A little dance

It moved. It moved.

The damn thing moved. 

Violent but welcome

A sound understood 

Clattering against the granite. 

Length, wit, banter, turns

Cadence, tap, shoulders, hips

Commas

A future oddly, frighteningly in parallel

A dance in two parts from afar

Motion and inaction

Desire yet commitments

A chance thwarted yet sought

Tango across the pond

Waiting isn't skipping the beat

Furtive glances. Silent granite. 

It finally moved. 

Never today, hardly tomorrow.

More dancing. More in step. 

Empty spaces nonetheless. 

Tuesday isn't here 

Can never be

Monday never ended

Thrice thwarted spaces

Timetables ever triumphant. 

Since some of you have been asking...

Some of you might have noticed that I've been traveling a lot recently. It's for highly personal reasons that I don't care to share at large; some of you know why or suspect. Those that don't—I'm fine, I have all my bits and bobbles and everything is working (better) than specifications dictate. I've also managed to go three weeks now without roller skating into any walls, though I make no promises for the rest of this trip. 

I've rediscovered an important aspect about life. It's not about where you go or what you do per se, it's about how you do it. I'm headed to Monaco as I'm writing this. In the past two days I've visited my uncles in Fort Lauderdale, spent a half day in London, meeting new people and visiting old haunts, chunneled to Paris, walking around the city in the dead (that city is never dead!) of night just looking at places and observing the quite frankly beautiful denizens of the city of lights. (Seriously guys do you ever sleep? I thought I was bad!)

In a few minutes I'll jump on a helicopter to fly into Monaco. Why a helicopter? Because almost no one else will. It's not a train or a taxi or bus—it's not the usual route. That's my point and my continuing vow, to approach life, situations, and people in ways that almost no one else will. 

It's not a question of means, it's a willingness to be open to new ideas and new methods when opportunities present themselves. I had no idea about the helicopter option before I heard about it. There was no plan other than my standing plan—like Alice do three impossible things before breakfast...wait that's someone else's plan. I'm sure I have a standing plan around here somewhere. 

Do something new today, if it's only taking a new way home. Call a old friend, make a new one. Smile. Drop your grudges. Your soul will thank you. Who knows, next time I decide to up and just take off (that happens a lot it seems) you might be sitting next to me. 

Musing

Beat down, time needed, a shell, they've said.

 

A shell is structure. A shell is framework. A shell is all that is needed for massive coral structures to grow and thrive and provide shelter to life abundant. 

Does a shell need courage? Or just to be?

Of course...

Of course we rush in, we closet romantics of the post-modern age. We who can't help but to love to the core in the world jaded. 

Of course we ignore the battle scars, the wounds earned despite our better judgement. We who can't help to bleed over and over again. 

Of course we are to become twisted, doomed to be the worst of the dead. We who have tasted purity in an imperfect world. 

Of course the darkness bites at our souls, ravenous to sup upon the once alive. We, the fools, compelled to try again and again. 

Be foolish I say. Be alive I say. Be the spark and the light that no one can bear to look at. Bleed. Bleed. Bleed. For we are the hope against the banal. We know, we KNOW the path in the world of the lost. 

Phantoms

Constructs surround us all, wisps of the earned and unearned reputations, ivy-covered ruins of our lover's well-meaning but limiting boxes, threads of memories half-present, now more story than history. We are more idea of a person than person. Like Cylons, we all live in an augmented reality of our own delusions.

Am I talking to, loving, hating, bantering with, sparring, one-upping, and helping him, or the construct that I carry of him? Do I ever really interact with people? Perhaps Plato was ultimately right and I've only been dealing with shadows.

All that remains...

Words. That's all I seem to have left. My serious entanglements are unknotted, my casual ties—frayed. All that remains are words, phrases, half-truths, partial lies, stories untold, a cacophony of letters jostling in and out of order, demanding my attention as I try and take stock of a shattered life. 

Lives are meant to be shattered. Risks are to be taken. A safe life is not the life worth living. If you're lucky, your life will be shattered too. 

The tenuous, yet very sincere, bonds we form obviously shape us. Many like to opine about this, but we often fail to realise the lesson we should take from basic chemistry. Hydrogen doesn't stop being hydrogen simply because it's currently hooking up with oxygen. Fundamentally we are unchanged by ties we form and if we are truly, truly, fortunate in life, we will be reminded of this a few times. 

So as I look around, alone, tatters of one life beside and behind me, with merely words to guide me, I choose some of my favourites, "I'm nobody. Who are you? / Are you nobody too?"

Words. I'm in good company finally.