on May 3rd it will be exactly a year since my father passed away, fading out of a state of dementia into one of eternal sleep. my father's life was a series of rich & dramatic explosions; his death on the other hand could be best described as his tragic & inevitable implosion... a man who once had it all, had nothing left when his time was up. this made me very sad. May of 2007 was a hard one. i came undone & for a time i imagined i could never enjoy life again. it just goes to show "never say never."
sure enough, i'm now growing "down" into my own self faster than ever before. i'm finding new meaning to life & simply living, surviving, adapting, readjusting, failing, succeeding and loving myself & others... it feels good to know what i want, instead of only knowing what i don't want!
to anticipate & concoct back-up plans while living in the present, now that's a tricky one for me. for almost 30 years, living like there would be no tomorrow worked out so well. living like tomorrow would "work itself out" was working itself out to some extent. i dodged a whole lotta bullets & ignored the ones that hit me. i guess i can say i gave it a good running & i've had tons of fun along the way. the thing is, you can only brush off so many bullets till one day the world you live in feels like one big metal detector!!! that annoying beeping or electronic squeeking those damn airport metal detectors make starts to follow you around everywhere you go. that's just no way to live! i never thought i'd say this, but i much prefer peace & quiet. if i'm going to fuck up again, as it is innate to being a human, i'm hoping it will flourish into more harmonious "happy accidents." shit, do i sound like a total hippie now??? anyhew, i am more present now than i ever was, and becoming more focused with each experience. i know too much now not to improve nor to avoid the inescapable. from an early age, i always knew too much. i certainly felt too much... at least now i'm aware of it. i'm better equipped to filter the noise & take full responsibility for my actions.
at the end of the day, i still slip & slide every once in a while. the world is a slippery slope! you can't fight the laws of gravity. so when i fall, with a little help from my friends, i can pick myself up without making too much of a fuss and eventually dance to the the most festive music i know -- Venezuelan salsa:
"The further back you can look,
the farther forward you are likely to see."
Winston Churchill, quoted in the Lochaber, Scotland, News
"The greatest of faults, I should say,
is to be conscious of none."
Historian Thomas Carlyle, quoted in the Johannesburg Business Day
the farther forward you are likely to see."
Winston Churchill, quoted in the Lochaber, Scotland, News
"The greatest of faults, I should say,
is to be conscious of none."
Historian Thomas Carlyle, quoted in the Johannesburg Business Day
