Stumbled across Love Between the lines and read it one more time and realized I could write an epic tale using the two pictures and quotes you’ll find just below this ‘graph.
and
I could tell you about how I am listening to the Theme from The Last of The Mohicans now and how I mean epic in its true sense and not as it has become, tired and overused.
There are moments where I see it as having become as empty and meaningless as amazing and I wonder if I might actually have a moment again where I’ll look a particular person in the eyes and know we are both being seen and heard.
Don’t know if it will ever happen and can’t say but I do know that with the intensity I bring to some moments it could go either way.
That is because that sort of intensity isn’t always welcome. Sometimes it is too much and considered intrusive, it can only be a part of things when it is wanted and I am ok with that.
Words, Music & Pictures Are Powerful
People aren’t here to just pass through life and muddle our way through the moments and the days.
We are here to do more and be more but sometimes we don’t quite reach those places we could go and that is probably my biggest personal fear.
Outside of something terrible happening to my children the one thing that scares me beyond others is not reaching that place because I let fear and or inertia prevent me from reaching, from taking one more step towards that place I know is out there.
It is a funny thing to me, this realization that I can’t get there solely upon my own. It is not easy to ask for help and to recognize that sometimes it doesn’t matter how badly you want it or hard you’re willing to work
It is not easy to ask for help and to recognize that sometimes it doesn’t matter how badly you want it or hard you’re willing to work.
You have to have those things, they are part of the formula but they aren’t the only ingredients in this particular recipe.
I know because I have tried and failed.
Every time I get knocked down I get back up and try again. Age and experience have taught me not to rely upon one sole approach, to mix it up and recognize there is no single path.
But it comes down to recognizing the need to be seen and to expose more at a deeper level than I have been willing to before.
Fury, shock and awe have failed as have humor and subtlety.
Thus comes a revolution and the time to apologize for misdeeds and ask for the help I haven’t requested before.
Will humility work?
Maybe.
Seasons Of Love
My eyes are closed and the cast from Rent is singing Seasons of Love while I visualize what it is I want and imagine how I am going to move from where I am to there.
Been trying to get my teenager to buy into my experiences and to avoid doing things the hard way but he is me, or at least the boy I used to be.
“Dad, I am my own man and I need to do it this way.”
“I am not stopping you from trying, but I am sharing my experiences with you. I hit the walls at full speed and do all I can to tear them down. It is not always the best or smartest way to go.”
“I don’t intend on slamming into the wall.”
I laugh, I don’t mean it in the literal sense but I know what he is saying. I remind him that I have always found a way to tear down the wall and that I haven’t broken yet.
“Do it your way, but remember I tried to help you avoid some of the chaos and confusion that is coming for you.”
I make a point to tell him I am proud of him and to say “I love you.”
He smiles at me and closes the door to his room.
*****
That kid of mine is fighting so damn hard to figure life out and to decide who he wants to be.
I see it and I remember what it was like and laugh because sometimes it feels like I am going through some of that again.
But instead of teenage hormones raging through me and a teenage metabolism I can rely upon to destroy the 36 slices of pizza I could still eat I see an older face in the mirror.
I know that it is me and that I am staring at my reflection but dammit, it never ceases to amaze me how much older I look.
There is a push/pull thing that goes on. I have earned the few lines that have crept up and there is almost no gray in the hair I still have.
But that clock is ticking in my ear and the urge to get to that place I see inside my head only grows stronger.
It is like there is a Pied Piper playing a tune that only I can hear and I am no longer willing to try and ignore it.
Just Write
I told Steiner the Minor that a big part of life is trying to be present, aware and awake.
“Most of us don’t figure out what moves and motivates us to get up and go without doing some things.
You have to live a little bit and struggle to get to that place and then you find yourself at the beginning of the journey.”
He nodded his head but I don’t think he really understood or got it and that is ok. He is almost 16 and that is not enough time to have figured some of these things out.
Hell, that Pied Piper I hear hasn’t told me where he is trying to lead me and even the image I have in my head is sort of foggy.
I know I am on the right path and that I am going to get there, but I don’t really know precisely what it will look like.
This journey is based more upon feeling and that is why I say to just write. Words bring clarity and help to guide me so that I move with the intention and purpose.
And to think it all started because of love between the lines.
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