Category: Short Stories (Page 5 of 46)

Healing (A Poem with some prose)

June 2, 2019 / Tom

What if today,

We found ourselves centered in the midst of our own Being?

Could we stroke the hair

Without owning the despair

Of the one we love?

Could we somehow find the balance,

To love without owning?

Without owning the one we love?

Without owning their demons they play with in the night?

Without owning the lies they tell themselves in the moments of their despair?

It’s a challenge, no doubt.

The Savior in me wants to die on the cross for you,

To save you from your sins, to cast the devils the beguiles you into the Sea’s abyss.

And banish your tears,

Exile them well beyond the fabled gates of heaven.

But the lover in me knows there is a much harder choice.

I must let you go to wallow in your misery,

Allow you to wade in that ocean of darkened truth,

I will not let you drown, no….I will die to save you then,

But no person alive has ever become the strongest swimmer they can be

From the security of a lifeboat, of the safety of a sandy beach.

We must all come close to drowning to know the beauty of this life,

The wonders of our own strength,

The truth of who we are indeed.

Knowing love will not allow us to sink beneath the surface.

If we drown, it will be of our own choosing.

We can always push the outstretched hand of love away,

One last breath before we sink, exhaled in the denial of one truth,

For the finality of another.

We are all blessed creators, even in our moments of uncertainty.

For it is we who create even the darkest moments we have wallowed in.

_____________

I have several scars, one of which resides within my left eyebrow. It was the result of a sucker punch, but that’s a story for another day. I remember when I was in the emergency room getting stitched up, the doctor doing the stitching said these poignant words to me.

“It may start to itch as it heals. Don’t scratch it, or it will never heal. Let the healing process do its thing.”

As I’ve gotten older, and a bit wiser, I’ve realized that piece of advice is a great metaphor for all of the wounds, both emotional and physical, I have that needed to be healed. The more attention I gave them, the more I scratched them when they itched, the less likely they were to heal and the more likely they were to get infected. If I could only master leaving them to the natural process of healing they would heal fantastically without any intentional effort of my mind or ego. In fact, the only mindful intention I would give them was in the mastery of not picking at them. Believe me, that isn’t always easy.

That does not mean that we should ignore our wounds. We do, after all, need to get stitches from time to time. There is a time, though, when we need to let go of the focus we place on our wounds and allow the natural process of healing to take place. Sometimes, we need to get the hell out of the way, and focus on other parts of life, if we ever want to be truly healed.

That is a great reminder for me today, and a pretty awesome intention to set as I begin my morning.

A Room at the Inn

May 28, 2019 / Tom

I entered what was our room, and just stared. Just moments before you were there, laying as you do under the sheets, your smile bringing my body to life. In the culmination of a wonderful couple of weeks spent mostly together, the end had come and you have left . Again.

I have learned to survive such things in blocks of weeks. This would be just another block of weeks, another moment in our time, another mixture of one’s fear of jumping would be tested by one’s fear of standing still. It’s a story we know well, and though the union of our spaces seems so much closer than it has before, the empty chill of our separation remains as stark as it ever was.

I took a deep breath as the transition took hold in my soul. The room we shared, the room that we had made “our space” had suddenly become just another room in the inn. The tornado that is you, whirling around in the space full of worry about making your flight, about time you had left to get there, had been with replaced with a peace I simply could not cherish. I love the chaos that is you, that mixture of heart and mind, presence and worry all wrapped into one beautiful experience.

One deep breath was replaced by another, joined with a selfish wish made into the ether. I just wanted to sit in that room, feel you moving intently while only stopping briefly to kiss me or touch my hand. I wanted to call out to you and hear you answer, but I knew today there’d be only silence. I wanted another walk around Coot Lake to see your wonder at the mountains that brought me here, and listen to you breathe in the clear, clean air. I wanted dragonflies to capture your attention while you danced to the song of geese landing safely in a splash. I wanted to hear you make an agreement with the Universe, that “if” a bird, a dog, a sign of some sort crossed your path…and that peace that followed your joy as that agreement was fulfilled. I wanted to see you easily finish a loop that once challenged you, and have you want to share that space with those you love who have never been blessed with that amazement.

Today, however, there was only my breath in an empty room at the inn. I could hear the songbirds just outside the open window, and I wished you could hear them too. I swear I could smell you in the room, and that memory brought a subtle tear that gave life to others. I have such joy in our love, in our union, and in our moments shared, but I also feel such pain in the parting, in the weeks between our touches, in the gaps between our words.

I know I am not supposed to. I know I am supposed to focus only on the joy, on the blessing that is “us”. I know that I am to honor this growth, this slow, aching sunrise breaking dawn upon our shared horizon. I pay homage to all of that, but it’s only a part of the story I am writing. I trust my heart, my soul, and they break in every kiss and hug goodbye, and that story must be told as well. There is such a beauty in that breaking. It reminds me of the truth that we, the you and me who flirted with togetherness and then made it happen, have so much possibility ahead.

The “ahead” is now being replaced by the present silence in the room. I put my head on the pillow where you laid, and inhale the scent of you. I notice a strand of your hair laying lonely on the pillowcase, teasing me with a memory of the morning. I remembered the few times I woke up to involuntarily apologize for my snoring, always taking the sight of you in my heart. I remembered the 4:30 AM thunderstorm that woke me for the morning, and the hours spent just soaking in the moment. A flash of lighting would splash below the blinds in our room, and the crash of thunder would echo in our chamber. I could remember you laying where I now am playing with that strand of your hair you’d left to tease me. I could feel you as if you were laying right there next to me.

That has been my journey, sweet beloved. At first I could just ignore it. I was fine in my solitude and my aloofness, and ignored the voice that demanded I change it. Then I began to slip toward surrender, knowing full well the shadows I’d pushed into the basement of my mind would now have their due. Finally, I surrendered in a vision on Mt. Sanitas, and gave my heart its full attention, and those shadows their moment in the sun. Though once honoring the aloof-child within me, then the falling into the angel’s arms, and then the sweet surrender to this certain truth, my heart has always pained in your absence, and broken a bit in your departure. The wonder, for me, was not just in the realization of the soul in you that spawned this process, but the desire to continue while in the throes of it. I have never discovered resurrection without the suffering, and I have never found wonder without a risk. I will endure because I love you, and because I trust the compass that directed us together.

For now, I will hope you take those little pieces of my heart with you as a reminder of the man you leave behind, and that you put them back in the hug and kiss sure to come when we meet again.

It was time for me to leave the room at the inn. I laid the strand of hair where you left it, and said a prayerful goodbye to the moment. I could feel a wave of steely purpose pour over me, a trick life had taught me long ago. Yet, despite the self-protection I , I could still feel the pulsing desire to love you, to weather the storm, and to realize all we’ve come to know since the moment we first met. I will endure until you decide to stay, and we make a life together.

I opened the door to leave and took one last look around, the images beginning to fade as time took hold of my mind. There was a day to live and responsibilities to fulfill, and a familiar weight to bear, and a story to write before the workday began. There would be poetry to come, breaths and words to share with you, and silence to manage until we meet again. I realize in that moment it is not in the parting that I find sadness, but in the absence of your presence. The difference is subtle, but to me so very real.

We both know this is a wonderful thing we share, this love, this breath, the side-by-side footprints we leave in the earth. I am not complaining as much as I am giving life to what is in the empty spaces left by our departures, the full truth of a story so worth telling. The pain felt writes words of honor to you in the pages of my heart. The longing swears an oath to you in the emptiness of this room. Both the yin and the yang of this story must be told in the completeness of the cycle that is love.

I turn to breathe one last sigh while the door clicks closed behind me. I don’t look back, it serves no purpose for me now. Instead, I hope for your safe journey and the blessing of our return to togetherness again, in a room at some other inn, at some other time. I can’t help but smile in that hope.

A Vow

May 19, 2019 / Tom

Today, I release you.

I release you from the idea that you will complete me.

I release you from the obligation that you may feel to shoulder the burdens of my mind.

I release you from the pain of my past, the dysfunction of my demon-mind, and the need to fix me.

I release you from the part of me that felt sinful, rejected, needy and alone.

I release you from having to heal me to make the us, the you and me, be a complete partnership of truth and love.

Today, I honor you.

I honor the agreements we have made, the truths we have spoken, and the intimate depth of our connection.

I honor the path you and I must walk, whether that path is walked separately or with our hands joined.

I honor the footsteps you have left for me to follow, the shelter you have built for when the storms rise above the mountains, and the radiant light you have shed in the dark corners of my mind.

I honor you for the song within me that sings your name, for the way I feel in each and every cell, and the union of spirit and flesh that can only call your name.

Today, I cherish you.

I cherish the moment you took a chance on me, and the way you saved the very best for last.

I cherish the prose you have cast out into the world. Such truth inspires this man to a higher place; a summit he once had only heard of in a dream.

I cherish the thoughts of you that resound in echoes of my beating heart.

Today, I promise you.

I promise you nothing but the purity of truth that shines in our connection.

I promise to honor our agreements to the best of my ability, and to trust you as the loving heart I’ve fallen for.

I promise to seek the liberation of our selves in the commitment that we’ve made, and to heal any remaining wounds that may bind us in a cage not of our own making.

Today, I love you.

I love you just like I loved you yesterday, and am certain I will love you tomorrow.

I love you not just for all your obvious perfections, but also for all those flaws you think exist, and how perfect I see all of those as being.

I love you because I have no choice and because even if I did, you would still be the easiest choice I’ve ever made.

Today, I celebrate the woman who walked into my life with an intention, but not a plan. I celebrate the soul who caresses my own with ease, and who has challenged me to heights I once feared with great ferocity. Today, I hold you close in body and in heart, knowing this vow was as natural as my breath, and as certain as the rain that beats just outside our bedroom door.

Happy anniversary my beloved, and thank you for knowing the truth of who we were even before I would admit it. Thank you for showing me a way of courage to take a chance on what felt so perfect yet scared me beyond belief. Thank you for rewarding that courage with this divine love, the pureness of this truth, and the great moments we have shared in both.

I love you.

~TG

A Weekend Intention

May 16, 2019 / Tom

I am waiting, excitedly, for the weekend.

Not like I wait for most weekends. It’s not that type of wait. It’s not about being off from work, doing household chores in between bouts of hiking and writing and workout out and spending time with the kids. As a single dad, weekends can take on a meaning some would find hard to understand, but for those who do you’ll understand what this type of wait means.

My beloved has created a wonderful weekend. We are heading to someplace loaded with nature coupled with workshops based on the ancient Toltec philosophy (minus the human sacrifice, I trust). For those of you who know me, you know that parts of that philosophy have had a tremendous impact on my life, beginning with the book The Four Agreements. We are also sharing our anniversary together, and expanding our relationship to a new level in what has been our process, our way, our time. It’s not my way, and it’s not her way. It’s our way. We share in the challenges, the triumphs and the growth equally.

This weekend, I get to increase my knowledge while expanding my openness. Best of all, I get to do this with the woman I have a deep love for, someone who has not only opened me up further than I’ve ever been, but also someone who has shown me that all of the effort I’ve put into my transformation has been both successful and well worth it.

(Channeling Johnny Olson) But that’s not all!

The last few months have taken their toll on me. I’ve had to move, deal with the absolute selfishness of some, try to meet the demands of fatherhood, employee, writer, long-distance lover, meditator, philosopher, friend, ally, enemy, and relative lone-wolf. While those things on their own don’t ordinarily bother me, having them all heaped together in a short period of time is like trying to run a marathon in about 20 minutes. I can feel the stress taking its toll on my body, my mind, and my desire to engage in the world. I can feel myself losing control of some parts of me in order to maintain the focus those other things have demanded.

Sometimes the fighter in me, the warrior, takes over. He is that same beast that helped me survive the many traumatic events that distorted my views of both the world and people who live in it. That fighter is often cold, distant, and can isolate himself with great skill (he’s had much practice). Yet he has softened much in the face of the warrior’s transformation. I have sought isolation recently, but I have not built the walls around me I once built. Instead, I have sought that isolation in the vast wilderness within, sans the walls I once thought protected me, accepting whatever would come into my space while I went about my business of living the experience.

I realize that this, too, is part of the cycle. Life ebbs and flows in a wonderful rhythmic tide that keeps us learning while providing opportunities to exercise what we have learned. Education is in the learning, but wisdom is in the exercise of what we’ve learned and seek, if nothing else, to be wise. I could not find the joy I have found if I had wasted the many lessons this life has taught me. Instead, I need to find wisdom so that those lessons can have a positive value. Otherwise, the pain and trauma I’ve endured will serve no real, positive purpose.

That, in my heart, would hurt worse than the trauma itself.

What this weekend represents is a wonderful opportunity to learn, to love, and to sharpen this warrior’s Wisdom Sword. It’s an opportunity to reset my mind, my heart and my intentions toward my truest purpose in life. It’s an opportunity to share, for the very first time in my life, my intimate process of expansion and reestablishment with the woman who lives within my heart each and every moment. She has always been a part of what is the normalcy of expansion, contraction and existence for me, but never the deeply intimate process of my rising from bent knee to stand, rather than kneel, before the altar of life.

Of course I’m not sure that the outward expression of this process will be as profound as the inward process is. I’ve never shared it with anyone in order to get that feedback. These moments have always been mine and mine alone, experienced in isolation and solitude.

(Channeling Johnny Olson again) Tom Grasso, come on down! You’re the next contestant on The Moment Is Right!

While I’m not jumping and screaming like the contestants on the Price Is Right often do, I am excited about what this weekend offers in potential as I set my personal intention for Self. I am excited about spending these moments with my solemate, of learning something new, of walking in the forests and staring at the Pacific in a shared moment of intense love. I’m excited in employing the wisdom I’ve sweat and bled to realize, and in expanding my eternal horizons.

There will be volumes written, I am sure. Some of that may even be shared. Regardless, I will be resetting at what appears to be the exact right time in the exact right place with the exact right person.

Peace.

Things She May Not Know

May 13, 2019 / Tom

I look at clear, blue skies as she tries to dodge raindrops under the grayness where she is. I view cotton-ball clouds she will never see as she lays alone in her morning repose, meeting the demands of a rhythm that gets her through her day. I walk trails basking in the mountain sun as she overlooks trees not yet disturbed by urban progress. We are in different places while we miraculously share the same space; the space where we’ve always known each other.

While we are both learned souls who have shed many skins along the pathways of our lives, we are also humans who bear the weight of lives lived and lessons inflicted. We’ve left deadened layers of ourselves in the streams and oceans that have nearly drowned us but, as we have seen, caused us to rise to great occasions and meet our demons where they stand. It took us most of this lifetime to realize the promise we’d made in lives gone past, but we are here, finally, at the crossroad where hearts and fears wage war to no uncertain outcome. As we, two warriors destined to find this place along the journey of our lives, fight the battle we were always meant to fight I look at her with a fierceness in my eyes that beg her to listen to my truth in this moment. I know her fierceness and I find strength within it, and want to share a passion of my own with the only heart I want beating with me in the mud.

The greatest poem of my life began with just three words.

“I love you.”

They seem so simple, those three words. Yet within the smallness of their structure lays an infinity of possibility and an undeniable truth. Like a small seed set to one day become a giant redwood, those three words speak volumes as once-blank pages fill with odes, stories and the gospel of our poetry. Each embrace, each kiss, each moment we share our bared souls to one another fills a chapter in our book. Like branches birthed from great trees, we are living in a universe of our making. It is a universe begotten from the pureness of love in a way most would not comprehend yet all seem to dream exists.

“I love you,” an oath uttered not in the empty throes of passion or desperate need for a hand to hold but rather issued in the stillness of both mind and body. When the wicked winds would subside and the dust would settle those were words seen etched in the granite mountains where we sought our shelter. When we finally touched, when we finally kissed, and when I felt her smile vibrate in the very core of my existence, those were the only words our lips could let pass. Those words are the surrender of our flesh uniting to the involuntary utterances of souls surrendered to their divine undertaking, a remembrance of a promise made so very long ago.

Despite all of our souls’ memorial, we still have those human layers to contend with. Within this beautiful dialog exists a process where we learn the value of our challenge. Great views are achieved only after difficult climbs, and great victories are won after the hardest of battles. It is here that I whisper things she may not know, repeating mantras I am sure have been sung by her soul yet muffled by those human afflictions. It is here that we learn the importance of our presence, of our truth, and of the three words we’ve written in our gospels. It is here where the Demon Past thrusts a dagger at our exposed hearts and where the Angel Present parries with a truth of Her own. It is here where we learn the value of our hard-learned lessons, where honor rules the day, and love reigns over the screaming songs of fear.

For what she may not know in her humanness, she knows as truth in her soul. There are no others who can take her place. There are no moments where her voice is not the passion of my heart. There is not a single word spoken now that was not written in our annuls even before we first breathed in this life. Now is our time, and we are on our way.

For what I may not hear in my humanness I know as the song of my heart. I have learned a patience once foreign to my mind. I have sought connection when her flesh is absent and her words are sparse, and learned to find her in the silence of mind. I have discovered a trust not born in the certainty of human frailty, but in the strength of her character and the softness of her heart. I have put my faith in another for the very first time in my existence, and I know the outcome even before she calms herself enough to see it. I am no soothsayer but I can read, and I’ve read our story in the fields of marigolds and heard it in the music of wind flowing through a willow’s branches. While I know my next breath is not certain, when it comes I have found a certainty. With that breath will come a whisper that speaks her name, and a voice that calls out for her to kiss me.

Love, it seems, is more a certainty than life itself and much less finite. Warriors will unsheathe their swords and pick up their shields, but lovers will drop them both for one another. My breath may cease and my heart may stop but my love for her will pulsate until that moment when we meet again, remember, and pick up the story where we left off. Yet now I do not seek to wait until my next life, I seek to love her with the certainty and courage I was born to have and with a passion that was born the moment I first saw her smile.

What is left but to live out that promise? I need not make a new one, but I certainly must live the one made before time existed. That is what I must do, and in doing so my honor is reborn as my love continues on its eternal path.

One Changing Paradigm (A Lover’s Thirst)

May 10, 2019 / Tom

There I sat, way back then, detached and unassuming with a broad smile upon my face. I could walk in and out of many lives, walk along the path in a crowd or alone, counting footsteps in my mind while talking about the raptures of my mind with those whose motivations I could not begin to fathom. I could engage or disengage, wait patiently or run along, mumble things to myself and, sometimes, get an answer from those who knew little about what truly rested in my heart.

I could be satiated or I could starve with an equal amount of desire. I would thirst and settle for the most mundane of drinks, some in ornate chalices and others found in the simpleness of my cupped hand. I had no need for the cup but wanted the thirst vanquished. I often found myself thirstier in the process. The hunger would make me appreciate the meal but the meal, however, would always seem to lead me back to hunger.

There are few things in life like knowing a purpose in the aloneness where I have found both sanctuary and life. One thing that has surpassed that beauty is when I discovered purpose in the eyes of a woman who was not the cup or the chalice, but the very drink itself. That’s not to say my aloneness is no longer beautiful (though it has lost some of its luster), it is to say that togetherness has taken on a new meaning. It’s not to say that I no longer find life and security in my solicitude, it is to say that I’ve found that life seems better in the uncertainty of love. I don’t wish to rid myself (or her) from our moments of empty space filled with the wisdom we have discovered on our own, but I do wish to use that wisdom to enhance our shared space and create a meal that neither of us wish to deny ourselves for long. I want my thirst, but I want it to end in a way where all I need do is open a door to have it quenched.

My paradigm has been changing for some time. I entered into a stage about a year ago where I could invite someone into my space who I never wanted to leave. Even in my aloneness she is there, and in my stillness I can feel her vibrating in my soul. In her I’ve found an acceptance from outside of me that matches the acceptance I have within me, and I’ve discovered a love that embraces me with an equal firmness and compassion as I offer. Imagine feeling the wisdom that you’ve known your entire life in the embrace of another who you are sure has inspired your very survival. I have looked back on the trail of my life and discovered that every tumble, every drop of blood, every moment of resurrection and every lesson of fortitude and love have lead me to that moment when the elevator doors opened and destiny announced herself in eyes that weakened my knees.

It’s been almost a year since those doors opened and everything (I mean everything) changed. That day, however, was years and millions of words in the making. There seemed to be an impossible number of things that had to happen before that day was even a thought. So much growth, so many agreements changes, so many things about life needed to occur before destiny arrived, and has quenched a man’s thirst in a way that once seemed only a dream.

What has been wonderful has been that I haven’t lost myself in this process. In many ways, I found parts of me long dormant. I’ve discovered patience I never thought I had. I’ve stumbled across a wonderful relationship with parts of me that often spoke but remained completely ignored. I also have no desire to have my partner lose herself because I happen to love her, all of her. (I often say I wouldn’t change a thing about her except her location, hence the patience I’ve discovered.) I have found nothing that I would change about her. I adore her quirks, her idiosyncrasies. What she may see as flaws I absolutely treasure. Her vision, her passions, her likes, her fears are all part of a package that I love beyond measure. As for me? I’ve never had to put on a show or change a thing about who I am to please her. That is, to this man who has always had change demanded of him by people he loved, the breath of life.

There is a “but” though. The thing I’ve come to realize is that none of this wonderful story would have been true had it not been for the journey. I’ve come to see in my dreams and meditations something. I feel like a great sculpture who was once trapped in the granite that encased him. Life…like the wind, the rain, the chisel and the rasp… tore at the granite tomb until that moment of my heart’s resurrection. When all of the minutia and layers were finally shed, I could stand fully naked and accepted at the altar of the great love I was to find, write about, treasure and honor. There was always a great purpose to the process of being reborn into the man I was truly meant to be. That process is continuing, and I am certain that this love we’ve discovered is an expansion of the great purpose our lives were meant to fulfill.

I tried to sum up this feeling in a poem I wrote last night.

I sat for eternity
Locked in my granite tomb,
Waiting.
Pulsing.
Begging to be known.
Then you.
The wind, the rain, the chisel, the rasp,
Released me.
Gave me breath in life renewed,
Showed me light born from the tiny spark within,
A statue now kneeling at the altar of this love.

Perhaps this journey proves that we can find purpose in every trial and tribulation, every moment of joy and happiness? I sure hope so.

Fear and Regret

May 5, 2019 / Tom

Do me a favor for a minute. Take yourself back to a moment of irreversible loss. Relive the feeling, whatever that was. Feel it all and stand in the muck just to bring yourself to a place of utmost importance. Don’t stay there long, just long enough to gain some perspective.

We all have those moments when it is too late. Too late to change things. Too late to do things. Too late to know something wonderful. Moments we can’t get back. Moments we will never know outside our own regret.

Bring the perspective of remembering those past moments into something you are living now. What chance are you not taking? What experience is the Universe offering you that you are not accepting? What love, what embrace, what touch are you taking for granted now that will, someday, be beyond your reach?

Fear is the animal that keeps us from our destinies and burdens us with regret. Fear sends us into our shells, a place where we can’t see the stars above and where the songbirds’ voice is muffled into an indistinguishable drone. Fear takes us into a realm that keeps us from what’s dear to our hearts and pollutes the air that’s necessary for our souls to breathe. We lose ourselves in fear until that one day when we find ourselves stuck in a riptide of regret.

That is why I find it necessary to remember those moments of regret. Not just my own, but those moments I’ve witnessed others experience. I find value in the pain, in the remorse, because it reminds me of the value of shedding fear so that I may walk in step with destiny and the importance of leaping beyond the clouds of self-doubt into the arms of living. It’s not the death that frightens me, it’s the loss of living. While I love my aloneness, I adore experiencing life even more with the one who keeps me in time with my truth and helps me see beyond the clouds and I never want to regret not taking a chance, or moving beyond my own fears, to embrace that experience fully.

That, to me, is the beauty of regret. It has taught me that its bitter taste is not one I like to swallow. I may cringe, grimace and force it down in a massive gulp but is there a better way to learn not to drink from that glass again? I haven’t found one.

Perhaps we just all need to remember in order to live. Perhaps it is sane to touch a scar from time to time in order to not repeat the error that brought it. Perhaps there is utter perfection in trusting in something that muffles the voice of fear while allowing those songbirds sing with clarity in our existence. Perhaps now it is time to trade the regrets we’ve gathered in the things we haven’t done in favor of risking it all in favor of destiny.

That is my prayer as I close my eyes for the night. I pray tonight is not my last, not because I fear the sickle of death, but because there is so much I have yet to do. My patience is not tested by a child-like need to have something. It is tested by the blunt realization that now is my time, and whatever time I have left is fleeting. I’ve seen decades vanish in the blink of the proverbial eye, and I’ve seen the end come for many who were not done living but found no choice in the matter. Maybe now is the time to put some impetus on the life I have left and forget about the risks involved in living it.

Winter Ramblings (in spring)

April 30, 2019 / Tom

Sometimes the winter winds can rip right through the soul. Especially when they happen after the onset of spring, when the birth we have sought all winter simply vanishes in the frigid night.

Like the burden of spring snow laden on the blossoms of tomorrow, we are driven to the bowels of our souls by the weight of unbearable thoughts. We lose our luster in the howling winds of a hope dashed by circumstance, and we watch the pedals of tomorrow fall to the ground and be buried by snowfall that just does not seem to belong. Everything seems disjointed, unnatural, but ultimately it is the way it must be.

The promise of rising tulips now lay broken, the cause of an equinox now forgotten in the unexpected. Perhaps the snow was beautiful for a moment, but certainly not now as the shards of hope scattered about the mind of those tired of winter digs at the core of their desire. I will pray for a return to spring, and for the song of summer to appear.

“Pray all you want,” says fear, “but I will always have the upper hand. Bask all you want in the warm sun, for all I need do is say the word and the chill will return. Thus, you will remember your place in this time, and your time in this place.”

If we survive the burden of such an unexpected storm, and find solace beside a fire built for us in the midst of such suffering, tomorrow may bring with it a renewed march to summer. If we do not freeze in the disappointment, or slide broken down the icefalls we cannot see in the night, we may see tulips rebound and the cherries form, and perhaps a bee or two to announce that the storm did not win, and that summer was saved in the reemergence of spring.

Perhaps tomorrow will see me worthy of the spring. Perhaps then, I may see the summer.

The Wave

April 17, 2019 / Tom

The sigh. The sigh that seems to involuntarily fall from your lips with the breath that once seemed trapped in your soul. It’s almost as if you can feel the tsunami of challenge building, and you feel as though you are standing alone facing the impending wall of water.

What once released you from bondage now feels like shackles pinning you to the wide open sands. The ocean builds its torrent before you, and though you stand in the open space there is nowhere that you can really go. You can move and bless yourself with the illusion of control, but the wave will still be before you. Its shadow will chase you from one jetty to the next, and you are no safer on one end of the beach than the other.

The sigh. That utterance of resignation signaling a surrender to a reality not entirely your own making. You have fallen in your weakness, leaving bits of your tired and worn flesh on the sand. You rise, the wave is still coming. You run some more, falling, bleeding, rising, still as unsafe as you were standing on the waterline. Perhaps now is a time to pray, as long as it doesn’t mean falling on your bloody knees again to do it.

Sometimes in our lives the wave is forgotten in a supposed distraction. The sun rises beautifully, the birds sing, a kiss sends shivers down your spine. You draw letters in the sand, write love notes through the ether to a soul that reminds you of higher ground. Smaller waves come and wash some of the letters away. Ink runs as the waves soak the parchment they were written on. Clouds hide the sun and oceans separate souls. The wave still remains.

I often wonder what the real distraction is. Is it the kiss or the wave? Is it the sunrise or the shadow of life’s tides cutting you off from the light? Is it the chains that I hear rattling as I run or the fact that I realize, somewhere, that I’m the one who put them on? Is it the way I feel when she holds me hand or the way I feel in her absence? Do they all lead to the very same thing?

The quandary of my existence seems to lay in the fact that in order for my heart to beat it must first stop. Little bits of me must die in order for me to live. I must climb in order to love the valley viewed below. I must face the wave if I am ever going to be free from the effect it has on my soul, my heart, and the way I walk the path to my own happiness.

For now I will wallow in the bit of uncertainty that is shaking my space. It seems that is all I can do in the moment. Pray I may, run I will, fight I must. It’s all I know to do.

Unedited and Unrestrained

April 10, 2019 / Tom

Started with one true sentence. What followed just flowed, and decided not to get in the way. I have not edited this, nor have I changed a thing about it. This is spirit flowing uninhibited…

Suddenly, we are here, in the now, playing with something we call the present moment, living and dying in heaps of clotted fur we call life. Awakened, or so we think, scribbling letters on parchment about dreams and whimsical rhymes that somehow make sense to the world even if they don’t quite make sense to us. Inspired as we are, we are nothing compared to that which inspires us, for we have limited ourselves beyond measure while spirit itself is only limited by those boundaries we, ourselves, have set.

We often have clouded spirit in veils of rights and wrongs we’ve created to keep ourselves safe. We plod along on our dusty trails, keeping time with a drumbeat that comes from places we never dare to visit. Though we see ourselves as brave souls trudging along though a life created to test us, we are often cowards hiding behind a thin fabric mommy created for us, or a rusted shield given to us by our fathers. We’ve yet to forge a sword of our own and, as a result, wield nothing meant to fit in our soul’s sweet hand.

We have moments of great courage, and in those moments often believe ourselves cowards. That’s the enormity of our discourse, we believe the dreamscapes and forgo the realities just to fit into a story we’ve both created and had created for us. We are, after all, what we say we are even when we are nothing of the sort, and we live and die according to words that we’ve scribbled in our books both by our own hand and by the hand of those we think we owe a debt to.

I’m not sure which I fall into today. A lion in me roars his truth in a wide desert while the mouse in me squeaks helplessly along in the underbrush. I inspire no one to courage because I can’t find it within me. I inspire no one to greatness because I can see none of it in my own eyes. I just meander along, sometimes roaring and sometimes squeaking in unintelligible dialect while the world ignores me completely.

I’ve convinced myself that I need none of them. Not their attention and not their protection. That’s the shield I’ve hewn from the shelters and the bridges that have imploded before me. I’m not sure if it is my truth because I am so convinced, but something within me seems to whisper that no, I want your love. Mostly, I want to give you mine.

For so long it’s been a path built on solitude, trusting no one for my sanctuary and owing no one my heart. I’ve left the companionship of people behind more often than my memory permits me to realize, forsaking embraces for handshakes and warmth for passing glances. My truth, I’ve believed, was always out there. Somewhere, out there, would be a story that matched my own, a heart that fit perfectly into the empty spaces carved into mine, a soul that knew mine from an eternity of waking me the fuck up. I tried to settle for seawater only to nearly die of thirst. I’ve tried to settle for a warm body in the cold space only to nearly freeze to death.

So I decided on the path of solitude until that heartspace was filled with divine perfection, where I could drink from an unending sea of possibility, and find warmth next to a fire of pure love. It would be that way, even if it meant dying alone in this lifetime to find her in the next. I committed to that path.

Love came, for sure, and along with the divinity of that wonder came the humanness for which we all limit ourselves. We peer around corners hoping what’s around the bend cannot see us in our hiding. We walk slowly on the newest trails as if the newness is a threat despite never finding what we’ve sought on more familiar climbs. We tread lightly even when the ground seems steady for fear that the security we’ve found was nothing but a dream, just like the dreams we’ve had before. Nothing seems to hurt more than a nightmare born from a beautiful dream, and thus we fail to put all of our hearts into the dream for fear of the beasts eating it in one large gulp. Or, worse yet, devouring it in tiny, painful bites.

That’s the mouse squeaking as the lion roars. I want my fucking truth, but fear to both announce it and make it happen. Rejection of a truth is like being slapped in the face with your own hand. It’s then we realize that our truths are not always shared. In fact, they seldom are.

That’s when the mouse speaks up. Soon, we tire of our squeaks and begin to fight for what we feel. Soon, we tire of walking paved roads and begin to seek the muddy entrails of nature. Soon, we grip our swords, drop our shields, and make the leap into a truth unshrouded, daring those who love us to follow. It’s often a lonely trail, but one filled with mystery and wonder.

That’s the lion roaring.

Then the aloneness of the trail wears out its welcome in our human home, and we begin to whittle away parts of our truth to satisfy our fear. Suddenly, we become more likable to the (m)asses, more palatable to the tastes of those who barely know us. We create a belief that suggests all is fine, to be known a little by many seems better than being known completely by a few. That’s when we become liars not only to the world, but to our selves.

The mouse squeaks again, and cycle continues. What a wheel we run on…