The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

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2025 Is How Far Away From 1980…

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Someone wrote that 2025 is as close to 1980 as 1980 was to 1935 which is to say there is a 45 year time gap between them.

I was born in the late sixties so by the time 1980 rolled around I had long since learned how to write in cursive and like most GenX kids had long been walking myself to and from school.

Had endless summer days in which my friends and I rode our bikes everywhere or took city buses all over the place.

1935 caught my eye because my folks were born in the early forties and so it sounds old.  Though if my grandparents had become parents as soon as most of their contemporaries the folks would absolutely have shown up somewhere between ’35 and ’38.

In concept that could have meant that instead of being mid fifties I’d be in my sixties now and that sort of throws me a bit because life could have been so different.

Maybe I’d be retired now and not a decade away.

My baby is going to be 21 this year and doesn’t intend to get married or pregnant for a long chunk of time to go which is ok with me.

I have told my kids there is no rush and to remember who you end up marrying has a big impact upon the rest of your life so take a minute to figure out who you are before you hook up.

Anyhoo, I don’t have time for a long post tonight but figured this joint needed an update and that time gap caught my eye. Hell, I go back to work tomorrow after having taken some time off and I am sure the new kid will ask me again if I feel old because I was a 20th century baby.

I took him into the gym a while back and curled his body weight which cut down on some of the old man talk.  Might have to bring him back because I can lat pull more than he weighs now too.

The kids say I have old man strength but I tell them it is just 40 plus years of lifting and good genes.

Happy New Year.

Emptying My Head

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“Still every night I burnEvery night I scream your nameEvery night I burnEvery night the dream’s the sameEvery night I burnWaiting for my only friendEvery night I burnWaiting for the world to end”

Burn– The Cure

I feel like one of those ghosts that take you back in time has grabbed me and pulled me into something I left more than a decade ago and asked me to revisit it.

Read My Stairway to Heaven and knew I would have to go read the other links included in that post. Can feel shackles around my hands and feet and echoes of the future and the past.

Got something that resembles rage beginning to fire up inside my belly as I work on deciphering what I see, feel and hear.

It is not clear yet whether it will actually materialize as such or if I will find myself shaking my head because I’ll recognize I misunderstood something. or not.

****

Flipping through old pieces from Fragments of fiction like the two below I try to reconcile what was and what is

1) And now years later he discovered to his chagrin that some flames are never completely extinguished. The real question was whether to try and quench the flames or follow the path that his heart was constructing for him.

and this

2) I had a dream. I dreamt of a place that I had never been to but always wanted to live in. You were there and your arms welcomed me to a place that until then had always lived inside me. You unlocked the passion and the fire that burns inside me.

You helped me to remember that love is meant to sting, that to be apart is to feel an ache that no drug can touch and to be together is to know the meaning of union.

You are my drug of choice, an addiction that I cannot give up. My air and my blood, the wind that fills my sails and were I to lose you I would be forced to revisit that dark place that I used to live in. I would be hollow inside, an empty shell and who knows what might choose to occupy that place.

I knew the day that we kissed that life was going to be different. Few people understand because so few have had the experience and even then few walk that path. When you walk through fire you risk being burned but you also open yourself up to untold rewards.

When just holding hands brings incredible pleasure, when whispers and caresses offer the height of joy and passion there is something special.

When I kissed you I felt your legs go weak and I held you tightly but I was not concerned because my arms were made for holding you tight and feeling your heart beat against mine gives me all the strength that I require.

I had a dream that became reality.

It is a peculiar feeling looking back and remembering where one was and what things once looked like. So I now I ask myself what to do and make of all this, do I trash or hold onto it.

Is it still meaningful, useful and or significant. Is there any importance in it. Given the large changes that are taking place now it might make more sense not to make any decisions for a bit.

Can You Spell Divorce?

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Got EmmyLou singing Goodbye while I tap upon the keyboard and think about how it feels like the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Twenty years ago I blogged about a Benny Morris interview and today I read the piece again and shook my head.

A few things jumped out at me:

 

Morris told me that he was not a “determinist,” and believed that “a mindset can change over a generation or two.” The problem with the Arabs was cultural, not racial, he believed. But this did not make him any more optimistic. And it was his historical research for Righteous Victims that forms the basis of his pessimism. “I spent time looking at the whole thing, from its origins in the 1880s until the present day? and the thrust of Palestinian history from the beginning of the Palestinian movement in the 1920s? was rejectionist. It opposed the idea of Jews coming here, it opposed the idea of a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. ‘Not one inch’ – that was basically the slogan, and unfortunately, my study of the last 100 years shows me that they’ve been uniform, monolithic, linear about this.” He then recounted all the opportunities for the Palestinians to accept a compromise – in 1937 (when a British commission called for partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, and population ex-changes between them, with the former getting some 70 per cent and the latter 20 per cent), and 1947, and 1978, and, finally, four years ago. And each time “they reject a peace offer and a compromise based on two states, they lose territory. The Jewish population grows, Jewish greed grows, and Jews take over more and more territory. And then there’s less territory available for Arabs, and they’re offered less.”

and

Similarly, two thirds of Israelis told pollsters in June that they supported Sharon’s plan for unilateral Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza, and 68 per cent said they would be behind a plan to dismantle most of the settlements there and in the West Bank in the context of a peace deal. If there is no partner, then Israel has no alternative but to act unilaterally. Hence the broad support not only for the Gaza pullout, but also for the construction of the security barrier.

Morris is all for a withdrawal from Gaza: “I don’t think we should have 20 or 25 per cent of the Gaza strip’s land for 7,000 settlers when you have 1.5m really impoverished people there.”

Twenty years ago I was beginning to lose some of the optimism over Oslo. I hope the disengagement would lead to a better future but it is hard to see things that way, especially after 10/7.

****

And now we shift into a different world and focus below:

That is about a year or so old now but I figured I’d share it because some of you seem to have an interest in old material. Might offer a single comment that who I was isn’t necessarily who I am any more.

Changes Upon Changes

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There are changes upon changes happening here and elsewhere in my life. Some of them are exciting and some are nerve wracking.

They’re the kinds of things that are sometimes terribly hard to go through but simultaneously exciting because there is a possibility for big improvements in life.

The challenge lies in not being able to predict what will happen with the kind of authority one would like. There aren’t black and white decisions in which you can easily discern right from wrong.

There are only doors and paths you can choose to open and or walk down knowing that you cannot figure out what the best/worst is without taking a chance.

So you put in your best effort and recognize you may have to pivot and adjust as you go.

Life doesn’t provide you options based upon timing that is good for you. It just happens.

Tales From The Past That Predict The Future

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For a while the wizard and witches exchanged comments and banter and then two voices broke through again.

We have no worries about their individual abilities to break down the walls. The truth is they have always had the ability to walk through the walls each other built. We know this to be true because once we were them.

The wizards and witches looked at the head witch and wizard.

She will always give him a reason why she cannot be with him until he demonstrates to her the reason why she cannot. And when he does she will join her hand in his and never let go.

A Partial Tale Of Two Liars

She Saved My Heart

Those four words should be enough. They should be enough for any person or so the Greek poets might say because some of them love their tragedies.

They love a hero with a tragic flaw. They love to tell a story about magic and magnificence destroyed by some simple and obvious flaw.

But there are other poets and other writers who dare to paint a different picture. Ones who understand that a heart can be broken and rebuilt many times and that there is more magic in the night sky than that exposed by small slivers of moonlight.

Some dare to walk upon the long and winding road because they know they are the kind of person who takes the long way home.

Those who dare to be more, to have more and to do more have to accept the burden of walking through the fallow fields as well as the green. The only way to get to the other side is to go through.

And once you accept that you survived the moments that you thought would stop you in your tracks and understand how to read the map upon the scars, well then you are on your way, aren’t you.

She Saved My Heart

But who am I kidding, this thing we share has never been conventional, ordinary or normal. It has always been something….more. A moment in time that never yellows with age or withers with time. I don’t have to close my eyes to see my girl or stare at your picture. I don’t have to smell your perfume to remember because I always sense your presence. You are always with me, the song of my heart.

and

For now I hope that you walk in the arms of the angel and carry my blessing and promise. If all goes as we wish then one day this will be nothing more than a small chapter in the story we continue to write. Stay safe, be strong and I will see you in the echoes of our future.

Echoes Of The Future

You are out there somewhere. You were always out there. When I walked those streets of Jerusalem and made plans to leave America you were living your life elsewhere. And again you were there when the earth shook and I wondered if this was the moment when the ground would open up and swallow my home.

There has never been a time or moment that you weren’t there. Only moments of ignorance and lack of awareness. You weren’t on my radar or a gleam in my eyes. Perhaps you were a dream that I never wanted to believe in. A dream because I didn’t believe that someone like you was out there.

It is funny in an odd sort of way. I can hear you telling me that you’ll never forgive me for not finding you sooner. I can hear you calling my name.

Lightning Strikes Twice

A New Years Surprise

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Got Jim Croce singing Operator while I think about the New Years Surprise in which I was unfriended and how I feel.

Got mixed emotions because in some ways I feel like I was blindsided and yet still ask myself if I ignored 10,000 signs of what was coming.

Got myself asking what role I played in this and if I could have done anything differently because the person that cut me loose meant quite a bit to me.

I know there was a time when they felt the same about me but maybe that changed. Maybe it went away and I ignored what was obvious.

Yet I come back to other conclusions because they read my words and watched videos. Not too long ago we were speaking throughout the day and I thought we were on a different path.

I won’t apologize for asking to have had a real conversation about where things were and what sort of goals they were focused upon. Got one answer once about it not being the right time or too difficult or some other thing.

More Than Twenty Years

So I sit here in silent mourning thinking about more than 20 years and wondering if that is it forever or if maybe there is more magic.

Some would call me crazy for asking if maybe there is. They’d say that other guy seems quite similar to the guy who lives in PA now and that I am very different.

They’d say I was given every reason not to believe and that actions lead to conclusions that don’t support the idea.

“Sure Jack, there was a time when they would have crawled through fire and across broken glass but that is in the past, deal with the present.”

That’s not a crazy position to take and I’d probably argue it too but every time I thought every ounce of opportunity, potential and possibility had been drained something happened.

So I make like the sad gorilla and lean against the wall telling myself to accept what is and take a long walk into a different reality.

If they came and said they wanted to talk I’d think about ignoring them and let them feel my absence because I was mistreated.

But the flame that has always burned isn’t yet extinguished so I might consider the conversation if I thought there was an explanation.

Would it make me feel better?

Maybe?

Would it make feel worse?

Possible but unlikely because I dislike not knowing the how and why though not as much as not having the conversation I always wanted to have about exploring opportunity in a way that had never been possible before.

Maybe it really is the final curtain call and all of the magic has been exhausted, that is possible. It happens.

But it is possible it is not as well.

We had a brief conversation in person and for a moment I could see our communication flow as freely as it ever did. For a moment I saw the flame and then they shut it down.

I’d testify to that, not that it matters or will ever happen.

Where Does The Path Lead?

I don’t know where it goes, how long it takes or who will or will not be on it. I only know I am walking it alone, no Toto walking beside me.

Can’t say if I’ll find the Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion along the path or if I’ll fight the flying monkeys by myself.

But I am certain I’ll get to where I am going and that my future remains unwritten. So if it doesn’t play out as I thought or hoped I’ll be ok because I always land on my feet, even if I feel like a piece of my heart is missing.