I have returned from the return or in other words I have taken ill reasoning to the extreme and laid myself down to rest and woke up with a fever and a sore throat and wondered what the hell. The last couple of three days or so have been spent in a state of the mind that languishes internally aware of every light and every noise. I can breathe and I can see and I can make nice sounds with my noise. This is the essence of a warm weather sniffle cold one moment, warm the next, sweating after that. It feels like I am describing menopause. Perhaps this is one of those awareness moments that we grasp in the fullest extent. Hey this is like that so perhaps I am changing in some way and this is the avenue for change that physically I must wander.

I have taken in the welcome mat and left a donut disturbed sign out on my forehead. This branch of the insanity makes one smile effortlessly as I am carried off into the setting of the sun over the eastern sky. All things being equally reversed the sun rises in the west and sets in the east and toilets spin in left to right instead of right to left and it is all explained rationally in the course of a two hour dissertation about physical properties and special physics. Simply really once you get down to the brass tacks and grasp the golden monkey by its jewels.

I have lost some of the apparent spontaneity I once enjoyed so deliciously. The reasons for that are varied and I suspect they are in some ways positive and in others negative. There are very few steps we take in life that are truly win-win ones where we never look back and say well I gave up this to gain that and in the long view that was a good choice. Recently I have parted ways as you are aware with someone I had known for many years. I will say that in looking at the situation now with a much clearer head that the friendship was over a couple years back. What was not settled was the manner in which the threads would be cut. I have found that I am brutally honest and in the same way brutal in removing the memories from consideration once I turn a corner. In other words I can be cold and harsh when required to be so and with that I do over stand the fear that others have of me. Or at least I over stand how one can perceive me as being cold, distant and aloof.  Am quite aware of my limitations when it comes to others and though I am reminded of them from time to time I find that by being less I have gained more. Sure the wild erratic crazy lunatic that would say anything and discuss anything with anyone was kind of unique and different and inspiring. Ultimately it did more harm than it did good and while I have not returned to the pre-inspired days I have taken a step or two back from the edge of the precipice. While I do like to walk along this line I also like to consider the strange and unusual possibilities that come out of the depths when I do. I am more careful is what it comes down to and while I dance I tend to dance with those who like to dance with me and I ignore those who want to dance with the image of me that they have. Strange as it can be because we all have images of one another that have become our reality. Some words just fit together in this puzzle and some words are better left out or to the side. The same is true of individuals, some will fit into the dynamic and others will not be comfortable dancing as I do. In fact very few people like the dynamic after a time. It is a good vacation spot to let go the inhibitions but when one returns to the normalcy of home and hearth it is best left in Vegas with all the other modes of expression.

So here I can dance the dance of time with time and with those who have my attention and give and take the moments as they come. I am interested in the dialogue that happens in the embrace of the moments that are shared and in giving freely without concern and yet I will never be as truly free as I once was perhaps because I should never have been that open and free to begin with. The constraints having been stretched to the farthest extent that I could manage have now pulled me back inside a more manageable circle of influence. When I look around me I see faces and smiles of those who have walked this way with me and I am comfortable in knowing that they know me for the fool and the sage, for I am both and will forever be a bit of each.

Does it give me paws or is pause the proper use of the term? Does the measure give me a moment so that I must stop and hold my mind in a moment so as to grasp my bearing before moving on or have the words granted me paws to drag across the ground in a fitful dance of play or rage or both? The level of words is like any measure a means to take accounting of where we are from where we began. If we measure the words as I sometimes due simply by the volume then we are flooded to the level of being carried away. But if we measure the words by the quality of the dialogue we are creating then perhaps we are bathing in the calm waters warmed by the ripples of a never ending heated spring of endless potential. Finally if we measure the words by the placement of them into the many stories and continuing journeys that you relate then there is not nearly enough words to satisfy the craving, the desire for more. The lesson on the level is how we measure what we are doing and what the outcome of it is. We are done I suspect when the words have all come out and we can fall silent. We do what we do not for fame or fortune or for the trappings of celebrity, we simply do what we do because the words are inside and they must find a voice outside. If that is a flood then so be it that we flood the landscape around us with the expressions of our minds and when the tide finally ebbs we can sift through it and find the pearls and the gemstones on which we will stake our claims.

I am reminded of the renaissance artists that would go out to paint every day and arrange their works on so many easels and paint a little peace on each work of art each day as the light and contours changed. I am reminded of that because I believe this is what you do. Each character is an individual in your mind and their story is being narrated to you and so you take the time when the moment is ripe to relate what they have recently brought to your mind. The stories unfold then not as complete histories all in one slap on the head but as a series or sequence of conversations told in the unique style of the character that is being interviewed or who is speaking through you.