Joni Mitchell and Blogging

Some people hear nothing but pain and loss in this song but not me. I hear those things but I hear hope, I hear strength and I hear echoes of a future I can almost picture.

Midnight has come and gone and I am lost in thoughts about past, present and future. Tonight I don't feel any frustration or anger though there is ample reason to do but I am happy not to feel it because that is a poison I prefer not to ingest or live with. Can't say how long this feeling of certainty will last. Can't tell you when the complete confidence in my ability to figure it out will go because it always fades but experience has taught me it is like the tide and even though it may ebb it will rise again. The trick is to try and inhabit that middle ground where you are neither too high nor too low. Don't know how successful I am at it, but I was forged in fire and only know one way to be and that means I adapt. Sometimes I am slower to do so than I might like but I figure it out and then one day I realize that I no longer feel out of sorts because I am present and comfortable where I am. In theory practice makes perfect and since I have had ample practice I should be perfect now or at least much closer than I once was. Laughter is a constant companion and close friend to me. Whenever life seems to be harder than normal I seek out those and that which bring it close.

And now if you are need of reading material try one or all of these: 

• Your Perception of Me Is Not My Reality
• Men Use Pinterest Too 
• Do Mom & Dad Bloggers Make Better Family?  
• It's The Kind Of Life We Should Live 
• It Is The End Of The Beginning
• He Named His Intention Texas

Rocket Man Revisited

Men are taught to hide that softer side. Told to be hard and to be strong. To be otherwise is to be less and no matter how much new age crap you read you can't figure out how less is more. Or maybe you can. Maybe you can come to accept that this is the path you are on and if you keep pushing you can influence it in more than a small way. Maybe if you keep walking you'll find that trail again.
Faith. It all comes back to faith. Faith in yourself and your convictions. Trust your instinct and your abilities. Believe. Live and learn how to love again.
"And I think it’s gonna be a long long time... 

That is an excerpt from a post I wrote called Rocketman (original huh.) that reached out from within the blog and caught my eye today.

Might have to publish it on the main blog so that it is protected. For now Blogger lives and I am not aware of any plans Google has to kill it but if they did it would be of concern and I don't know what I would do.

I would obviously want to try to save what I have done here. Not all of it is great, but there is more than a little that is worth something and quite a bit more that means something and that is enough for me.

Have I shared the most recent posts from the main joint?

• Hunger Does Strange Things To Men
• A Letter To Grandpa
• How Big Is The Space You Work In?
• Is There Such A Thing As Too Many Gifts?
• Outlines Kill Blogs, People & Aliens

The Reasons Why Don't Matter

I never get tired of seeing her with her hair down and it is not just because most of time she has some sort of clip or rubber band thing in it.

Maybe it is because of how it frames her face and takes my eyes straight to hers or how it outlines her smile.

Could be because I love grabbing a handful of it when we kiss or how when I play with it I can see the stress fall right off of her. Doesn't really matter why, how or what because it just is.

She doesn't see herself the way I do. Doesn't see how the signs of age turn me on because I don't see her as being tired and worn out, instead I see wisdom, experience and a woman who understands me in a way no one else ever seems to.

Sometimes she forgets about that. Sometimes she gets caught up in the crap that makes life more challenging and wonders what the hell she is thinking. Sometimes she convinces herself there is no point, no purpose and no reason to spend time with me.

It would be a false to say I have never thought about walking away or that I haven't asked the same questions she has. Been to that place more than once and spent more time reading the words that are written upon those walls than I care to think about.

But I haven't walked. Haven't left. Haven't given up.

Some call that obsessive. Some call that foolish, dumb and frightening while others call it romantic.

Definitions will always vary depending upon what side of the fence you stand upon. If it rains in Pepper Pike while the sun shines Fort Worth your decision to get wet or feel the warmth of the sun upon your back is contingent upon where you are.

The decisions that have or have not been made don't require approval from anyone other than the parties involved and if others don't like it they can go play in traffic.

*****

I remember standing on the balcony, arms around each other, comfortable in the warmth of a best friend's presence.

Nuzzling her neck I smelled home and knew it could be anywhere she was. When she asked me why I was smiling I told her I loved her and when she said it back I said "I know."

Her nose scrunched up and she told me I should be more humble. I laughed again and said I had been humbled by life more times than I could count. Hell and I had become fast friends and I wasn't afraid to visit it again because experience had proven I could climb back out.

Sometimes life takes those declarations far too seriously so it pulled her out of my arms and sent me far away.

*****

When I woke up we were in separate beds in separate places and I knew she had forgotten what had been.

I didn't ask if it was intentional or otherwise because the reasons didn't matter. I just knew I had been cast back down into the pit from which I had climbed out of and that even if I called out for her she wouldn't hear me nor would she come looking.

During other times there was no doubt about whether she would notice my absence. Those were the moments when my absence was as painful to her as hers was to mine.

But when memory is wiped you don't notice you are choking, literally or figuratively. You just pass through the days.

If you ask if I was angry about this I will say yes. If you ask if I was frustrated I will say yes. If you ask if I was scared I will say no.

Not because I was foolish, fool hardy or too angry to notice that I should be scared but because I recognized the pit and saw where I had left marks on the wall.

It was the same cell they had tried to keep me in before but they hadn't bothered to install new locks or hire new jailors.

All I had to do now was recreate my last escape. All I had to do was find a way to rebuild and remake it all and climb back out.

I didn't have time to worry about how to restore her memory. All I had was faith that if we had time in person I would find the key that opened the door that had been closed.

But there was far too much to do before that could happen so I did what I had done before. I took a hard look at her pictures, smiled at the memories and then walled off that part of the library because I couldn't afford to get lost thinking about love when there was work to do to get back out.

That would have to wait.

Still every now and then I heard bells in my head and had this feeling that she was thinking about me and I wondered about the future.

Is There Such A Thing As Too Many Gifts?

listen to ‘Is There Such A Thing As Too Many Gifts?’ on audioBoom

Where Have I Been

Might have noticed that I haven't updated things here in a while. That is unusual for me and not something that I am used to having to write about because it just doesn't happen.

Been writing elsewhere fairly steadily which is probably part of the reason you haven't seen me around these parts.

And some of it is because somehow I fell down the rabbit hole again and I am working my ass off to try and get out of it. Add a dose of frustration and a double dose of WTF and you'll have an idea of where my head is at.

The other thing that is worth mentioning is I hate feeling like I am whining so I'll cut this short, but if you want to see more interesting reading try one of these:

1. Cancel Christmas Because I Beat Up Santa Claus
2. The Lonely Blogger
3. The Art Of Blogging & Bad Meatloaf
4. How Bad Bloggers Make Good Bloggers Sexier
5. Why You Should Never Blog About Sex With Clergy Members