I often describe the internal struggle as stripping. The art of baring the soul is very much to me like taking ones clothes off on a stage piece by piece and allowing the world to see all. This necessity in time bares all and we are exposed to the light of time and the ages. When we are young the idea of such an adventure is daunting to the soul but as we age we see the need to let go of all we hold inside. The art we choose then become the medium for this expression or release of the internal hue that swirls about and around us. For me the choice of words was not an easy one for all my life I struggled with the use of this medium as a means to express myself. I did better than I said and I still do show more with my actions then I do with my words. Words were to me at times empty without the movements behind them. What is love without the force of the actions to hold, to protect to open your heart to another? What are words in comparison to the experience of a stroll along a beach or a journey to a far off land? They are in comparison an easy way to dream or to put before another a desire or even an untruth or a limited truth that they will never grasp or seize upon but will use as a means to define the author or to imagine the author.

In writing I have created an illusion of a reality that is in truth an illusion. The reality is much less than the imagined and is therefore more tangible to the realities that are everyday life. Our emotions dictate how we perceive the words that are written far more than the words themselves. If we are open say to another we will read what they have to say with a mind set to hear what is on their mind. If we however are experiencing darker emotions then when we read the words we will color them in the colors of our moods and define them with our emotions. We get trapped in the swings of the fabric of our emotions. This is also true of the writer who sets down their emotions in a wave of energy and hopes to free the images in their mind or the ache in their soul. Often cries for help are seen as attacks or angry outbursts when in reality they are real tangible screams of help me. What is this illusion that is me that others perceive of me or frame around me? That is a question I am unable to answer for it is what others grasp of the illusion plus small fragments of the reality of me.

I have become lost in the change of phase from one aspect of my life into this other. I feel the responsibility or the weight of responsibility like I never did before and it presses on me unevenly. Until this point in my life I have never wanted to just let it go and free myself from all aspects of the burdens that are there. For some reason or state of my mind lately all I think about is being free of the burdens that are stacked as high as the ceilings all around me and every waking hour is a reminder of one or another of the responsibilities I have. It would seem that not a thing will get done unless I am in some way a force in its completion. After a time that weighs heavy on a person’s shoulders.

Time has stolen a peace from me and while I was there I was not aware of the significance of what was being taken at the time it was removed from me. Time takes and leaves us weathered and scarred and a bit less energetic in the process. Time is a thief that comes in the night slipping between the sheets and taking from us the vitality and drive that is youth and replacing it with experience and patience which is age. We like to believe that we are all fine wines aging with elegance and become more fruitful and alive. We need to believe we are more as we cross certain time lines, so we make up sayings and we enjoy the swirling of the ideas that fifty is the new forth and that life begins at fifty or sixty or whatever the time line happens to be that we are at approaching of just passed. We like to believe a lot of things and some are worthy of our beliefs and some are just foolish ignorance of the reality. We are as vital now as we were once we are just not as pliable physically. Our ideas and thoughts are as they were always except we are tempered by the realities we have faced. So while we have not changed much we have changed a great deal and in so doing we have managed to cross over the great divide that is the first part of our lifetime to the second part of our life time. When I say we I am referring more to me that a general we of others who I am sure maybe experiencing the same angst of time. It is not that I am incapable of doing something it is that I just lack the desire to do it the way it should be done and therefore would much prefer to leave it to another. Who that other is we will see in time for I doubt any of my offspring will leap to hold up the world when I falter and I will falter that is a certainty for life is not eternal no matter how we wish it were.

I have been trying to write for a few days and each time I sit to do so a lot of nonsense pours forth from the wellspring of my mind. How long this will last remains to be seen or read about I suspect until I get to the point of returning to the notes or finding words I wish to share more intimately. I could say I am lost but that is a word I have used quite a lot in the past to explain the general lack of focus that comes and goes related to my art and I believe it is more than being lost it is in reality a mind afloat. From time to time I become unhinged from the moorings that hold me down and in those times it is best to just go with the flow however and wherever it takes me. The truth of the reality is that eventually the floating will stop against something hard and harsh and I will awaken from the artistic slumber and get my head on and move forward. What is certain now is that the process of movement has begun because I am writing albeit nonsensical and ridiculous it is writing of a sort. What I do find most often is that when faced with the choice of saying something and not slide to the side that says something even at the risk of seeming a little off or ridiculous for even being that is being something more than we were just a second ago. A nice relaxed few moments in time is what I crave but will never get so perhaps what I should learn to  do is to crave the actions that speak louder than the words I write. So in reflection those who know me can say that my actions spoke volumes while my words spoke softly but carried the weight of my convictions.

The chance of anything in a relationship making sense is quite remote and quite rare. Relationships by their very nature are and will always be nonsensical and illogical at the core. We can never help to whom we fall in love with and when that love will enter our lives or even when it will leave us. All we can do is embrace the time we are granted and know that by doing so we are doing the best we can. There will always be those who will judge us by what we have not accomplished or not taken on. That eye of judgment is nearsighted and illogical in my mind. A hindsighted view of the world is not what interests me in regards to self or another. What interests me is what one choose to do and finished.

A problem hummm is it a problem or a situation? Is it a problem or an opportunity to react? Is it a problem solved by a change of perspective or by another means altogether? Is the problem with me or is the problem with another and I am in between the walls of the environment? There are for me many questions related to the place and the point in time. Spring is an eternal moment and I have a flash of resonance to consider. What are my possibilities and my extensions that I employ at a moment’s notice to grasp the tide and ride the wave. I am many things and know things all at the same exact moment in time. The possibilities as they say are endless and boundless.

The concept of having enough is indeed the level of where one changes the road they are on and moves across the way to another. When that moment arrives we should be prepared me thinks for the alternative steps. They are however leaps even when we are pressed into the mold slowly over a long period of time. Each turn of the vise takes us closer to the reality that time has altered the dream somewhat and we are forced to live in that reality. I will move with the beat of my own drum as they say and yes I will get a bit annoyed with me from time to time because I do fail to leap or I get complacent. Life is not about stagnant pools of time anymore, it never ways but it does seem that way to me when I look back upon it. A different pool for each stage of my life.

Why we do what we do can never truly be explained clearly to the other we exchange words with. Each does so for a series of reasons that will make sense to some and not to others. We do it for personal satisfaction or for the smile it brings to our face or for a good solid feeling. We do so and it makes us sense something about who we are. Having said that, it does lead us to share thoughts, emotions, expressions and bits and pieces of our reality with each other. We write about us in our way and form the words the other creates a picture of the other’s reality and also the inner workings of their mind or imagination. I do this for very selfish reasons because it makes me feel alive and involved. It makes me feel good about myself and the world around me.

As for being content and comfortable with my place the truth is the opposite. I am in a period of discontent and I am uncomfortable with the four walls of my life. So many in my life are unsettled and I the rock that they cling to and in so doing the marks of wear and the places that tare are aching with the soreness of holding it all together. On the surface what you say is a truthful image but what boils underneath is a wellspring of churning tightness that is being fed by others need to vent, to shift responsibility and to share their load.

Our society is a toss away society and I have many examples of relationships that I have had that are now tossed to the way side of the road. We have many strings attached to us that come and go and some that stay and who is what and which one is what one, we never truly know for sure. I over stand that I am not an ease person to know and that I will do what I believe is best in a singular moment without regard for the future moments yet to be. This sort of truthfulness has scarred many a path I have shared and left me alone on most of them. I have few soft pillows to fall back upon and rest in an embrace that would be comforting to my soul. I am a creature of my own creation that is a fact of purity I am aware of every day. While I can spin a web of words I find the web itself a deceit and a clever way of trapping others. Once trapped souls struggle to be free and once free they never walk this way so easily. I wish it was just about sex or physical touch or something so bland and easy that it was superficial. It is however about soul and intense emotions that speak volumes, it is about relationships and how much I do value each expression letter, note and thought. I can say that I have never thrown away any relationship I have been within, but I have been tossed aside and stepped over around or simply passed by. Some of the reasons for this are my own fault for I do write and speak my mind and in so doing I am not shall we say diplomatic nor am I warm and fuzzy when words need to be said. Most want the warm and fuzzy and to be told yes you are doing the right thing and so on and so forth. Are there points that are mine certainly my distance and above it all attitude has gotten me into more difficulties they I can express. Is there are answer to these questions or situations, nothing more than the spiraling of the time and learning from the steps we have taken. So if I feel at a distance it is because I am hidden in the woods by the stream watching and waiting for the inner me to come into balance with the world and my outer self. I know those around me will find their balance in time all I have to do is just maintain the rock that they stand upon for that period of time and reflection whatever it takes for them to reach the ring they are stretching out to grasp. Somewhere in that reflective mind set will be an entire string of roads that lead us somewhere in time.

It has been sometime since I wanderer across many strings or webs. I am at heart a recluse I believe and would for the most part sequester myself in amongst the ruins and read and write in silence. What would I write about and to whom would I write is the questions I have often asked if left to my own leanings? A strange confluence of thought as all thoughts are: when we come right down to it. Our natural tendencies tend to be the opposite of what we desire or what we wish to accomplish. We wish to write say and yet we are shy and protective of our thoughts so we create a persona that is different so we can write and we can exchange ideas in an open forum. Yet this leaves the internal hue in shadows that very few realize is there.

I have a different notion of me as well as the mist that exists in between. While I will succumb to being an illusion that label is a shared one. Each of us has an illusion of the other and while we do try to unmask the other we are not truly trying to find the reality beneath the veil. We are I think trying to balance the reality with enough illusion or illusion with enough reality so that it makes sense. When I have too much reality in my life, like what is happening now, I long to sit and just let it go for a time and write whatever comes to mind. In my world this balances out the reality with the illusion and settles the angst in my being. We have taught one another how to say things and what to say and it is a good lesson to look back upon from time to time because the slippery slope of hurt is easily found and when found the control is lost in fleeting leaps and bounds. Life is unfair and it will continue to be so and I get annoyed with myself when I fail to take the proper time or give the proper focus to what is important. That is in essence my point. I am annoyed with me.

While it is a truism that nothing we can imagine is out of reach or impossible to reach for it is also true that we sometimes forget to reach beyond what is within our grasp. This is a place where I am at the moment resting comfortably in a mindset that allows for me to reach so far and not beyond that set controlled by the limits that are in degrees adjusted. I feel wrapped in a tight bundle ready to pop open and burst for a moment and then completely at ease with not being out there in the wilds. I wonder at times how I have become so complacent and so easy with what unfolds around me. Yet they are of my own making. My mind turns with age and responsibilities and I long for the time when I can kick off the shoes and just feel the sand between my toes. I do so wish to rest a deep slumber but I rarely get to sleep or to slumber even though I doze off in wonder and find traces of the webs that I once weaved. I am silent on the outside but there is a silent dialogue on the inside that rattles and prattles about endlessly. I think about writing it all down and it comes out in gibberish and wild strokes of the pen. Am I real or is this a Memorex moment you will need to decide.

The cost is as essential element of consideration. This is based on a natural law of equal and opposite reactions to any force of nature. With every push there is a pull with every move a counter move and so on and so forth. The same is also true of instruction and learning, for each lesson there is a time set aside to absorb and then put into practice what has been learned. The rate of learning is not a slow ponderous product of steps but it is more a lesson in grasping the strings and using them in quick strokes of dedicated insight. At first this style is a leap or a bound into the deepest part of the lake and we struggle with staying afloat until we are balancing ourselves just above the water mark. When we finally get an over standing of the means by which we can stay afloat we experiment with movement and different strokes and ideas that allow us to get from one stage to another until we can move freely from one place to another effortlessly.

Sweet and summer seem to go hand in hand, at least in my mind the thoughts of summer and something sweet to hold onto or sample is synonymous. Perhaps my memories are slanted through the looking glass of time or they are simply the longings for times long past. Summer heat and sweet tastes are numerous to my mind too numerous to qualify or even to begin to list out.

A solid wall of wastes tiles found across the river sits in my memory. I studies the art of the opposite juxtaposed in another perception just to find the easiest mantle to hang the hearth upon. In coming to the conclusions that I have found most useful I stirred the reported pot so many times with the clock and then just once in the opposite direction just to see the swells and the alternating eddies of the currents. She appears in my dreams from time to time masked by the clouds of sinister smiles and speaks to me of times long gone past in the centuries long ago trembling with desire I once walked a longer stride. When this occurs my mind goes white and brandishes the forgetfulness of my present nature. It was truly that easy to forget the past and move on as a simple sheet of white all aglow with what can be.

The summer lends itself to careless moments expressed in lounging delight. The warmth of the sun and the nature of the air grants one the possibility that it should be taken with small sips and laughed about while enjoying the ability to breathe the air. On occasion I have indulged the wine of summer finding it satisfactory to my mind but not completely to my soul, for that I require something more iced and frozen tropical and delightful for its lust and fancy. Not that I will ever reach the stage where lust and fancy meet and take me by the hand to some far off corner of the world to indulge my fantasies butt I can always dream of it and drinks such as summer ones do that for me, very cold and very refreshing to the dreamer in me. When walking about it is necessary for me at least to scale the walls that block the avenues that I stroll from time to time the weather watches the earth bake and then thaw only to steam once more. I will take the rain in drops over a few days to relieve the parched soil and to hold down the dust that swirls in clouds. A little bit of this and that balanced in equal measures will do it for me and when the pilot says this way home perhaps I will follow another road just to be different and yet arrive home just the same as others who followed the straight and the narrow path dictated by social norms when asked how does one get there from here. A circuitous route will ease my mind and provide time for me to be lulled into that sense of pleasure that exercise provides the muscles. I tried the lamp on the bed side and found it enlightening listen as its filament toiled with the energy flickering a glow of awareness into the room groggy from sleep. I woke with an ear filled and awkward and staggered to the necessary slightly off my game. Sleep brings on the strangest sort of aches and pains while providing restful bliss until one wakes and the strange ailments of sleep appear. Over time a few moments of discomfort and suddenly the levels shifted and the clarity I am used to returned with a deep sigh of relief. Slightly blind slightly hard of hearing and slightly bald are my echoes of age this summer’s day oh how I do miss the summers of my youth just now when all I was concerned with was how much I needed for school and when I could manage to fit a trip to the beach in. Where are those lazy hazy crazy days of summer I so enjoyed and longingly remember?

Dreams wishes fantasies all make for interesting conversations beginning with what if and on we go. Summer days lend themselves to such wanderings of the mind with our cool glass of something and a penchant for just letting time pass us by. Summers days are great for the relaxed mind that while we have things to take care of we still have plenty of sunlight in the long days that we are capable of just letting go of some of the tight constraints and just being at peace with ourselves. The what if is a natural way of saying I wonder what would be if I had taken that road instead of this one. The truth is it does not matter what road we took or will take or what direction we choose from. We are who we are and either road will lead us to where we need to be. The difference is that perhaps one road would get us there faster with a different frame of reference and the other will lead us a bit astray before depositing us where we are or where we need to be. The beauty of the dream of the lamp is that it seems possible know what age you talk about it. It is a story of the diamond in the rough or one of potential that just needs a spark to bring it forth. We are all capable of more we are all capable of leaps beyond what we attempt. What we lack sometimes is the proper motivation to inspire us to make our best effort in doing so.

The opposite is of truthful proportions here so after a time of relentless watering down of the soul the sun came out and has not hastened to wander a single day for almost two long months. As much as it watered us it has now stopped the flow and we sit in wonder of the bright sun and the fading green to dusty sage. One sits with a cold glass of something frosted and oozing of perspiration in this type of heated place and still is not refreshed. Cold is longed for, cold is wished for in memory of the winter’s nights huddled by the raging fire of time warmed by the burning of the fuel and the constant pop of the wood as it is consumed. I relax on the inner sanctum on these days awash in conditioned air that keeps the sweat down and the moisture at bay. I long for the cold drink of something that warms my soul and remember the autumn leaves and the winter’s kiss that chilled the morning air.  Patterns work out to averages so when it slides to one side or the other on a scale we know eventually it must slide to the other extreme to balance out the averages. That is what an average is a mathematical calculation of the whole divided by the number of days. So while we can find comfort in the souls that sit and relax in our embrace we can also long for a more sensible balance. The winter was warm enough to wander about and now the summer is so hot we take to the inner doors to find sanctuary. Wine is not my choice in the warm days of summer I prefer a cold, very cold chilly refreshment that calms my weather beaten brow and allows me to drink deeply of its embrace. Wine warms my inner being and while I embrace a glass in the chilly days I avoid is call when the weather turns to heat.

I stood abreast of the fold watching intently the water as it fell. It was all an illusion of that I am fully aware of and while I know it intuitively I also know that to think otherwise is folly. I prefer to copy the words as to think of them myself, is this a form of thievery or is it just poetic license?  I in inclined to tell you that it is poetic in its licensing of me to use whatever words come to my mind however they are reached for or heard and then applied. In that way I can find a word in the lining of my mind from a book or a quotation spoken or read and use it as my own. A peacock wrapped in colors struts away hoping to encourage the smile and the gentle nature of the other so to have a feast of feathers. I feel exploited by the water as it falls way and tumbles to each in a mighty roar, perhaps it is just my nature showing.

In my world the pulls and pushes are endless reminders of the fabric that underlies the beauty of each day. This is a way of seizing upon the thin veil of reality and wrapping it around the wonder of the imagined turbulence of time. I have often enjoyed the ride with the tumbling tumbleweed of time bouncing across the open desert in search of the high wall or barrier that will stop me from continuing on. It is not that I wish to stop at all or that stopping would bring about some alteration in how I perceive the world. I just need to settle down at times into myself and get a grip on where I am and with whom I am nestled. The world is a sharp and harmful place for the tame at heart, it requires a more robust battled hardened sort of soul and yet the ones who truly feel connected to the world seem to enjoy the small wonders best. So while one pushes the other will pull and the see saw of life will move us one up and one down for some time yet to come around again and we will find the slopes slippery when wet and icy when cold and dry and dust filled when the heat of summer languishes the earth to a barren harsh landscape. This is the tempo of life turning over and passing by only to remind us of summer’s past and winters yet to be. Please feel free to wander in the garden and sprinkle the flowers the soft rain water that is cooled to the perfect degree and when the time strikes the right chord sit and relax for a long spell for it is what one deserves, isn’t it?