When I went outside at work, the wind gusted with surprising speed. It seemed like every leaf in NWA was twirling and spinning, even inside the concrete jungle around me. It took me a moment to realize I was witnessing a dust devil comprised of leaves. The inside crux of the tall buildings created an unnatural barrier against which opposing and contradictory wind gusts collided. Because I woke up with more energy than any one person should have, I took off running and chased it before it dissipated. I succeeded in running through it for two seconds. The number of leaves that touched me is unknowable. But the tickling sensation was divine. I probably looked like a damn fool. In fact, I usually do. I’ll take that any day if I can get that kind of sensation. Especially at work. Having fun at work is tantamount to stealing, you know.
Not bad for a Monday morning. Or any morning.
The picture contains the piled remains of the moment, a steadily decreasing number of leaves in each pile.
Noun: A word that describes the feeling that something is about to go miraculously well or so terribly wrong that it might scar you forever.
You can’t step away from the moment, nor would you want to.
Whatever happens, you know it is inevitable, necessary, and life-changing.
You’ll either be fulfilled or left vacantly discontented.
There are words that approximate the feeling, but none capture the personal essence of that infinite certainty that what is about to happen will be a liquid miracle or massive catastrophe. A liquid miracle is one that seeps into everything in your life and finds its way into everything about you: love, an epiphany, the motivation to suddenly just “do” the thing that you couldn’t do before.
The risk of love, the birth of a child, surgery, or the moment when all your reasoning collapses and your course of action becomes a decision rendered as involuntary action and certainty. It is a surrender to the idea that you don’t have control of the outcome.
You’ll be changed forever.
You want it and fear it.
Because our language is entirely invented and arbitrary, I have as much ability to create new words as anyone. Words are what we say they are, just as love and happiness are. I’ve always been fascinated by words and language – and especially the absence of any controlling factor to create and use them. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows made me realize just how ridiculous our defense of grammar and etymology is. I will put a link in the comments to a TED talk by the creator of that fascinating idea.
PS If you find yourself in a crux moment, one in which life will either reward or bash you for having the audacity, please remember that you might as well fall or jump into the opportunity. Ask.
“Life is exactly like wanting to go for a ride and jumping on a bicycle with square wheels.” – X
Every stone is a story. Of love, loss, regret, lessons, and acceptance.
I put one down, a singular stone, yesterday.
I placed it on a stem I bit off with my teeth.
Looking closely at the picture, you’ll see it handing in the branches. I took the picture when Erika and I walked the trail yesterday. Our walk went by the place that inspired my “¿” story from last Sunday. Pictures don’t capture how eerily overcast and beautifully the morning was. It was a stolen moment of warmth, falling leaves, and intimacy as our feet moved us along the path.
Fifteen years I carried that weight. I broke the watch purposefully all those years ago. A memento.
It’s on the trail now, maybe forever, maybe for a day.
It’s behind me now. Just as everything really is. I forgot I still had it. As I have with so many mementos lately, I wanted to release it and take back the power it once contained.
Everyone’s wounded in their own way. It’s easy to forget that because we feel like we have to conceal the hurt.
Because optimism is a consequence of love, the stone I left behind yesterday left my fingers easily. Erika stood behind me on the trail, watching me clumsily find my way closer to the abandoned trucks decomposing in the brush. After I walked back to the trail to meet her there and continue our lovely walk, I was happy.
Stones aren’t meant to be carried. They are meant to be measured, appreciated, and then left behind. If I had to carry all my accumulated stones, walking would be impossible, as unlikely as finding happiness if I were focused on my missteps.
Don’t forget your stones. Just don’t carry them.
Every stone in your pocket, in your heart, or in your head reduces your ability to siphon the good from whatever awaits you today.
Love, X .
PS I hadn’t heard the song “Stones” by Barbarossa until yesterday. I didn’t watch “HIMYM” like so many other people did. It got in my head to remind myself that every morning I get to decide whether to carry the stones or hurl them into the air – and away, where they belong.
I stood outside the convenience store after exiting.
A miracle car pulled up to the curb next to me. I call it a miracle because it was miraculous that it would run. All of its parts were culled from a hundred disparate vehicles. I saw bolts, baling wire, and tape in surprising places. A couple of pieces of the body looked burned. Or to be remnants of an explosion. It wasn’t loud, but it also sounded like special effects as the engine ran.
The picture I used in this description is not the actual car. Taking their picture would have ruined the moment.
A forty-ish man exited the passenger side. He fumbled with two large manilla envelopes.
From inside the car, a woman’s voice asked, “Are you warm enough? Are you sure you don’t want us to drop you somewhere else?”
He smiled as he managed the papers in his hands.
“I’m good. It’s my first day out. I’m not ever going back there. Never. I learned my lesson. Here is just fine.”
The driver was smoking, nodding his head, and laughing in appreciation of the enthusiasm and certainty with which the first man spoke those words.
I admit I lingered at that point, pretending to look for something in the pocket of my driver’s door.
It was obvious he was arriving home, wherever that might be, just out of prison.
The man walked over to the curb near the gas canister storage. A woman wearing only a jacket somehow got out of the car from the rear seat, as neither the door nor the seat seemed to move.
It was interesting that she had asked him if he were warm enough. When I say she was wearing only a jacket, I’m being literal.
She scampered up to him and gave him a huge hug. His face lit up like a sunrise.
“Are you sure we can’t take you somewhere? Anywhere you want to go?” She smiled up at him.
“No, thank you. I’m beyond good right here.”
He hugged her this time, his arms lifting her up in the air a little. She should have been very cold at that point.
She laughed.
I got in my car to leave, wanting to know his story.
He chose wisely, though.
Both for the hugs and for not getting back into the miracle car.
It MUST be fueled by hope as mechanically it’s an impossibility that it runs without suspending the laws of physics.
Maybe, just maybe, he provided the necessary hope.
There was something about the way he said he had learned the lesson that made me believe him.
I hope he’s safe and warm now, a couple of weeks later.
I didn’t know how to write this little story.
There’s no special ending, no words of wisdom.
It’s just a human moment that I was able to witness.
I wish I could hear the tone of his voice more in my daily life.
When I walked up the trail, a group of trees dropped about a thousand leaves. By the time I got my camera out and my fumble fingers straight, I caught the end of it.
I understand the biochemical reaction that causes such a simultaneous shedding of deciduous leaves.
Understanding it does not make it any less beautiful.
I stood under the trees and let the leaves rain on me.
“It’s 100 times better than yours, though,” I reply.
“I didn’t tell any jokes.”
“Exactly!” I usually reply. .* I modified the social media meme by exchanging one word; it changed everything.
You don’t have to write, draw, paint, make music, dance, or any of the other million ways to express yourself. But in failing to do so, your life exudes monochrome dullness. Whatever you love doing or creating, do it. You don’t have to do it well. I’ve never seen a newborn baby play Chopin or Merle Haggard. Even if you’re sixty and find enjoyment in whatever form of expression, feeling like you must be an expert is pure insanity.
A beginner’s mind – a beginner’s heart.
Remember when you did something with enthusiasm? Regardless of the result?
Well, the clock is ticking.
There will always be critics.
Even if you do it PERFECTLY, it will not be to everyone’s liking or taste.
It was 7:30 a.m. The sunrise was supposed to happen five minutes earlier. Clouds had rolled in to obscure it. Rain and storms arrived the night before. The early morning Sunday October sky was dark and beautiful. Without thinking about it, I found that I was headed to a part of the trail I rarely walked. About a quarter of a mile in, I noted the three abandoned antique vehicles in the brush. The broken, ancient barbed wire fence appeared, its length sporadically still intact.
Over the last year, the wild brush and trees on the other side called to me as I walked by them. I had no idea who owned it. The apparent neglect signaled to me that such a careless owner did not own it at all. The serpentine topography hid all clues about precisely where I was, as did the dense canopy of trees. When I approached the creek bed that flowed under the presumptive fence, I saw that the fence there was gone. Though my shoes were inappropriate for anything except pavement, I stepped through the gap.
With the second step, the air brightened, and the scent of fall decay receded. I took a dozen more steps and pushed against the gnarled branches.
Though the valley should have been shadowy and dark, I could feel the sun’s rays touching my neck. I looked behind me to see that the neglected bushes and trees were gone. In its place was an ankle-high expanse of grass and flowers. I felt like I was experiencing a hybrid dream, one combining Narnia and early-morning half-slumber.
I turned back to look. Instead of foliage, I saw a large red barn with its doors wide open. A hammer clanged rhythmically inside it. A mule stood nearby, untethered.
The hammer continued its work.
“Come on in, I’ve been waiting.” The voice was baritone and melodic.
I didn’t hesitate to walk forward. As I passed it, I rubbed the mule’s neck. It turned slightly to welcome it.
Though the voice did not match my memory, I already knew who would be standing there. I could feel the surety of it.
He appeared to be about forty-five. I never knew him as anything other than old, with a brutal life already behind him.
He wore an old pair of work pants and an oddly green shirt.
“Grandpa? It is you, isn’t it? Your voice is different.” I hesitated.
“I have the voice that belongs to the ideal me. Can I call you Little Bobby, the name I used when we sat on the porch swing together?”
I nodded. Without answering, I walked up to him and hugged him like I learned to do as an adult. He smelled of Old Spice, sawdust, and Cannonball chewing tobacco.
“Little Bobby, I’m most proud that you leaned away from hardness. It could have gone either way for you. I’ve waited forty-four years and three hundred and sixty-two days to tell you that.”
“Yes, but I feel like a failure, Grandpa.”
He smiled.
“I know. None of that is real, son. None of it.” Grandpa put his hand on my shoulder.
He laughed. “I can’t tell you any secrets that you can share. My words are for you only. That’s how it is done. One hour with you is all we get. Help me with this horseshoe, and we’ll talk. Agreed?”
“Yes. Let me help you mess this shoe up. I’m no good at this sort of thing.”
“You were almost a carpenter Little Bobby. And a farmer. Now you’re a writer. Because your job is to find a way to communicate the truth I’m going to share with you without violating the rules here.”
I stood next to Grandpa as he hammered the upper edges of the old horseshoe. The clang of metal was constant and comforting.
Grandpa began to talk, his voice even and confident. I felt like the little boy who sat next to him on the porch swing in Monroe County. Grandpa wasn’t a talkative man nor expressive. Wherever I was, I wanted to stand there forever as he talked. As his voice trailed to a whisper, I realized that the hour was over.
I hugged Grandpa. Instead of sadness, I felt joyous.
“Remember what I’ve told you, Little Bobby. Go live the rest of your life and find a way to share it. We’ll meet again one day and not in the way you expect. You’ll see.”
He turned back to finish another horseshoe, the heavy metal hammer rising and falling.
I walked through the barn doors and ran my hand along the mule’s neck again. Expecting reluctance, I found myself consumed by haste. Not to leave this place but to return to my life, one that would never be the same. In moments I was standing on the trail again, the gap between the creek and fence behind me. Light rain spattered my head and shoulders.
I know you want to know what Grandpa said to me.
I haven’t had enough time to process it, disguise it, and repeat it back. It’s likely that most people wouldn’t accept it. That’s how truth works. It’s obvious after-the-fact but a difficult pill at first.
I’ll give you a hint:
Go outside and look up at the dark sky. Feel the rain lingering in the air. Get a cup of coffee. Find a loved one and put your hand on their arm or run your fingers through their hair. Silence troubled words, worry, or distress that you have no control over your life or the world. Look inside and toward rather than away from.
Hidden inside those words is a world of truth. It’s a zen puzzle that’s not a puzzle at all.
Somewhere, the hammer still rises and falls.
Shadows turn to sunlight.
Voices echo with resonance and truth.
If you’re not sharing your voice and your love, you’re missing the point of everything.
Erika told me that I MUST have more hair. She gave me some dubious “vitamins” with skull-and-crossbones on the bottle. The back label had testimonials from probable probationary or parolee people. I’ve been taking them for a week. I look like an aging English rockstar now that my hair is growing faster than the mustache of my neighbor Susan. Let me know what you think of my new locks – and the color streaks. It will probably grow past my hips in another week.
If you look closely at my goofy picture, you’ll see that my eyes are a little teary. A really good man died this morning. He has so many friends that I wouldn’t want to count the number of memories that will be retold in the near future. Jim’s sense of humor was different from mine in some ways, but the spirit of his humor was massive. We used to joke and speculate about what he might want to be told at his service. I’d write some of it here, but it would shock, amuse, and horrify, and probably some people simultaneously. When a force of nature like him dies, it is a sure sign that all of us will line up soon enough for our turn. No one can look at his life as a friend, pastor, chaplain, counselor, or husband and father and think he had anything other than an outstanding life. He was a rare mix of education, faith, music, and humor. He never once made me feel less than for my skepticism.
I decided to go ahead and post these words despite the fact that most people think they are so dissimilar and disparate.
Jim would appreciate and see the connection.
Life is both stupidity and solemnity, hunger and satiation.
If I had donned this wig and entered the church he founded, the one that held its last service last Sunday and the one I wrote about last Sunday afternoon, he would look up from the piano, smile, and then say: “X is a much better-looking woman than he ever was as a man.”
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 