NOTHING IS AS LOUD AS SILENCE

MOMENT OF ZEN



A little something that I saw in Astropixies blog. There is a lot of scholarship that shows if you practice being completely calm and find a meditative state for 5 minutes a day, you can lower your blood pressure. It isn't anything new, because I used to practice 'finding the quiet, still island in the ocean of my soul' regularly when I was in Carolina. Maybe it was letting that fall to the side that hastened my decline when there?


Hindsight, uh... what is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!! (say it again, but look back over your life anyway!) Seeing the video and letting the magnitude of it wash over me, was like holding your sweetheart's hand as you look into the night sky by a lake, away from the bright lights and noise of humanity. I thought about how I'd listen to 'Opium' by Christophe De Babalon on a mixtape and let it mellow me out.


CALL OF THE WEST

He got the high sign so he jumped the bus
Along the roads that wind on through
The hot Mojave and the Jericho
He'd start his whole life anew
And what he left behind he hadn't valued
Half as much as some things
He never knew...


Listening to that song when I was a sorta asocial, kinda insecure, and definitely marginalized teen, I figured out what I was going to do when I got the chance. And that was get the hell out of Dodge! But with me being me, it wasn't as random as all that. First there was the 'turn pro and worked the fringes' idea. Thought I'd fight in the backwoods and the small towns forever and build up a 'cotton candy record' against limited opposition. Then maybe get called up a few times to the big leagues, reach for the brass ring on a couple of turns of the merry-g0-round, then retire to my small town life.


Then, there was the Carlos Elliot idea. Carlos was an active duty Marine who in the 80's boxed professionally in Japan. He even won a regional title and only losing when he ventured away from the islands. While he was the B.M.O.C in the Orient, he lost when he had to show up in the big leagues. I don't know what happened to him, but when I would read about him, things would swirl in my mind. I thought I could do something like that, serve and box as a pro fighter over in Asia...


IN FACT, THAT IS WHERE WE MET...


... me and my girl. We were stationed together in Taegu. And I did get to box over there as soldier, winning a bunch more than I didn't. I had so many hopes, not the great big kind of hopes that people have. My hopes were small and fragile tendons that supported the main structure. It made more sense to me to concentrate on them than the bigger things that were beyond my ability to influence. After all, the big things will take care of themselves. And the better you are at the small things, the better you will be at the big things.


I feel that I was lucky or blessed, which ever you prefer, to have had the schematics or bluprint of my life in my head from jump street. The feeling that I was 'chosen' for something is one that I had in mind from the dawn of awarness. That is why the small stuff you aren't supposed to sweat, I did. I could do a riff on why I felt compelled to do that, but it isn't that important. What IS important, is that I had the compulsion to do it. My aspect has always been guided by what often is overlooked. Because of that I don't allow myself to ask, 'why me?', even when I look at 'Flash, through the eyes of Eddie Kane'.

The line I used the other day, where a blogger described her 'friendship' as one that occupies a 'negative zone' kind of dimension, where neither were truly friends despite what she called what they had, is something I identified with. Because you see, for real, I am cool with relationships like that. I am sitting here with my teenage self and he is astonished at the pursuit of intimacies I have been on.

Because it isn't like I didn't know. The people who ended up screwing me over have all been THISCLOSE to me. From trying to get back home from Bow Elementary, all the way up to saving the family home, it has always been 'a Brutus' in my life that abetted whatever conspiracy that was offered.

In fact, when I was trying to decide whether I should pull up stakes in Michigan and head out west or to see if Mookie and her provencial views in her provencial town, was 'next', that was what I had to consider. As much as I have messed up, I never felt my actions were in a vacuum and I was alone screwing things up. There was enough blame to go around...

... but I never felt comfortable with sharing it with anyone. Because I already knew the score for me.

SINCE THIS IS LIKE IRAQ...

...and is turning into an open ended engagement, I am going to ship out and leave y'all with a link to a slice of the Great American Southwest, or a piece that caught my eye. I have wondered how people can write without having it seep into their own soul, but I guess that is it. They have found a way to 'be' the characters they create without losing themselves. Anywho, hope y'all have a great day!!