you no longer can ignore.

A Unifiable Theme

To make something beautiful is a lifelong pursuit.
Keep edges rough.
Lines are suggestions on where they should be crossed.
This is a love letter to your unfettered spirit.

It is the rough edge of one's work that establishes merit.
Beginning. Middle. End.
The order in which the dream is conveyed is inconsequential.

Mastery is misleading. Know when to write the final sentence and then walk away.
One's engagement with your creation is not the reason why you got into this game.
You've dictated the rules. Now go help someone else find her through line.

Challenge everything that makes you feel in control.
To understand one's desire is a trial of the soul.

Occupational Hazards

compliance implied
an exclamation points north
methodology

debate
copy
paste
a specialist in process
implementation

manage the mayhem
revision as decision
candidates come cheap

My supervisor said we sometimes don't get a choice in what we do, and I thought: Really? We don't? Says who? Just like uncle Joe used to say: There's always an escape hatch. Are you gonna crawl through it, or not even bother to get away? Well, right after she made that comment, I decided to haul my ass right on out of that job that I only took because I didn't have to transfer buses twice just to get there like I did when I worked at The Filet & Ale.

**note to self**
I can choose the next adventure, even if my hair smells like fryer grease at the end of the night.

The Big Kerplop

A blessing in the skies looks different to each of us. This morning as I looked up in the 6:45 a.m. heavens, scattered with puffed and wispy salmon-tinted clouds, I saw my beloved schnauzers Jethro and Bruno scamper about on a biscuit-shaped cumulus congestus that rolled past my house. That's when it occurred to me, I'm here to observe, lend a hand when I can to a fellow traveler, and clean up after myself. Simple; certainly not sexy, and harder a task than one would think. And so what if your superpower is the ability to never fit in? To never get out of your mouth words that describe how you really feel; what you see all around you; the messages you hear when someone engages you in "casual conversation." Have a nice day! is loaded with incredibly high expectations, and the ability to maintain oneself in an upright position becomes Challenge #1 on a daily basis. You think you know a person, but how would your life change if you could literally get inside their head?

The Limitations of Expertise

Who's story am I allowed to tell? Can I hand over free rein to my imagination so it can wander unchecked as it dictates the rules of an existence lived outside of my skin? The safe play is to write what I know; access to opportunities and the freedom to consider more than one path in life. Does my background translate into an echo chamber, or an offensive display of privilege? Either way, not much of a page turner and closer to a head-scratcher.

What’s it like to be human? I think I can speak to that experience with some level of expertise, but what’ll it take for me to offer a more inclusive narrative of who we are as a species? Here today and destined to become a memory, if we’re lucky. Stardust, at the very least.

Itinerary

There are lots of activities and attractions to keep you busy when you come visit H-ville:

Second-run movies and weekend swap meets at the Prairie View Drive-In.
Breakfast specials at the Chik'n & Biskit.
High School!
McAllister's Flowers.
Hanging out down by Cathedral Rocks along the Samson River.
Keggers in The Woods!
Hiking along Authority Ridge up to the alpine meadows.
Mountain Goats!
Drownings.
Unfortunate run-ins with wild animals.
Lost hikers.
Missing sisters.
Talking owls.
The Center of All Creation.
The Steps of Death!
Apple Harvest Festival Queen & Court.
Courtroom appearances.
Secluded rentals.
Herbal Procurement.
Roadside confessional.
Come Live Among the Sentinels!
Stay for a day but live year-round in H-ville.
Just passing through.
Picturesque Olde Growth!
Youth leave town and never come back.
River Guide and Fishing Excursions.
Watch the locals weave their ancient traditions.
Hearts & Souls on display in a museum.
Snatch up trinkets made to unreliably remember the past!
No one is forgotten in a town lost to memory.
Favored Sons are Always Protected!
DNA found everywhere but no one's come looking.

In Memoriam.

From Camels to Humans

Thoughts are ordered in No Particular Order. It's .. they are like reading a book by landing on random pages "and just going with it." Timeline? A logical sequence of events? THEME! All are about as useless as peanut butter without bits of said legume embedded within. Or like ... please explain to me the narrative thru-line of your life, why don't you? No easy feat, that. Our brains flit from factoid to face to that tingling in one's feet to what's her name to ... what was the subject again? We slosh about in our thought soup daily and still we're able to hold down jobs and pack the kidlets off to school and pray to whichever Belief System we are the most comfortable believing in that one of these days we (the entire world's population, I'm thinking) don't just wake up one morning to the news that this novel-bugger-this-or-the-other carries with it a 40.3% case fatality rate.