Too small to see.

I lie here in the still quiet of Slidell's Midnight, and reflect. I think I was a bout eight when I began taking myself too seriously. 16 years later, I wrote about it in my iPad as I sat in my car on the corner of Washington and Prytania next to the Lafayette Cemetary. Writing about it didn't make it go away. Who knew? So much has happened here, and I sometimes feel that I'd give up every minute for a day on the warm river rock, a day spent wrapped in sun-browned skin and raven hair like a curtain of midnight set against the backdrop of the noonday sun. Like a dumbass, my common sense reflects at this sentimental idiocy. Time, King said, is a face on the water. He never explained what that meant, but I think I know. The world moves on, and one can either choose to tube up and give it a float, or tread backward like a pussy and slip beneath the surface without ever finding out what lies around the riverbed. I think I'll go ahead and tube. Much as it makes me sad to see the beautiful landscape slip out of sight behind me, I know the best views are as yet unseen, waiting further down. Hella deep, brah. Hella deep.

The Softer Side of Heaven

Wake me there, when the sun rises on a better day. We share love, laughter, and together we shoulder the weight of the uncaring world. It's a miserable burden to bear alone, but with the many strong backs of good friends and brothers like mine, the yoke is nothing more than a reminder to appreciate all that we have. Love the ones who love you, and remember to save a little love for yourself. This mess is a dream; when it's over and we wake, all we'll take with us is the love we've saved along the way. Maybe that's why love is so hard to give. Maybe that's why it's so hard to hold onto. Maybe I can earn it.

Reflect

Again, the weeks have marched past all but unnoticed. Things are the same, and maybe that's the thing of it. I work six to eight shifts, three days off to wander/wallow as I see fit, try some new food, explore a new swamp, learn a new song. I am a year older. I saw a little music. I made more plans for the summer. None of my friends came down for Jazz Fest. It is as I expected, and I am ashamed that it makes me feel so sad and abandoned. I take solace and comfort in knowing that no one but me will ever read any of this. I miss all of them. I left them, after all. What do I have to feel so left behind about? It was my choice, and at the same time it wasn't. I couldn't have stayed there any more than I could pick up and leave here tonight. That is to say I could, but I won't. Grow up, then see how you feel, I tell myself. Well, all right. I spent a weekend with my Granddad in Fairhope, Alabama. He doesn't see himself living to the close of this year, his 96th. It was time well spent, and I'm not sorry to have turned 24 in his company. He's lived approximately 72 years more than I, and one can imagine that he's learned a thing or two since he arrived on the planet in October of 1916. I will have plenty of other birthdays, and time between to do whatever I want. He asks nothing of me, not even my company. He never has. He simply loved my brothers and me as his own family for as long as I can remember. For all his faults, he's a good man, and he loves deeply.