YOU GOT IT
… anything you want, wish for it
Saturday Apr. 5, 2014
Maybe we are all like those self-repairing zippers. We get stuck, break, and re-zip ourselves a few times and find ourselves feeling good as new again. I am. I do.
“I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion”. – Jack Kerouac
Week left me.
Tested, genuflected, un-broken.
Not unbroken, but broke-fixed, more better fine, stronger and as if I’d not been broken in the first place, ceaseless and defiant.
Somewhere between there and here, between back then and right now, something happened, something clicked for me, fixed for me, whatever was wrong. Maybe spring really arrived – maybe that was it, but that is fleeting.
I’m feeling something deeper, clearer. Untroubled.
Not old, not same-old, but fresh. No doubt of that.
But is this learning of some new variation on very old themes?
Different from learning of the ages, experiences others had so many times before me?
Surely I’m not first, not only, not so unique as to have feelings nobody had up to now, strategies nobody tried previously or solutions nobody ever found in days of yore.
My thinking is that we each need some key formula of understanding, for ourselves, solving ourselves. While I often argue (rightly of course) how similar and not-unique we are, in this case I’ll take the snowflake analogy that we are all uniquely different from one another.
If you like my methodology, borrow or scrounge-away all you like – I offer these thoughts as amateur solutions to my clearly non-professional rooted to my core set of botherations.
Emotions eat. We feed them. Mine, never starving for food or thought, never ignored for long because they rear their mast-like heads, standing to be counted or leak out in forms of non-constructive (see how cutely I avoid using the term self-destructive) actions and reactions.
Recovery, discovery, life views, everything shifting – not seismically. But altered progressively. I think so. Not sure. Pondering. Wondering. Wandering …
So rich in opportunity, we wish wrong things yet say stupid things, like “be careful what you wish for”.
Wishes aren’t granted, dreams don’t come true.
Perceived happiness vis-à-vis things we wish for.
But, when we believe wishes CAN come true:
Anything. Any thing at all. Any thing you want. If we lamp-rubbed, what would we ask genie for? What would you choose?
In those mini-MacGyver moments, between rocks and hard places, for survival against horrid odds, would you wish for matches, jackknife or spool of wire?
Facing one-week-to-live, what would you wish?
Facing today, are you wishing, or doing?
Our minds are wrong-way skewed – don’t want lottery wins, stock-market windfalls or great inheritances from uncle-Bob we never knew – facing real problems, real opportunities or real jumping-off-cliff moments, don’t we wish for (ache for?) truly simple.
For lonely child – that best toy isn’t half the fun of a dirt pile or puddle.
For lonely folks on dark quiet nights – simple touch or phone call – magic.
For lone travelers, on any path – company.
No solutions, no large gifts – simply company.
To know you are not alone.
I used to wish for things.
I used to wish for people.
Now I wish for feelings.
Every minute. Every day.
Feelings keep me company, but not as much as a friend.
Feeling sad can never match puddle-splashes or a dirt pile hour spent.
Like earth, we grind along through life in a pre-dust state – lets have fun while we are here.
Answers don’t emerge from a session on a head-doctor’s couch or massage therapists table, not from a TED-talk or nature walk, but we all want a happy ending.
I am happy. I am sad. About different things. I am alive because it is superior to death – not because I choose it, but because I am increasingly so conscious that I never want to lose it, not because I can avoid inevitability, but because there is so much I want to do.
So much to do.
I can only do it alive.
I can only do it if I want to do it, and to do that, I must be more than surviving alive – I must be on fire, fired up and blazing inside.
I’ll close with my prize Jack Kerouac quote (a copy sits at seated eye-level in my bathroom):
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and every body goes Awww … ”
Memory too, of that framed card, of who gave it to me so very long ago – it seems like forever now.
I am ready for more breakage, more fixes, more do-overs, more taste, less waste, more use of time and opportunity, more living, more loving, more pushing and shoving, more burst of energy and great joy.
I read yesterday, in his own words, my dad lamenting being a child without a toy – just dirt to play in. I heard yesterday about my granddaughter coming back from a walk, just soaked from puddles. Awww
I love dirt.
I love puddles.
Time for play …
Mark Kolke
P.S.: thanks CM for the tickets. That concert was fun – if not for the musicians who seemed so good individually but oddly paired. The people watching was entertaining well beyond the price of any ticket.
197,872
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: 5C/40F and rising fast, sunny and fresh, Gusta going nuts over all the smells left beneath former snow banks. I’m just thrilled to have solid footing and some great exercise. We did the long-loop, squirrels and Magpies in abundance, one rabbit (still white – what does he know that I don’t know?).
Reader feedback / comments always welcome:
“Explore life, experience risks and rewards, failures and miss-steps. There is no wrong choice, only the next choice. And the next.” … Bravo – well said, AK, Calgary, AB
I liked your musing today!, DL, Invermere, BC
