Whether your tool of choice is a hammer or a smile...you can help.

Yes, when I was 14, my then-uncle, took up a hammer to mercifully help a small hurt bird. No one really knew why he chose this method. Later we learned all kinds of weird and absurd details about him as he left our lives. Nonetheless, when given those two choices, it's evident which is more effective.

Love

I love the beach. I love MY beach... the beach of my home. This is it... somewhere over the rainbow, my beach, where I often retreated to try to understand the meaning of life, lies.

I miss the soft, white sand. The gentle ripples created by the wind blowing across the dunes. The renourishment fences which go up whenever a hurricane brings another big dune down. The blue skies and white clouds of home.

I wish I could drive there today. I could stand a little time to search, again, for meaning, for hope, for the sense of optimism that has tinted my dreams for decades but now seems to be fading with time.

Such it is, this life.
It seeks to rob us of our blood, one tiny cut at a time.

And so we must fight this thief in the night for our life's blood, for our dreams to come true.

Eclair-ity

Portia heard her cell signal a text message had been received as she lay on the couch watching a movie while snuggled up next to the Object of Her Affections. She considered getting up to read it. She'd received some distressing texts of late and this could be another to be concerned about. However, instead, she chose to remain where she was and give into the pleasant warmth of the moment.

She felt normal. Whatever normal meant to her any more, she wasn't sure. But this had the telltale feelings of some kind of normality. She felt like things were somehow right. She felt like she knew what was what. This was a feeling she didn't have very often any more and she missed it.

The feeling of Surety, whether real or imagined, was perceived by her senses and she allowed it envelope her. She took a deep breath and submerged herself completely in the moment, allowing it to engulf her.

In that moment, it seemed as if This had always been. As if, This had been the only reality that had ever existed. As if, there had been no other path taken, no other life lived. That somehow, This was all there ever had been and it was Good.

She wanted the feeling to last but knew the Object of Her Affections well enough to know that such a thing was highly unlikely. They were on a journey and such a destination- if, in fact, that was where they were going- was not likely to be reached for quite some time. He was a doubter, a skeptic who required some Proof that she could not provide. Only he could do that for himself... only he would know when he saw it, felt it, tasted it on his tongue and knew the Truth. Only when, or if, that happened would she know if such a destination was ahead on a far-off horizon.

Bottom line: It was completely outisde of her control.

So, she tried to relish this feeling of normality. Perhaps brought on by a well-placed question from the day before that caused her to examine her own journey.

Was she happy in the Now? Or just waiting for life to become something else?

This was an eternal issue for her. A life lesson she was aware was her's to learn for at least the better part of three decades.

She hadn't been that happy in recent months. By all rights, she should've been happier. But now, she fully realized how much she had control over. And for a moment, she began to dwell solely in her feelings about her life and herself and not in the damnable details that spoke their own volumes and told her that her life had been pointless, that everything she had worked for had failed and that she was not likely to recover her sense of belonging again at this late stage of her life.

She had abandoned that Ship of Belonging and now frequently suffered as she felt herself aimlessly floating along in this salty sea of despondency, sadness and uncertainty.

So, as the text sounded, she decided to remain in the happiness of the moment. It was a good feeling and a good evening because of that choice to remain undistracted.

Hours later, before bed, she stopped to check her cell for the text. It was a simple text from Wallace that took her by pleasant surprise.

He was OK.
And she was OK.

In this one moment, they each had somehow released themselves, through some combination of thought patterns, from the prison of their daily pain out into the Yard for a walk in the sunshine.

It made her happier, somehow, to know that they were both OK at the moment, in the moment. It would be nice if they could each learn how to reconstruct that Key so as to unlock their own doors at any given moment.

Maybe that was too much to ask?
She didn't want to think about it any more.

She just wanted to Believe in this moment until it was gone.
And she fervently hoped Wallace was doing the same.

Ephemerality-ism

Wallace haphazardly flipped by this lead-in photo to an article 20 or 30 times. Sometimes, well the majority of the times, he paused briefly to admire the technical qualities of the photo. It was white on white, but still maintained great detail. Not a style he usually enjoyed. The article that followed seemed too long, so each of those times he passed it by.

Then, last night, Wallace gets this esoteric email from a friend. Absolutely nothing in it was extraordinary. But it was thoughtful. He read the article shortly thereafter. Nothing extraordinary about it whatsoever. It was just an almost-bio of a young photographer who has done some nationally recognized work. Par for the course for the magazine. More than the article or the email, Wallace found himself in a state of clarity shortly thereafter. One of those moments that one would love to “put under glass” to coin a Juliana Hatfield song from another lifetime. In the moment, however, he wasn’t trying to hold on to it. It just Was. He was unaware of its ephemeral nature. It didn’t matter. It was one of those moments that bounced around until it found a home and then nestled in for a warm cup of cocoa.

If Wallace was to overanalyze, as he’s want to do. Especially after the moment has passed, he notices some triggers. Perhaps these triggers can help Wallace to feel closer to right more often. In the article, the photographer was flippant about any success. She worked on a few large professional jobs and then had the resources to do the art she wanted to, working again basically when she needed the money. Wallace had a bad memory, so the details are honestly gone because he only skimmed it once, but the message resonated. We hinder ourselves because of “overhead.” In the form of families or commitments. We don’t take the next steps because there’s this idea that doing something mundane gives us more stability. This is an illusion. Financially, you can find yourself in a more lucrative situation with a personal portfolio more infused with risk. The ONLY reason that this is a more rare state is because it takes more guts that the alternative.

Wallace’s moment had past, yet he was still somewhat aware. If this was mania, bring it on.

Mettle Mouth

There’s this girl with metal in her mouth. Firey--you’d think she plays bass. As I understand more A bigger mystery she becomes.

Portions with Gravy

...I would put an ink border around the sign to help make it “pop.”

...I noticed that there is green space above the words but not below.

...it looks like the bottom of the letters in “remove” were cut off. Is that something you could fix?

Dull and Foggy

So. Monday. Yeah.
Portia wasn't sure where the optimism of Saturday had gone. Perhaps it had dissolved slowly into Sunday's bowl of oatmeal along with the strawberries, bananas and walnuts.

She had made a dinner last night of what was in the fridge and cupboard. Something that wasn't as good as it had sounded in her head. But she'd never made brown rice pasta before. At least the bowl of frozen fruit covered in rice milk was up to it's usual yumminess.

She cleaned up her messiness of the previous week. She tried to watch the game but fell asleep. She slept a lot and didn't seem to want to get up in the mornings during the week. But on the weekends, when she could sleep late, she had an annoying habit of waking wide-eyed. It was pissing her off. Not very evolved of her. Not the least little bit.

She had been to see her teacher on Saturday. She was now as attuned as she coud get in this way. She had felt her teacher passing the attunement into her. The energy felt heavy and almost made her nauseous. She wondered about that. Normally she felt happy and fuzzy after. But this was a big deal so maybe that was it.

Her teacher mostly used Portia's mind for her own healing, rather than for passing teaching on. Portia realized this. She was puzzled. She felt good for a couple of days, but Monday was finding her dull and foggy. Maybe she needed caffeine.

She knew her life was a mess. She was s proud of Wallace. He didn't realize how well he was doing. He was living his life and trying to deal with things. Meanwhile, Portia mostly just went from day to day in an envelope of fear- not moving forward.

She had to let go of the past. She often blamed The Man in Her Life for not doing that, but the truth is that he was but a mirror of her own behavior. And the bigger truth was that if she did let go of the past for real, he would either do the same or she would move on because that is the way lessons work, she had heard.

She wasn't thrilled about reality.
She needed to make up a new one. Rumor was you could do that. She'd done it before. Years ago. More than once.

If only she could find the instructions...

Scooters, Vacation, Fall

Wallace found himself sleeping 18-24 hours a day. He reduced his dose. He read a blog about an online fanatic that went to the “psych ward.” He realized what a double entendre conjuring “stones” had become. He stopped drinking water. He started drifting off less often. He was more awake, but it didn’t matter. One message he expected never came. Instead, he was dark and sooty, in a white shirt no less. He wished he could grow kumquats, and balls. He was ephemeral and contrived. Listless. Quick, but not clever. His recent love affairs were with sharpies and estrogen-genetics. Consumed with cartoons. Cautious with fate.