Category: Short Stories (Page 8 of 46)

Laughing at Myself

December 26, 2018 / Tom

I laugh a little at myself. Not because I’m funny (although I am), but because I sometimes take myself too seriously (which I do). I relish in those times when I do something completely outside of myself, and I wonder where on Earth I come from.

This morning before work I was trying to remove the 10 pounds of hair my daughter leaves in the tub drain. It’s not as if I could actually reach it, but I was trying with my patented wire-hanger-turned-drain-snake. Needless to say, I normally can get the clump of girl stuff out but this morning I wasn’t having much success. After a few well-placed expletives, I realized just how lucky I was.

After all, I have a healthy teenage daughter to leave me these little presents. She was likely as oblivious to the hair left in the drain pipe as she is to the hair she paints the tub with. She has long, flowing brown hair and she is so proud of it she leaves little bits of it around for me to find. She is so good at hiding it that it usually takes about 3 inches of water at the bottom of the tub for me to discover it. Lucky me.

So I laughed at myself. Usually, expletives aren’t a laughing matter, but this morning they were. I can see the upcoming lecture in my mind, me telling Her Sweetness about leaving hair in the tub and the corresponding look of indifference that would come from her in return. I even could see the cursory eye roll at my insistence. I couldn’t help but laugh, and just want to hug her at that very moment.

Then, of course, I’d have to bring up the room that needs cleaning and the pets that need to be fed. More blank stares proceeding more eye rolls. Ah, the joys of having a teenage girl. She’s way too big to put in time out, although I should try. Just for kicks and giggles (my own). Invariably though, it would just lead to more expletives.

She’s a really great kid. She’s hard-working and conscientious. She’s an honor roll student who does her work without being told. Hell, she’s even negotiated do-overs with her teachers when she wasn’t happy with a grade. She has her future mapped out and is working hard toward her goals. She’s independent and strong, a young woman that would make any Dad proud. So, I apologize to all of those who think I should beat her or punish her for not doing everything right. I’ve decided to cut her some slack some of the time. It works for us.

So, I laughed at myself. Sometimes a Dad accepts what he must in order to foster the beauty he sees in his offspring. Today, I accepted the gift of a clogged drain as a birthright of my once-little girl.

No biggie. We move on.

To be honest, I have so much to be grateful for. My children are all good people. I have found the perfect love (for me) in my life. I am growing and expanding rapidly and with purpose. I have so much to be grateful for that I laugh at myself when I begin to doubt it. When one is so blessed as I am right now, it’s kind of silly to focus on the small amounts of negatives that creep in. Of course I will always give a voice to those things inside me (years of keeping that voice locked away has taught me to let it out), but why not lend that voice to all the good in my life? What a novel idea.

If I can find the way to laugh at myself on a hectic, crazy, day-after Christmas workday morning I would guess anyone can find a way to laugh at themselves. None of us come with a warranty and none of us is perfect. I’m just trying to laugh a little at the small imperfections in my life because they are wonderful, too.

Peace.

I Will Be Home

December 25, 2018 / Tom

What was once the most natural of places for me now seems foreign. I wake in the middle of the night, certain you are up too. I reach for you, just to know you are there safe beside me. What I find is emptiness.

It an unsettled feeling for this heart. What seems so natural in my repose turns to discomfort in my waking. You should be there. I should be there. We should be there.

Alas, there is only the emptiness.

I close my eyes again, wishing myself back to that place where I can see you in the faint evening light. Waking is so much easier when you are there, my senses aroused and my heart feeling the lack of space between us. In your absence I try to will myself back to sleep. If I could only dream away the moments until you are there again and I could feel you. If only time was at my mercy, speeding up and slowing down at my will. Instead it plays games with me, crawling along when I beg it forward and speeding away when I need it to trickle by.

You are, of course, embedded in my soul. I feel you there tonight as I always do., and there is some comfort in that wonderful connection. I place my hand on my heart and inhale deeply, trying to remember your smell. Memories of you moving in the morning filter through my mind. Visions of our morning embrace, your smile as your voice echoes in my chest, play out on a darkened screen. A tear creeps out and finds its way down the side of my head, finding its way toward my pillow. If tears were but seeds I would have planted a forest by now, as happy as they are.

Those tears are not of sorrow, my love. They are of joy. You have arrived, you are in my Being, and I am grateful for the way you love me. As foreign as that sounds to my mind, you love me. Even more foreign to my heart is that I am completely ready to receive.

I see it now. A once crazy dream now realized in your kiss. A prayer once uttered in disbelief is now answered in your voice. Everything I have ever lived through, everything I’ve ever stumbled upon, has led me to you. It’s as if some great dust storm raged and I had fallen. I fought to stand so many times. When I finally had risen, and the dust settled, you were there. Suddenly the wind-whipped wounds were irrelevant. In an instant, the mud caked on my skin washed away. It all made perfect sense in that moment when the bell rang, the doors opened, and you rushed into my arms for the very first time.

You asked me at that moment if I was nervous. I was, my life was flashing before my eyes. I could see the purpose of my survival and now that purpose could see me. I could see the challenges to come, and I could feel the power of everything that was in the moment your arms wrapped around me.

Some may call it a hug. I call it home.

They say that home is where the heart is. Well, love, I left my heart right next to yours wherever that may be. That is what makes these empty spaces I once valued seem so empty. They are no longer my home. They are just places I needed once to survive until the storm settled and my home appeared. I honor them for their place in my life, but now they simply ask me to leave them be. They beg me to go home, and they always point me to you.

Whether we are on a beach, or in some tropical clime, or on a mountain trail watching nature go about its destiny, I will be home. When my hand reaches out and finds yours, I will be home. When I suddenly feel your touch without warning or hear your words from the other room, I will be home. When I am guarding your space from the other side of a wall, or down the street, or even in the next town I will be home. When you call for me and I can answer, I will be home. When I can raise a glass that you have filled and honor it with a prayer, I will know home while always remembering the forest that was planted in your absence.

What a gift I have been blessed with.

I Love You Through My Bones

December 20, 2018 / Tom

Lay with me for a bit, my love. Hold my body close, squeeze my hand tightly and feel my breath on the back of your neck. Love is here, around us and through us, binding us together in a moment that will echo through eternity.

Let’s listen to the winter wind howl outside our warm nook, the snow falling gently as the seed we have planted awaits its spring promise. Know that the man who lays beside you honors you in every breath and carries within him a heart that beats for you. Know that the space you share with your warrior has been blessed by time and our own intention. Know that I would defend our space with all I am and all I ever could be.

That is my truth, for I love you through my bones.

Let that be, and feel it. Feel it through your own bones too.

I just want to love you…

December 20, 2018 / Tom

I want to love you. That’s all I want to do. Not with words, but with deeds. I want to write love poems on your skin with my fingertips. I want to sing love songs with kisses on your shoulder. I want each day to recite the gospel within my heart, without words yet with the very truth that inspires them.

Which is better? (the secrets to life) ~Revised

December 20, 2018 / Tom

I believe there are two secrets to life. One, you must live it. Two, you must share it.

What better than to watch the Sunrise than to watch it with our bodies close? The morning birds sing to us both as the orange glow of life glistens off the morning dew. We turn to each other, eyes locked and hearts made warm by the occasion, destined to kiss in the way lovers do.

We’ve seen the Sunrise alone. Which is the better way?

What better than to see our footprints running parallel on the beach? To feel our knees touching as we sit in meditation as the Sun crests over the ocean’s waves? Love guides us as the warmth cascades around us. The sound of gulls praising life fills us, the waves announcing the presence of that space where all life was born. Our souls embrace in the moment, our hearts know we are where we belong.

We’ve sat in stillness alone. Which is better?

What better way to climb a trail and see heaven’s majesty than to stand at the summit with you? Our fingers touching as we take in the beauty before us, standing straight until your head finally finds its way to my shoulder. We sigh, breathing in and out the clean mountain air, feeling one with nature and with each other.

We’ve climbed our mountains alone. Which is better?

There are things we must see alone. There are moments best left to solitude and space. Yet isn’t life, like any great recipe, a mixture of things that share themselves to one great purpose? An egg by itself may taste wonderful. But it’s not a cake. It’s simply part of one, and I’ve never had a birthday egg.

Wishes of a Warrior

December 19, 2018 / Tom

I will not be marginalized, or forgotten. What I am is a good man, with a good heart, and those who need none of me can leave me to die in the realm their own memories.

The words flow sometimes like a wild spring river. I do not control them, nor can I stop them. They just are, and I best stay out of their way lest I succumb to their torrent.

I cause no harm to you, yet can be shelved to the wild whims of voices I cannot hear and visions I cannot see. Left alone to deal with vices not my own, I will stand tall against the demons and smash them with the hammer I hold so tightly in my chest.

Where do they come from, these words? I just stand out-of-the-way, an active observer in the war between my mind and my heart. Both made equally strong to the task, its natural selection at its best and its worst.

Just go, and leave me be. I’ve sat still in tornadoes and quashed fear when death seemed certain. You are no challenge here, for the more you try to separate me from my senses the harder you will find the task. Hear that? That’s the heart you cannot still. See that? That’s the warrior you cannot stop.

Laugher spills from my soul as the wolves howl and the birds circle high above. “I am no fool,” says one. “Neither am I,” says the other. Both are ready for what is about to come.

I have not lived to be forgotten, nor will I be left to die swimming in the swill of your mind. Underestimate me if you will, but know as I walk away I will not do so defeated nor will I do so holding on to the piss I’ve been made to drink. I have died, and risen, to be much more than this.

With that, the swords fall to the ground and the blood stains the white linen of this day. In your rest, you wish to forget about me. The Sun and silence call your heart more than my voice.

Do not take my kindness for weakness, nor my patience for a gratuity. Neither are infinite in supply, and neither are given without the measure of the man who gives them. Take them for granted, and risk seeing only the footsteps of the man who has walked away, seeking not a treasure but to be a treasure. His only desire is to be precious, somewhere.

To feel as a burden is to be a burden. To feel like the sea that never finds its shore is to be a water world where good men drown. I will not drown but I will seek the shelter of an island who welcomes not just the company, but the heart of the man who surrenders there.

The heart of a man seeks shelter not just from the storm, but also from the Sun. He seeks to love and be loved in equal measure, not parting ways with the discipline of his life nor his own sense of value. He will provide shelter in equal measure to his own desire.

The night plays havoc on his mind. His dreams remind him that he is but a figment, a fragment of an imagination whose focus is on the convenience of the mind, not a calling of the heart. Forget about me in your leisure, as I am willing to be forgotten.

I depart now for the dreams of your whimsical heart. Good night, fight well, and know that you are loved.

Life is 360

December 19, 2018 / Tom

During my meditations, I am often given a message. Though today’s meditation was relatively short, about 10 minutes, it was an intense meeting between me and the Divine.

I guess God had something to share and I, in turn, share it here.

I was sitting around a large, round table. Seated to the right of me were many who were a big part of my life during its various stages. I was also seated there at the different ages. These people included my grandparents, my parents, my children, and some close friends some of whom are no longer with us. Immediately to my right was my Love, and some people I have met through her. The space to my left was something I could not see, but I knew was there.

I heard a singing bowl ring, and I stood to offer a toast when it had finished.

I raised a chalice, and began to speak. What I said came out of me much like when I write. I was not in full control of my words, though I meant all of them.

“Life is a circle. We live in this experience, me as Tom and you as you, in 360 degrees. Each of those degrees gets us to where we are, much like the each tick of a clock gets the second hand back to twelve. While we are an accumulation of each degree, our truth is defined by the one we are on. We are free to make that place whatever it is we want.

“I see now that I have lived 270 degrees so far. I honor each of you who have been part of this journey for being. I love what you have brought to my circle, for the lessons learned and the experiences gained. I forgive each of you for any harm you may have shown me, and ask each of you forgiveness for any harm I may have shown you. Each of you have led me to someplace wonderful, so thank you.”

I raised the chalice, but did not drink. Instead, I breathed deeply and let all the apprehension go out of my body. Forgiveness.

I turned to my Love, seated next to me.

“It took all 270 degrees to find you. Through each of those steps, I’ve learned what it takes to be me. I’ve learned the courage of being vulnerable, of being afraid, and of surviving it all. I’ve learned the beauty of being alone, of rising from the mud, and of finding myself in the midst of losing everything. I stand next to you now not as a proud man, but as a humble man. Life has not chiseled me to be a man of stone. It has chiseled me open to humbly stand before you as vulnerable as the pieces of me that have settled at my feet.

I have 90 degrees left, my Love. Those moments I have left are not about what hills I climb, or trails I hike, or ocean sunrises I get to see. They are about sharing those moments in love. I’ve done them all alone, the next 90 degrees are about sharing each of them with you.

When I reach that 360th degree, I hope to look back and see a life fulfilled in love, in soul, and in a heartfelt testament to all I have learned.

What will be may be unknown, but sharing the unknown with you is all I could hope to do.”

I sipped the drink, and it was sweetly intoxicating.

The Vulnerability of Being

December 14, 2018 / Tom

Seek that which you may find, but not to find it. Embrace that which you hold dear, but not to grasp it. Be burned, be lost, be afraid. It’s all going to be fine.

The Universe often speaks to me in riddles, on what appears to be riddles anyway. I will be honest with you, I have no idea what I am doing. I am a lost man with a found soul who simply just is looking for his way. I often fumble in the dark, banging my head and heart on walls hidden by the darkness, just looking for the way to something.

So the riddles do not surprise me. In fact, nothing less would seem to do.

To those who know me and have for some time, that statement of being lost may be surprising. I am usually the “put together” one, the stoic version of emotional and spiritual strength, the man who can take everything in stride. Yet what most of those friends do not know is what went into that version of me they’ve always known.

What they also do not know is that the version of me they’ve known simply does not serve me now. Parts of that man do, but parts of me need to be shed and replaced with new growth that serves me in my intention. If I wish to grow, I need to be burned, afraid and lost if just for a little while.

Life seems to be, true to form, challenging me to make a choice. Behind one curtain is the me I’ve grown to be, an honest, loving, caring man who loves aloneness, loving the serenity of needing no one, loving the harmony of self-reliance without excuse or retreat. Behind the other curtain is the me I wish to meet. Still honest, loving and caring, I want to enjoy companionship, find serenity of depending on someone, and giving up bits of self-reliance to let someone in my heart. That takes trust, courage and determination.

Scary stuff, but things I’ve learned I can count on. I choose curtain number two.

There is nothing wrong with these changes. I can be true to myself and vulnerable. I can be fine with aloneness while I lay cuddled up on a sofa with my partner. I can experience love of her without ever giving up love of myself. None of these need be mutually exclusive, and can be incorporated in a loving, caring, and conscious relationship. In fact, they can often feed off each other in the best symbiotic way imaginable.

The first step, I’ve found, is for me to allow of the vulnerability of being. We are all human beings with a story; one that includes fear, uncertainty and anxious moments all bundled up in our desire to love and function. Conscious relationships understand that, and loving relationships allow those human frailties to be exposed in the open. What is not permitted is to allow these moments to define the relationship (dysfunction). We can approach each other’s humanness in a way that not only shows the love shared, but exposes those fears for the bastard liars they usually are.

Soon, those fears will vanish in the face of a loving truth.

It’s is not only acceptable, but very necessary, to be very human in a conscious relationship. Spirituality, and the practice of spirituality, certainly has its place in my relationships but it is equally important to me to be absolutely human there too. I want to be afraid and lost sometimes. Those moments, while certainly not pleasant for me while in them, serve to remind me of my heart, my soul and the fact that today I have a partner I can share all of me with. Not just the stoic parts. Not just the conscious parts. I can share even the parts that aren’t so bright and glamorous.

Things I never thought I could share with anyone. Imagine that (growth).

She in turn, can choose to share those parts with me. I don’t expect, or want, her to be perfectly put together like some neatly packaged deity. What is wonderful is when I can return the gift she is to me, to her.

We are all works in progress, beautiful and amazing even in our dark moments. Accept those moments as fervently as you accept those moments of being your being so amazingly put together and you will find some peace in them. Better yet (particularly for those of us used to going it alone), lay your head on your partner’s shoulder, cry it out (let it go) and learn that doing so is perfectly spiritual, too. Functioning alone is no better a spiritual practice than functioning with someone who loves you is. Both are equally amazing.

That Love (You Will Always Be My Home)

December 13, 2018 / Tom

I walk as I am but a man, always mortal and sometimes frail to the pressures of life’s design. I love, however, as an immortal soul strong to the test of that mortal man’s frailties. I wander in my circles and on my trails testing myself out against the challenges of this life, testing the wounds and the dizziness in those spaces that require a rigid adherence to stability. My heart dreams on, always returning to a place were you stand, smiling, begging me out of my shell.

I am a walker. I am a searcher. You will always be my home.

May I look at you in a way that inspires those we love to find what it is we see. May those pictures, framed today from moments where our souls unite in love, tell those who one day find them scattered about in various places the story that raises their hearts to hope. May we look at images of our younger selves, staring at the mountains under skies painted blue, remembering the pains of our parting united by the truth of our union.

We are lovers. We are partners. We will always be a home.

One day, when the spring wildflowers bloom and the winter’s ice is fading from the trees, may the prayers of hope be realized as the vernal equinox rings in the distance. May the love known be promised on the boulders of a rushing river be made whole by the melting of the past. May we both stand besides a willow tree, knowing love’s great promise as the breeze makes music through her branches. There, we shall continue to realize the truth of our meeting, and the warmth of our eternal embrace.

She is the truth. She is the promise. She will always be my home.

It is that love, the one echoed in this lifetime as it once was spoken in lives past, that makes the blue skies bluer, the spring thaw warmer, and the rustling branches of a willow tree such sweet music. May we find some shelter there, some respite from the trials of this life. May we always find our home in the embrace.

The Apple

December 12, 2018 / Tom

The apple has fallen at my feet, and I have bent to eat it.

For so long I’ve felt unworthy of the fruit. I’ve caressed the tree and whispered prayers to the orchard, but feared the fruit. I’ve seen the majesty of her flowers blooming in the Spring sun, only to seek shade when the time for harvest was near. I’ve inhaled the fragrance of life’s great gift then hid from the flower that brought it to me. I’ve been the worst type of coward; the type who so desperately wants what he fears, and so desperately runs from the very thing he has sought.

Oh, those many days when I’ve held the fruit close to my own eyes! Whoa, those many nights I’ve dreamt of the sweet taste as the juices spill down my lips! A dreamer such as I, lost in the melancholy of the beasts who’ve run him from the orchard, certainly does not deserve such wonders. Try as I might I’ve always failed their expectations. I am not a dancer. I am not a soothsayer. I’m but a poet, frail in my desire to find your rhythm, weakened by the effort to matter in your future, lost in the words I write. The words are the testament of my truth. The words tell the tale of my heart, a heart that truly wants to be loved and to love with equal enthusiasm.

To hold the apple so close, yet fear its very taste is the hell a man must travel before he arrives at the gate to heaven. He must question the very existence of his mind and the very truth of his heart. He must find the wounds that plague him and will them healed. He must stand in the flames of his own insecurity and burn away the veils and masks he’s hid behind his entire life. He must be willing, in effect, to die right where she stands. He must give up the life he’s known to walk the uncertain path and to be reborn again. He must find life in her heart knowing that it is exactly where he belongs.

If you want to know courage, face your fears and bend them to your own desire. Love her without question, knowing full well that you may never fully recover from the leap of faith your heart now asks you to take. Give yourself to her, the one who lives in her own uncertain spaces and yet who also, somehow, shows you her heart in return.

If you want to know true love in its infinite glory, be the man she needs you to be. Stand tall when the torments come, and answer the voices in your head with the testaments of truth that spell her name. Be the lighthouse on her shores as she sails the uncertain seas of her own mind. Know that as you have built the foundation of your life at the hardest bottom of it, she too is building something wonderful. Honor her with the truth, with your deeds, and never let your word stray far from the sacred truth your heart has etched in a solemn promise you’ve sealed in a kiss. Be her lover, her rock, and know that she is all of those things to you.

Then, take a bite of the apple. Chew slowly, savoring the taste in honor of the wait you have endured. Let the sweetness embolden you, and let the nectar wake you from your exhaustion. Be worthy of this fruit, and make your life one that cultivates such sweetness when the spring arrives, and the winter has finally passed on to the promise she has whispered in your ear.

God, more than wealth, or fame, or the worship of the masses, let me live in this love. Let the past resound to its purpose in the wisdom I have gained, and if I have but a few minutes left on this Earth let me not waste them in fear, but rather in love. If I am to live a life minus most pleasures, let the one I am offered be her hand in mine as she lay by my side. Let us share in this life all the gifts You have bestowed upon us, and let us not take any of them for granted.

Then I will have lived a full life, my heart blessed and my soul full of its purpose.

Amen.