Leaving

It was that time of year when he thought about these sorts of things. This time it came with many horses to jump, from one to the other, in the middle of the proverbial stream. He might fall, miss, and drown. At the very least suffer mighty embarassment. No matter, change was coming, and it did not consider him an obstacle. Add to that his feeling that he should have beat this last horse to within an inch of its life, and you can see the kind of damage that had come to his calm. It annoyed him really as he wasn't much of a horse beater. Maybe it was just the few horse flies he really would have enjoyed squashing, because really, the horse while not perfect, saggy and lazy, was not too bad of a horse. At any rate, it was time to move on...
 
He looked both ways down the garage before crosssing, not to see if cars were coming, but to see if anyone else wanted to say goodbye that he would feel compelled to duck out on. He was not one for goodbyes, not least because of all these changes that crowded his mind, but mostly because he had lost the ability to trust where people were coming from after being here. These past years had been hard on him emotionally because he could not often tell to which of Janus' faces he was talking. Most were truly good people, but the horse flies fit themselves in with practiced passive aggression so well as to be indiscernible. He missed this most of all... trusting, allowing himself to trust, to fall and not be kicked, to catch and not be betrayed. It saddened him, as he made his away across the street, that this was the legacy he took with him, and not those kind, sweet memories he had also enjoyed. "One oh-shitter wiped out a hundred atta-boys," as his Chief used to say. He made his way to his car, tossed his last things in, and got in. He sat there for several minutes. He was troubled. It didn't feel sad finally leaving and this bothered him. The sadness had been spilt when he said goodbye these past few days to those he had come to love and in some way trust. But not now as he was actually leaving. He felt as he left there would be a few ripples in the bucket that had been this place, but then they would wane and no one would recall his ever having been there.
 
He started the car, pulled into the lane, turned the corner and drove out one last time. This horse was dead and he had successfully dismounted. He smiled... look, no horse flies.
 

Posted with Blogsy

Being human

If you hide from what you don't believe, what you don't understand, you learn nothing, you feel nothing. If you learn nothing and feel nothing, why be human?
 

Posted with Blogsy

To truly understand, think.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

- Elbert Hubbard
 
Reasoning with intellectual integrity does not allow one to offer flights of fancy as truth. Sound reasoners are limited within the boundaries drawn by truth as we know it, the facts and reasoned understanding. The ignorant can, and do, claim truth in whatever they wish without the bounds of truth or sound reasoning. Whatever the field, science, politics, religion, one must let go of the prevailing dogma to see truth. Whatever you think you know is only that which is available to you. Tomorrow your universe may change on a new understanding, but only if you can see. Adhering to dogma limits, blinds, and deafens us to truth. Imagination shows us where to go, but does not tell us what is really there, it tells us what we wish was there. Wishes are not truth. Seeking truth is a journey for the imaginative, dogma is a hiding place for the timid. Follow those who seek the truth, beware those who have found it.
 

The Brightness of Snow

The key turned. Ah, the correct one, and he walked into the empty physician’s lounge, from the low light of the windowless hallway to the bright intensity of the sun reflecting through the slightly tinted glass and he was blinded, reflexively raising his hand to his eyes. For a moment it looked like snow on the patio. He wanted it to be snow, to match his somber mood, but it doesn’t snow here in Mississippi, especially on the Gulf Coast during the summer. He tucked his keys on their lanyard, decorated with cow’s on a green field, into his crowded scrub shirt pocket, straightened his lab coat, and made his way over to the Keurig. He searched his pockets for his readers, finding them at his feet where they had fallen. That must have been the click that he barely registered a moment ago as he pulled his lab coat together. He smiled at his distraction. He blinked though the almost clean lenses and searched the selection. Newman’s Special Blend, with lots of sugar since there was no artificial sweetener to be had. He stirred it, and relented to his smoldering emotions with a sigh, paused to gaze at the pattern of the patio bricks, sipped his coffee, and made his way out.
 
He slowly paced himself upstairs to the neonatal intensive care unit, where the family was gathering to say good-bye. Good-bye to their sweet infant girl, burdened by a lethal genetic anomaly, all the curses that came with it, and few others for good measure. She had lived for a couple of weeks, having survived one life-saving surgery, and another for comfort. She had never been truly strong, and then she died an hour ago, silently, painlessly, fading in the loving embrace of the nurse that rocked her, in the company of all the nurses in the unit who had gathered unspoken to be with her, while her family came from many miles away. He had called dad, told him to gather everyone for the time had come, and to be safely on their way. And now they had.
 
The nurses had made all the other parents leave the unit which upset him. He felt that death was not something to be afraid of, to be protected from. The family would be with their baby in another room... But the nurses were just doing what they always do, they were trying to do right. He knew he was just being cranky, and let it go. Being afraid of death, of the emotions wrought, it made no sense to him. Death is the end of life, it happens to all of us, and no matter how sad or tragic, it is something we need to experience as humans to live, not something to be protected from. We cannot handle it when it comes if we are taught it is a time for fear and anger, that we and others need protection from our morbid emotions. But we are taught to be ashamed of ourselves, uncomfortable with our raw feelings, the pained emotions of others, and so the room was cleared even though they would never enter. But they knew, they knew a life had ended... He smiled when he saw the family’s other small children, for they understood, these parents, and wanted their children to know the life and death of their sister for what it was, the end of life, nothing more, nothing to be afraid of, nothing to mythologize.
 
The pastor came, came to them, said the right words, and bolstered the family through this trial with their strong faith. It allowed them to ignore His wrath for what they needed to see as His mercy. They needed the myth to ease their pain, it was theirs, and he said nothing. That they celebrated her life and her being family was enough, that she would be remembered and loved was all that mattered to him. He sat with the family and spoke softly to the children, asking them if they understood she had died, encouraging them to touch her, hold her hand, to remember their sister. He told them someday they would ask, and their parents would tell them a fond tale of love, and they would remember, grateful he taught them not to fear her, that they had touched her, that she was real for having been loved and touched. Through tears, her father took his hand and whispered, “Thank you…” again, and again, and he looked to his children so his meaning would be clear. He left them then, gathered in their emotions, and for the children in celebration of their sister.
 
His office door was open, emptied recently of his belongings as he was moving out, away from this place. He found his coffee a bit cooler, no less overly sweet, and sipped it as he rocked back and forth in the chair, unknowingly soothing himself. This he knew, that life has its own meaning, that death is a part of life, and that the deep sadness comes from a journey’s end, not the journey itself, for if the journey continues whatever wrong can be righted. Her life started wrong, and yet it ended right, and there was in this good human beings who chose love and compassion. They overcame fear and anger to love and hold. This is what her death told him. Do not fear death, fear lack of love and compassion along the way, most at your journey’s end. Live each day so that those who gather will remember you, and not an imaginary god and his wrath, or their pain and suffering.
 
He finished his coffee, went back into the unit, and said good-bye to the family as they prepared to leave, and lastly, good-bye to the child who reminded him his journey might end any moment now. He was not afraid, and his mind did not wander to the next life, for this one is a magical journey, and that is all he needed to know.
 
Dying too, is a part of life.
~ Marcus Aurelius

The peace of storms, the aloness of cats

The rain fell in torrents, interrupted by moments of quiet stillness in this dark of night, to reawaken with thunder and lightning, only to wane again before the hour was out. He lay awake, restless, but comforted by the symphony, noticing there was little to no wind as the storm played on. The heavy wooden thud of the large drops collecting then falling from the eaves onto the beam overhead, the musical splash of drops running down the roofline, falling into collecting puddles in the grass outside his window, the hard cacophony of drops striking the glass, the sudden and acute illumination of lightning. It all brought him some peace. He could hear the cat scurrying about, playful, mindless of the storm, and he called out to her. Like cats do, she ignored him, and continued her quest, which annoyed him for a moment, as he thought he should have gotten a dog which might have sought solace in his embrace, or at least would nuzzle and comfort him. But he had a cat, so he smiled, admiring her independence and returned his thoughts to the storm.