What I Saw When The Clouds Lifted

That picture of Dallas at night got me thinking about driving through the desert and the things I saw on a five state journey that could have easily been described as the original long and winding road.

The man who left Los Angeles for Texas didn’t come back but then again the guy who left Texas for Los Angeles wasn’t really the same either.

That is the sort of convoluted and contradictory statement that only a few people could understand and even then it is questionable if they would really get it.

I suppose it begs the question of whether that serves or hurts me as a writer because if the goal is to connect with people and make them feel something, well simple is usually better.

Ask your readers to answer a question like Could You Be Steve Jobs or share a post like The Reason Your Blog Is a Failure and you’ll have a better shot at connecting with multiple and not just some people.

Of course that is only pertinent if it meets with your goal and if it doesn’t, well then just write baby.

What I Saw When The Clouds Lifted

If you want to know what made me decide to write this post you ought to go read Jericho because something made me think of it and that sent a bunch of thoughts pinballing through my head.

I thought about trying to share a fragment or two here to see if that would help illustrate it better for you and for I because sometimes I write to figure out what it is I am really thinking/feeling.

But I couldn’t decide what to share, so I might just drop a few lines in a moment knowing it is not painting the picture the way I want it to.

I met Jericho in a time and place that no longer exist. The people we were are long since gone. Now they drift through time and space in a place that I call memory or perhaps it is just my imagination. If you ask Jericho she’d probably push for imagination. She’d want to say that what I remember has been obscured by my own desire for the future. She’d tell you that it was never as good as I remember it.

What Do People See In Your Eyes?

Remember when I asked what do people see in your eyes?

Today someone told me they saw my eyes change and swore they could see laughter behind them morph into something else.

Sunday afternoon my mother told me to sit down so that she could look in them and told me that parenting goes too fast.

“I am not ready to have a son who is 50.”

“That is ok mom, I am not 50 and I won’t be for a while.”

“It feels strange to think that not long ago you had to look up at me and now, I have to look up at you. When did you get so tall. Don’t answer, it is not a question and I don’t want to hear some crack about my age.”

When I wrote Jericho I wasn’t familiar with The Wichita Lineman which is too bad because it would have been appropriate, it would have fit.

Hell, in many ways it still fits but like I said, it is hard to really say if the man that wrote that piece would have appreciated it as much as this one does.

That is because life experiences have made a significant dent upon me and my perspective. I am not who I used to be and in many ways exactly who I am supposed to be.

Wonder if by the time I am 50 how many of the changes that need to happen will still be waiting in the wings and how many will have already passed.

You Never Know What Is Coming

The kids and I have had multiple conversations about how we never know what is coming and the importance of rolling with things and taking advantage of opportunities.

Patsy Cline is singing Walking After Midnight now. She follows another Glen Campbell song called I am Not Gonna Miss You.

I like that one, but it is heartbreaking because if you listen to the lyrics and know the story behind it you know the man is…unraveling.

It is not by choice, it is just one of those things that sometimes happens.

Stuff like that is why I tell the kids we have to live hard and live now.

But I am more balanced when I talk about it with them. I don’t want to scare them because even though shit happens, it might not happen to us.

So there is this fine line in my head of doing what we can to plan and prepare for the future while recognizing we can’t put everything off to do on a different day.

Don’t talk to me about someday because someday might not ever come. Someday has to be today, expect when it can’t or it shouldn’t because if you blow all your cash today you might not have to retire tomorrow.

Cue Walt Whitman for me, will you, it is time for a final quote to end this post.

What did I see when the clouds lifted?

I saw happiness. I saw opportunity. I saw a bright future and a couple of big bumps that would have to be handled.

The prize isn’t just handed to you, you have to earn it. See you later, this old man needs to grab some shut eye so he can go battle again tomorrow.