Everywhere I turn lately, I am confronted with the "richness of historical legacies," whether verbalized or implied in casual conversations or in the intensity of documented dictates. It creates pause for reflection and life thoughts. As each of us treads with purpose into the innards of the 21st century, what has become painfully obvious is that the shelf life of some historical legacies appears short-lived and oftentimes short-sighted. There is a global exposure of history that will leave future generations with wonderment coupled with an infusion of bewilderment for those who lived and left indecorous and indecipherable legacies for them to internalize and understand.
If we look at today's world where the armpits of humanity are exposed in public forums with a superfluous fling of attitude and polarized intentions, the historical legacy that is being left to the next generation and to those yet to be born borders on a deep-rooted power struggle of polarization that is more emotive and selfish than historical. The incessant verbiage of recent conversations on the richness of historical legacies that are being left as imprints on our planet creates a social, economic, emotional and educational divide for current generations and future ones.
As voices raise in the inculpatory polarization echoing off the mahogany walls of the power-mongers in a world inundated with debasements of cause and creed, there is an inherent marginalization and oppression of some that continues to create its own historical legacy. What historically has been rich and deepest in its roots of transformation has become a pourparier of inclusive groupings catering to misoneism as the history of demarcation continues to define our world.
But yet in definitive contrast, history has marked our life thoughts and our lives. What is even deeper in our collective world are the historical richness of legacies born of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds, that have served us well and created change and inclusivity within the depravity of fear and flux. It is important to understand and remember that there is indeed a "richness of many historical legacies" that have provided life, civil rights, equal opportunity, legislation of Brown vs. Board of Education, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Banneker, Nelson Mandela, Morgan Freeman, Maya Angelou and a host of historical legacies and lives that have lived, given back and continue to live and give in the universal consciousness of our thoughts and actions.
The beauty of this richness of history is that it was not done with polarization, denigration and exclusion of the very group that it purports to embrace, the collective world. In its truest manifestation of history and legacy, those who gave of their lives and their dreams did so within the collaborative drumbeats of the social consciousness and within the collective hearts of honor and integrity. Again, it gives pause for reflection and life thoughts.
I live my life in the richness of life's "historical legacies" that are written on the scarred backs of those who toiled the cotton fields and created rebirth on the soils of the African Sahara. I see my heritage in the sweat and tears of those who learned to read and run towards educational freedom and freedom of the mind and soul. I honor the legacy of those who gave the ultimate life sacrifice to etch in the soils of the global land, the richness of history that is not written in textbooks or stored in the deepest chambers of the historical vaults containing remnants of a history created to divide and polarize the spirits of humanity.
We are a world built on life's "historical legacies," and as we embrace upon the journey of a new year, it is imperative that we revisit that which is rich and historical in our own life thoughts and within our own legacy. It is important to revisit the richness of historical legacies that continue to serve as life connections of the spirit, hopes and dreams of our current world and the world of generations now and yet to come. It is time to pass the torch as our global world moves towards the collective goals of unity and change.
As the gatekeepers of our new world, it is our duty and charge to go forth in an "historical legacy" of renewal. As we leave the peaceful etchings of a global beating heart in the sands of a world that is evolving and creating its own richness and "historical legacy," only then can we rest forever in the folds of the Universe and rebirth.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Spiritual Movement Through Life's Journey
As each of us creates purpose through our personal spiritual movement on our journey back towards the synergy of the Universe, we have goals, visions and blueprints on the begin and end of our life's story. For most of us, our deepest belief lies in something beyond what is tangible around us. That belief lies deeper than what we can visualize and hear in the chaos of the world we live in and even deeper in the brief nanosecond of time we have on the planet.
Our perfect template of our spiritual movement lies in embracing a life that is full of promise and hope. We see our lives as dreamworks of success and power on the art canvasses of the Universe. We are the artists of our spiritual movement, painting our story as only we can visualize it, oblivious to the fabric of what life has woven for our journey.
As we move down the road of life that we have envisioned for our time on the planet, we want everything to be perfect and surreal. When our road develops a fork that forces us to venture into an unknown, we begin to question our spiritual beliefs and question our belief in the beyond asking why we have to travel down a fork in our life's journey. The forks are there by design and by the trust that we should have in the Universal construct of our life's dreams and blueprints. We are given conscious choice to create the desires of our hearts with the understanding that there is a bigger picture in a bigger Universal design for our lives.
What we inherently must understand and truly embrace is that we are not in control of our life's journey, not now, not ever. We are merely guests in a collective humanity that bonds us and gifts us with the connections of our enlightenments and our hearts. When we understand our status, it is only then that we can act on our own behalf and truly treasure and appreciate the gift of our life and that of the lives of others we meet along our journey.
When we can remember that we are the spiritual design of a larger Universe, it is then that we can release our need to control that which is uncontrollable. It is then that we can be open to the gifts that will grow and nurture our souls as we make our spiritual movement through our life's journey.
Our perfect template of our spiritual movement lies in embracing a life that is full of promise and hope. We see our lives as dreamworks of success and power on the art canvasses of the Universe. We are the artists of our spiritual movement, painting our story as only we can visualize it, oblivious to the fabric of what life has woven for our journey.
As we move down the road of life that we have envisioned for our time on the planet, we want everything to be perfect and surreal. When our road develops a fork that forces us to venture into an unknown, we begin to question our spiritual beliefs and question our belief in the beyond asking why we have to travel down a fork in our life's journey. The forks are there by design and by the trust that we should have in the Universal construct of our life's dreams and blueprints. We are given conscious choice to create the desires of our hearts with the understanding that there is a bigger picture in a bigger Universal design for our lives.
What we inherently must understand and truly embrace is that we are not in control of our life's journey, not now, not ever. We are merely guests in a collective humanity that bonds us and gifts us with the connections of our enlightenments and our hearts. When we understand our status, it is only then that we can act on our own behalf and truly treasure and appreciate the gift of our life and that of the lives of others we meet along our journey.
When we can remember that we are the spiritual design of a larger Universe, it is then that we can release our need to control that which is uncontrollable. It is then that we can be open to the gifts that will grow and nurture our souls as we make our spiritual movement through our life's journey.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
As the Snow Thaws
In an instant, the snow thaws as the temperature rises and melts it slowly into pure liquid of life thoughts and buried emotions. Each of us is aligned with the snow melting on the glaciers of emotive mountaintops and the deepest valley crevasses of our lives. As I sit watching the snow recede down the driveway towards destinations unknown, I marvel at the suddenness of a snowfall and the mystery of its meltdown.
How typical our human experiences and emotions are like the snowfall deeply buried in our past, yet profoundly impacting our present. We live our lives in layers of potential meltdowns like a winter snowfall pristining its subtleties of power over the land of our lives. In an instance as life turns a proverbial corner, we are at the mercy of temperature changes and fluctuations that mirror our moods and life journeys. In a flicker of a nanosecond, a trigger happens that opens us spread eagle to the mountaintops and valley crevasses of buried life thoughts and deeper buried life experiences.
It is easy to miss the slow creeping of the snow into unthinkable meltdowns, but we welcome them just as we welcomed the embrace of the snow and the welcome of our memories and reflections. We continue to remain in slow moving denial and the snow continues to thaw towards it ultimate meltdown of fluidity. In our human experience, we stand stoic in our denial of buried memories and thoughts. We are semblances of life and deny ourselves a much needed thaw. Our denial becomes marked by the heaviness of a marbled gravestone on our hearts. We become frozen in who we could have become in our life and accept the facade of who we are. As snow metaphors, we melt thinly into the liquid forms of our existence and flow towards the inevitable of the dark places that we have chosen to cover with thin layers of ice and layers of snowfall.
As the snow thaws, so do we if we allow ourselves to accept our vulnerability and fallibility as human beings who are as liquid as a snow melt or as frozen as an ice field. We choose the rate of our emotive thaws and we choose the depth of our snowfall and what it covers and buries in our life. As the snow thaws, so to does that bigger part of us that dares to dream and hope for the change in our humanity. As the snow melts and flows into the life creeks of our reality, it brings for us renewal and surfacing of what is real and why.
I will miss the snowfall that has blanketed our world and provided reflection and wonder. I will miss how the world was captured if just for a moment in the snow coated arms of the Universe and how we stood frozen in life's embrace and our reflective moments. I will miss how a snowfall created opportunity and a life blanket to wrap ourselves within the deepest of our life thoughts. I will miss the slow synergy of snowfall and its thawing waterfall of liquid meltdown as life once again beats in a dissonance of heart drums and human disconnects and connects.
As the snow thaws, the deepest connections of our being can remain frozen in a time past. As the snow melts, each of us can choose our reconnections with our inner selves and humanity. As the memory of the snowfall etches itself into our collective consciousness, we can learn to live and love again and connect with the life we were meant to live.
How typical our human experiences and emotions are like the snowfall deeply buried in our past, yet profoundly impacting our present. We live our lives in layers of potential meltdowns like a winter snowfall pristining its subtleties of power over the land of our lives. In an instance as life turns a proverbial corner, we are at the mercy of temperature changes and fluctuations that mirror our moods and life journeys. In a flicker of a nanosecond, a trigger happens that opens us spread eagle to the mountaintops and valley crevasses of buried life thoughts and deeper buried life experiences.
It is easy to miss the slow creeping of the snow into unthinkable meltdowns, but we welcome them just as we welcomed the embrace of the snow and the welcome of our memories and reflections. We continue to remain in slow moving denial and the snow continues to thaw towards it ultimate meltdown of fluidity. In our human experience, we stand stoic in our denial of buried memories and thoughts. We are semblances of life and deny ourselves a much needed thaw. Our denial becomes marked by the heaviness of a marbled gravestone on our hearts. We become frozen in who we could have become in our life and accept the facade of who we are. As snow metaphors, we melt thinly into the liquid forms of our existence and flow towards the inevitable of the dark places that we have chosen to cover with thin layers of ice and layers of snowfall.
As the snow thaws, so do we if we allow ourselves to accept our vulnerability and fallibility as human beings who are as liquid as a snow melt or as frozen as an ice field. We choose the rate of our emotive thaws and we choose the depth of our snowfall and what it covers and buries in our life. As the snow thaws, so to does that bigger part of us that dares to dream and hope for the change in our humanity. As the snow melts and flows into the life creeks of our reality, it brings for us renewal and surfacing of what is real and why.
I will miss the snowfall that has blanketed our world and provided reflection and wonder. I will miss how the world was captured if just for a moment in the snow coated arms of the Universe and how we stood frozen in life's embrace and our reflective moments. I will miss how a snowfall created opportunity and a life blanket to wrap ourselves within the deepest of our life thoughts. I will miss the slow synergy of snowfall and its thawing waterfall of liquid meltdown as life once again beats in a dissonance of heart drums and human disconnects and connects.
As the snow thaws, the deepest connections of our being can remain frozen in a time past. As the snow melts, each of us can choose our reconnections with our inner selves and humanity. As the memory of the snowfall etches itself into our collective consciousness, we can learn to live and love again and connect with the life we were meant to live.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Winter Thoughts-Final
It was the finality of that experience to the north and my teacher that created a journey from St. Louis to Massachusetts during a snow-filled December that signaled new beginnings and a final ending. I had travelled by various means from the warm confines of my dorm room to Illinois, Philadelphia, Harlem, New York and finally to Massachusetts to understand that oxidation and reduction reactions were the manifestations of life just as they were the undertakers of death. I had experienced so many tests of my own faith and tenacity through a journey in Philadelphia that included three nights circling a mountain with another snowstorm that laid claim to my life.
I had been given a coat in Illinois and dried out the pink Converses which were frozen to my feet by the constant walking through the snow. In Harlem, I found a homeless shelter where I extracted the Converses for the first time to see the damage of winter realities in the near blackened toes and partial blackened foot coverage on both feet. As I put the knurl of frozen toes and feet into a warm bath, primal screams escaped through lips and pores as a life and death struggle engaged in battle with neurological pathways unthawing for the first time in over a week.
The pounding of the bathroom door echoed in the pounding of winter thoughts and frozen body part realities in the warm waters of life. One look at the devastation of my feet and my body was all it took to grab a phone and make a life call, which I stopped with imminent pleadings of purpose and destination to someone who could take my medical concerns to heart and deal. I was given oversized clothes and plastic fireman boots to ease the pain of my continued unthawing and placed on a Greyhound bus to complete the almost 3,000 mile journey that had started in my dorm room.
The connections were made and then winter carved the etchings of pneumonia in my chest and created disconnect. Within that week, I was turned around to face my winter thoughts and "her." January was a blur and so were finals. She had hung on so far through my life trek to save hers. And then in the blinking of a February morning as the sun peeked mischievously around the shower curtain, she was gone. As I stood in the shower barely breathing, I felt her presence and her embrace as her spirit circled my soap covered flesh and held my breath in hers. For our final winter thought together, she came to me as her final gift. I knew that she had already left her body as she clung so lovingly to mine. I held onto her spirit as she held onto me. And then like the flicker of a moment past, the essence of "her" was gone and I was left curled at the bottom of a soapy tub clinging to what had been left of her in my heart.
I had been given a coat in Illinois and dried out the pink Converses which were frozen to my feet by the constant walking through the snow. In Harlem, I found a homeless shelter where I extracted the Converses for the first time to see the damage of winter realities in the near blackened toes and partial blackened foot coverage on both feet. As I put the knurl of frozen toes and feet into a warm bath, primal screams escaped through lips and pores as a life and death struggle engaged in battle with neurological pathways unthawing for the first time in over a week.
The pounding of the bathroom door echoed in the pounding of winter thoughts and frozen body part realities in the warm waters of life. One look at the devastation of my feet and my body was all it took to grab a phone and make a life call, which I stopped with imminent pleadings of purpose and destination to someone who could take my medical concerns to heart and deal. I was given oversized clothes and plastic fireman boots to ease the pain of my continued unthawing and placed on a Greyhound bus to complete the almost 3,000 mile journey that had started in my dorm room.
The connections were made and then winter carved the etchings of pneumonia in my chest and created disconnect. Within that week, I was turned around to face my winter thoughts and "her." January was a blur and so were finals. She had hung on so far through my life trek to save hers. And then in the blinking of a February morning as the sun peeked mischievously around the shower curtain, she was gone. As I stood in the shower barely breathing, I felt her presence and her embrace as her spirit circled my soap covered flesh and held my breath in hers. For our final winter thought together, she came to me as her final gift. I knew that she had already left her body as she clung so lovingly to mine. I held onto her spirit as she held onto me. And then like the flicker of a moment past, the essence of "her" was gone and I was left curled at the bottom of a soapy tub clinging to what had been left of her in my heart.
Winter Thoughts-Part II
As she lay dying in the comforts of a Serta, I sat on a wooden chair in my dorm room clad in jeans, a pink sweater, pink Converses and a black Bic pen held between clinched teeth. I watched as the reactions from the organic chemistry book blurred into a black swirl of winter thoughts and the death and dying pre-final, simply died on the desk. I saw a roach climb up beyond the rumpled blankets and sheets on the bed flush with the wall. I watched clearly as it crawled with persistence and determination towards the doorjamb of the bathroom door where it met another roach doing nothing but waiting from its perch for a connection.
Something snapped as the roaches collided antennas moving excitedly in heated bonded connections. Something deep inside me drowned in the winter thoughts of death's finality and that soon she would be dead and cold within my memories and within a wooden box. My heart broke yet again into millions of compartmentalized feelings and unspoken words and voices that tore jagged at my vocal cords plucking a synergy of want and longing in a world where I was disconnected without her. She was gone before she was gone. Her memories were lost in the transition into her next steps. Her breasts were eaten into open, oozing, seeping winter thoughts of life taken and yet her eyes and heart remained open to the healing that would surely come for the chosen.
It was early Sunday morning as I trampled through the snowdrifts towards nothingness. Sometime during the night, I had fled the confines of winter thoughts and headed north towards connections. I was headed to Massachusetts to my first college experience, to a connection and to the night where I was accosted in a grocery store by a man with a large, sharpened butcher knife who stood boldly before his audience of grocery shoppers including me and a few black friends and announced that he was going to kill him a "n****** tonight. I was mesmerized by the glean of the knife's edge and its intent. I was unimpressed by its holder and his intent.
The snow had already soaked through my pink Converses wetting my jeans up past my ankles. I didn't feel the frigid cold of the wind chill tearing through the pink knit of the sweater. I was coatless and oblivious to the winter snow and to my surroundings. I kept trudging through winter thoughts knowing that if I turned around, she would be dead sooner. If I kept moving forward, I would buy her and her Universe time to rethink the inevitable. I needed to suffer so that she would no longer have to.
Winter thoughts returned to the grocery store and the proclamation of life taken, mine. I paid for my limited snacks as my friends ran screaming from the store. The store clerks appeared paralytic in shock as ingrained movements of checking pushed my items past the scanner and robotic arms collected monies and bagged items. Their eyes were lifeless as their jobs went on beyond their collective consciousness and the man stood waving his knife, groceries packed in a cart waiting to kill him a "me."
The oppression of the South tore at my memories as my life in the Projects resurfaced the hideousness of scares already etched within my being and something snapped as a historical string of legacies stood me up proud and surrounded me with the buffaloes of my heritage and the drums of my life story. I walked deliberately in front of him as he waved the knife dangerously close to the slow heave of my chest and words emerged from my mouth and saved my life that night.
"I have been to the mountaintop of hell and witnessed the glory of a majestic heaven.
What you propose to do tonight is your hell and your journey. I will not walk away
from you and your intent. I will fight the good fight as your knife plunges deep into
the existing scars of my flesh and carves out the final breath of "her" life."
It was surreal moment for everyone in the store as each of us stood still waiting for his next move. I was caught in the final breath of "her" life, disconnected from my own. My breath was caught in the raising of his arm and the plunging of his intent. And then he stopped inches away from the curve of my heart and the arms of angels pulled me backward slowly, mechanically towards the open door of the store beyond the still profiles of the man and the workers.
They kept me walking through the ice on the sidewalks and the snow along the street edges until I reached the dorm and then they left me safe and ready to move onto another college experience. They brought me back to "her" and another college experience. Now she was dying and I was moving north, yet again, back beyond the store to the one person who had started my pre-med experience, "My Organic Chemistry teacher." She would help me understand oxidation and reduction reactions and how to use them to save her. She would know how to make my winter thoughts into summer hopes and keep my dying heart connection alive.
Something snapped as the roaches collided antennas moving excitedly in heated bonded connections. Something deep inside me drowned in the winter thoughts of death's finality and that soon she would be dead and cold within my memories and within a wooden box. My heart broke yet again into millions of compartmentalized feelings and unspoken words and voices that tore jagged at my vocal cords plucking a synergy of want and longing in a world where I was disconnected without her. She was gone before she was gone. Her memories were lost in the transition into her next steps. Her breasts were eaten into open, oozing, seeping winter thoughts of life taken and yet her eyes and heart remained open to the healing that would surely come for the chosen.
It was early Sunday morning as I trampled through the snowdrifts towards nothingness. Sometime during the night, I had fled the confines of winter thoughts and headed north towards connections. I was headed to Massachusetts to my first college experience, to a connection and to the night where I was accosted in a grocery store by a man with a large, sharpened butcher knife who stood boldly before his audience of grocery shoppers including me and a few black friends and announced that he was going to kill him a "n****** tonight. I was mesmerized by the glean of the knife's edge and its intent. I was unimpressed by its holder and his intent.
The snow had already soaked through my pink Converses wetting my jeans up past my ankles. I didn't feel the frigid cold of the wind chill tearing through the pink knit of the sweater. I was coatless and oblivious to the winter snow and to my surroundings. I kept trudging through winter thoughts knowing that if I turned around, she would be dead sooner. If I kept moving forward, I would buy her and her Universe time to rethink the inevitable. I needed to suffer so that she would no longer have to.
Winter thoughts returned to the grocery store and the proclamation of life taken, mine. I paid for my limited snacks as my friends ran screaming from the store. The store clerks appeared paralytic in shock as ingrained movements of checking pushed my items past the scanner and robotic arms collected monies and bagged items. Their eyes were lifeless as their jobs went on beyond their collective consciousness and the man stood waving his knife, groceries packed in a cart waiting to kill him a "me."
The oppression of the South tore at my memories as my life in the Projects resurfaced the hideousness of scares already etched within my being and something snapped as a historical string of legacies stood me up proud and surrounded me with the buffaloes of my heritage and the drums of my life story. I walked deliberately in front of him as he waved the knife dangerously close to the slow heave of my chest and words emerged from my mouth and saved my life that night.
"I have been to the mountaintop of hell and witnessed the glory of a majestic heaven.
What you propose to do tonight is your hell and your journey. I will not walk away
from you and your intent. I will fight the good fight as your knife plunges deep into
the existing scars of my flesh and carves out the final breath of "her" life."
It was surreal moment for everyone in the store as each of us stood still waiting for his next move. I was caught in the final breath of "her" life, disconnected from my own. My breath was caught in the raising of his arm and the plunging of his intent. And then he stopped inches away from the curve of my heart and the arms of angels pulled me backward slowly, mechanically towards the open door of the store beyond the still profiles of the man and the workers.
They kept me walking through the ice on the sidewalks and the snow along the street edges until I reached the dorm and then they left me safe and ready to move onto another college experience. They brought me back to "her" and another college experience. Now she was dying and I was moving north, yet again, back beyond the store to the one person who had started my pre-med experience, "My Organic Chemistry teacher." She would help me understand oxidation and reduction reactions and how to use them to save her. She would know how to make my winter thoughts into summer hopes and keep my dying heart connection alive.
Winter Thoughts-Part I
We all have life experiences that pull us into the blizzard of our memories and exorcise our buried life stories from cellular databases of our mind. Winter thoughts are the memories that lay buried in the avalanche of past loses; thoughts closeted in the dark places of our existence; and thoughts that flurry as the driven snow along mountainsides of our subconscious minds.
I have a vivid memory of a winter thought that dredges through my repressed trapdoors and comes calling to my consciousness as the snow continues to fall today. She was dying slowing as the cancer tore rampant through her breasts collecting her life sources into coagulated breathes and chest heaves. Death was closer in the December of her last connection to a life that would be but a memory soon. Six months prior, she had chosen to let go and let the spirit of the Universe that she believed in deal with the cancer and its annihilation. She took to her proverbial bed and let faith begin the healing process. She was a believer in all things in heaven and the miracles she had witnessed in the backwoods of the African jungle and the life manifest in the Sahara desert. She was one of the chosen....chosen to die.
I was a young soon to be graduate of college sitting in the semi-dark confines of my dorm room watching the December snow fall in layers under a streetlight appearing benign from a second story watch place. One light on a desk pierced through the darkness of the room as I struggled to remain focused on my pre-med course finals and the theology "death and dying"final that would start the following Monday. It was a Saturday night when winter thoughts created their own momentum and a frenzy of her, death and dying, loss, heaven, darkness, scrambling of heart desires, embraces forevermore and the finality that I would never see her again.
She had been a consummate presence of nurture and support as I braved the uncertainty of the isolation and cruelty of a college experience, the hope of a future so daunting and maligned, the coldness of next steps, the want of a soul connection in a world, I was too young to understand and embrace. It was her presence that propelled me into an early graduation, an application to medical school, and a need to prove that despite my life circumstances, I could move beyond and soar. She was the Gibraltar of my rock. She created a sense of belonging and frankly, my presence on the planet amused her. But she was dying as I sat figuring out organic chemistry's oxidation and reduction reactions and the meaning of death and is there life beyond the flat line.
She was being reduced into the aftermath of life as her lifeline squiggled into the flatness of physical death. Her time was running out and so was mine. Our life lines intertwined into a ropelike cataclysmic reverberation of systolic and diastolic pressures and heartbeats as I sat in my dorm room and she lay dying in the center of her king sized bed.
I have a vivid memory of a winter thought that dredges through my repressed trapdoors and comes calling to my consciousness as the snow continues to fall today. She was dying slowing as the cancer tore rampant through her breasts collecting her life sources into coagulated breathes and chest heaves. Death was closer in the December of her last connection to a life that would be but a memory soon. Six months prior, she had chosen to let go and let the spirit of the Universe that she believed in deal with the cancer and its annihilation. She took to her proverbial bed and let faith begin the healing process. She was a believer in all things in heaven and the miracles she had witnessed in the backwoods of the African jungle and the life manifest in the Sahara desert. She was one of the chosen....chosen to die.
I was a young soon to be graduate of college sitting in the semi-dark confines of my dorm room watching the December snow fall in layers under a streetlight appearing benign from a second story watch place. One light on a desk pierced through the darkness of the room as I struggled to remain focused on my pre-med course finals and the theology "death and dying"final that would start the following Monday. It was a Saturday night when winter thoughts created their own momentum and a frenzy of her, death and dying, loss, heaven, darkness, scrambling of heart desires, embraces forevermore and the finality that I would never see her again.
She had been a consummate presence of nurture and support as I braved the uncertainty of the isolation and cruelty of a college experience, the hope of a future so daunting and maligned, the coldness of next steps, the want of a soul connection in a world, I was too young to understand and embrace. It was her presence that propelled me into an early graduation, an application to medical school, and a need to prove that despite my life circumstances, I could move beyond and soar. She was the Gibraltar of my rock. She created a sense of belonging and frankly, my presence on the planet amused her. But she was dying as I sat figuring out organic chemistry's oxidation and reduction reactions and the meaning of death and is there life beyond the flat line.
She was being reduced into the aftermath of life as her lifeline squiggled into the flatness of physical death. Her time was running out and so was mine. Our life lines intertwined into a ropelike cataclysmic reverberation of systolic and diastolic pressures and heartbeats as I sat in my dorm room and she lay dying in the center of her king sized bed.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Dreaming of a White Xmas
With voluminous snow pouring out of the celestial buckets of ice and air, I'm dreaming of a white Xmas, even as the news and newspapers spin a different reality for others. The dream of a white Xmas for others has turned into a snow parka of nightmares in having to face the reality of road closures, delayed flights or other transportation outs and winter depression.
Trying to navigate the icy sleets of pavements on four wheels of rubber and a ton of metal for those in the game of 9-5pm was like playing unofficial hockey on the freeway and interior rinks with the vehicle being the puck of chance and potential score. For those taking to the airways, train stations or the proverbial "Greyhounds" of escapism, the snow has created plenty of time to pause and wonder. For those taking to their beds, the snow will become a calendered memory for the new year in the "Remember when" column of life's journey.
I like the idea of a white Xmas, a snow filled holiday where the heavens sing with joyous voices and light the sky with thunderous applause of cataclysmic clapping of snow covered angel wings feathered in ice crystals floating aimlessly over the land. Maybe growing up in the rat and roach infested Projects where snow was the crackle of static covering the black and white television screen; the blow of street drugs and genocide; and the blur of eyes bruised beyond seeing, the thought of a white Xmas for me was the fairytale that helped me survive the childhood that was taken.
When I think about the days of snow that have kept me home-bound of late and centered in a space of reflection, I am grateful for the voices of angels and the dusting of feather wings. I can dream beyond what was in my life and see the purity of what is, as the coolness of snow reminds me of what was. I can touch the snow in my yard and make snow angels in a majestic grandness of thankful synergy to the heavens. I can etch the thankfulness of gratitude into the building of a snow personification and feel its solidness of ice as I ponder my own solidity and metaphors on the journey of life.
I can look into the heavens and thank the choir for its bounty of the white stuff and smile as the streak of a sleigh blazes into the snow canvas of Xmas. Yet beyond it all, I'm not looking for Santa to dump odd-shaped presents down my chimney which is why I have a gas fireplace. For me, it is the reality of a white Xmas that brings the greatest present of all. Through the sheerness of snowfall, I am bathed in angels' wings and through the layering of snow coats, I am loved in the purist sense of the Universe. I am the miracle called life.
As I dream of a white Xmas and watch the snow fall, I am reminded that dreams can become realities of a spring, a summer and a fall that mirror the cycle of life and existence in a circle of miracles. Within the joy and heavenly love of humanity and a winter snowfall, I exist and I rise. I am having a white Xmas beyond the dream...........................
Trying to navigate the icy sleets of pavements on four wheels of rubber and a ton of metal for those in the game of 9-5pm was like playing unofficial hockey on the freeway and interior rinks with the vehicle being the puck of chance and potential score. For those taking to the airways, train stations or the proverbial "Greyhounds" of escapism, the snow has created plenty of time to pause and wonder. For those taking to their beds, the snow will become a calendered memory for the new year in the "Remember when" column of life's journey.
I like the idea of a white Xmas, a snow filled holiday where the heavens sing with joyous voices and light the sky with thunderous applause of cataclysmic clapping of snow covered angel wings feathered in ice crystals floating aimlessly over the land. Maybe growing up in the rat and roach infested Projects where snow was the crackle of static covering the black and white television screen; the blow of street drugs and genocide; and the blur of eyes bruised beyond seeing, the thought of a white Xmas for me was the fairytale that helped me survive the childhood that was taken.
When I think about the days of snow that have kept me home-bound of late and centered in a space of reflection, I am grateful for the voices of angels and the dusting of feather wings. I can dream beyond what was in my life and see the purity of what is, as the coolness of snow reminds me of what was. I can touch the snow in my yard and make snow angels in a majestic grandness of thankful synergy to the heavens. I can etch the thankfulness of gratitude into the building of a snow personification and feel its solidness of ice as I ponder my own solidity and metaphors on the journey of life.
I can look into the heavens and thank the choir for its bounty of the white stuff and smile as the streak of a sleigh blazes into the snow canvas of Xmas. Yet beyond it all, I'm not looking for Santa to dump odd-shaped presents down my chimney which is why I have a gas fireplace. For me, it is the reality of a white Xmas that brings the greatest present of all. Through the sheerness of snowfall, I am bathed in angels' wings and through the layering of snow coats, I am loved in the purist sense of the Universe. I am the miracle called life.
As I dream of a white Xmas and watch the snow fall, I am reminded that dreams can become realities of a spring, a summer and a fall that mirror the cycle of life and existence in a circle of miracles. Within the joy and heavenly love of humanity and a winter snowfall, I exist and I rise. I am having a white Xmas beyond the dream...........................
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.JPG)
