"I have seen so much beauty it could make you cry"
You can say that again.
Sitting across from the Hudson for 5 hours will fill you
With inescapable awe
Humbled understanding
That life beyond my little sphere does indeed thrive
All the shrubs and trees
Prostrate towards Heaven
Soaking in our sun
Drinking our water
"Why are you shaking like a leaf / Come on, come talk to me"
If I have any takeaway from this life
To pass on to anyone who will listen
It's that silence, walls, refusal to speak
Are the absolute worst methods for all things
They are the source of all deep feuds
All estrangements
We need not all always stay in contact
But you simply should not one day decide to turn someone off
It serves no one, and only leads to deep wounds
That only build off themselves, compounding
"It's gonna be a big time in the Jungle"
My Father was drafted for Vietnam
But never had to serve
His generation was the last
To embrace the cause of civic duty
Of real democratic citizenship
And now he, in his illness and new phase in life
Is a shell of the man I knew as a child
His coldness replaced now with a more contemplative nature
I can only pray his body continues to hold up
"Believing I had supernatural powers, I slammed into a brick wall"
Two weeks ago, I thought I was perhaps turning a corner
With my heart, with my head
That for once 'things were finally looking up for ole Liz Lemon'
I don't really understand why it is always so difficult to connect with someone
Or why these matters are such deeply guarded secrets
Do we all have the pick of the C-team
Since A and B-rated people found each other?
And when did I make the C-team?
"I was playing my guitar, lying underneath the stars, thanking the Lord for my fingers"
I fear what my life will be like when I don't sing for my supper
When the mornings are early, and consistent
I miss playing guitar in Spain
Amongst my Brothers and Sisters
The yellow Spanish sunlight draping us all
In a profoundness, a gravitas to all our actions
The starlight, a chance to revisit imagination
Form our own Constellations
Our our mythology
In my sky, Cassiopeia sits right-side up
And her chair is more ornate.
We filled the Spanish sky with our deepest hopes
We shaped them into beasts, Great Men, Greater Women
Told their stories
Until it was time to sleep, time to dream
And walk the next day.
"As we beg and steal and borrow, life is hit or miss, and this:
I hope, I think, I know"
I hope that the next ten years will bring the end to much pain in my family
That we can move forward with the understanding
That the shortness of this life
And it's precious gift overall
Means that we simply "get on with it" with each other
There is no place for blocking one out.
You simply cannot, must not.
I think I will spend the next 4 months working hard
To get into the best shape of my entire life
And run my ass off
Run my heart out
Run until they tell me to stop running
As Jesse put it
I know that my life continues to be guided by grace
And I will work hard to maintain it.
I know that only hard-working people ever really "get" lucky.
"What a joy to walk in this pilgrim way, leaning on the Everlasting Arms"
I walk in stride with my former self of a year ago
Step-in-step with he who walks the Camino on a loop.
You never see the transformation as you monitor by the minute
And yet you know that you walk into the Square in Santiago
Utterly Transformed.
I cannot live the same way as before.
I am a different soul, manifest through my mind, my body
Every day I could weep on account of the joy I received in those 4 weeks in Spain
And each day I draw from that well as I take on new challenges
My Father's illness
My family's division
My obesity
My heart
You walk two paths, always.
The spiritual one, where you are drawn close to the source of all
And the physical, where you filter the beauty you experience
Into energy, into rocket boost,
Into courage
From my book: "ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee"
My connections to all things, all sentient beings, is very clear
And my reliance on the great system of life is so apparent
The assumption that the sun rises tomorrow,
That so many other things I take for granted never notice
Is The Great Lesson
So if I am connected to all things, and when tragedy pings another
It therefore pings me,
Then how else could I live than for my brother and sister?
And how could the pursuit of riches, fine goods
Of impermanent desires, fickle conquests
Involving libido, pride, or acquisition
Ever be seen as anything else but a convenient waste
And ignorance of the true issue at hand.
The bell tolls for all of us, and someday it will toll in a much more tangible way
For me, for my divided family
My frail Father
For my nation
All of us
And if that end befalls us all
We must spend what time is given to us
Before that unavoidable tragedy and fall
Living together
Walking in communion
Creating our own Skies
Creating unity
So that there need not be any more
Lonely birthdays
Awkward Christmases
Forgotten Easters
Or days spent simply Dealing.
