Shining Thru

Strength crumbling before your eyes

Watching it dissipate and run through your fingers

Trying to pull it up, not finding it within

Summons are failing no matter how hard you try

Can’t keep going, not strong enough to walk through

Not strong enough to stop the flood gate holding back the emotions

Trying to hang on, but feel the fingers slipping

The grasp failing and fingers scrambling for the edge

Not wanting to drown in the reality you’ve been avoiding

The breath comes only into choking sobs

Tears that refuse to obey your orders of resistance

All the lack of strength, life wearing you down

Wobbly legs that crisscross across the water

Slippery water turned to sleek and slick ice.

Shaking arms out for supported footing

Placing one foot in front of the other

Feeling as if you’re on a tightrope

You walk through life

Tip Toeing around

Scissoring legs try to straighten themselves

Resisting the urge to give up and crawl

Continuing to hold your head up

Confidence does a lot for balance

Balanced for a moment

Looking on watching to see if they will make it

Wanting to come to their side

and hold their hand

Unwilling

Unable

Looking on, knowing that it’s your turn to stumble next

You hope for balance in your life

An unwavering hand to guide you

Give you what you lack

Give you want you want

Not just looking

Walking

How can you keep pushing forward when you don’t have a known direction?  If you don’t know what road you’re traveling down, it’s kind of hard to see over the hills in front of you.  Left or right?  North or South?  The various paths in life that pop up, almost like a secret shortcut…until you get inside the forest and get lost.

Directions in life are tricky….

Never knowing what is coming next, knowing that what you really want isn’t your call if you get it or not…knowing that your hands are tied and there isn’t anything else you can do but wait and see….but then how do you move forward…push on so to speak?  Do you just travel blindly or do you try to map out a new route?

All of the things that happen in life can pop up as obstacles.  Do you drive around, take another avenue, or simply travel over the hump?

Rushing through life sometimes with no visible end

Just moving from one thing to the next

Not knowing when we’ll stop or what we’re moving towards

Rushing along not know what’s in store, what will happen next?

Only seeing two steps ahead and blindly traveling the rest

Not knowing if it will be an easy downhill journey or a cliff that will bring us crashing down

Tumbling through the darkened night

Continuing to move ahead full force

Not able to stop and look around

Figure it out later, but press on for now

Can’t stop, Can’t slow down, Can only rush ahead.

Doesn’t it always seem like when you give up on surprises that they appear out of nowhere.  Just when you thought that spring was on the way, the whole deep south of the United States gets blanketed in snow…and Vancouver is hauling in snow for the winter Olympics with highs of 62 degrees.  Funny how things work out.

Or the surprise ending of a book that comes at the last possible second when you thought that things had already concluded and the author was just trying to wind everything down and throw in a few more conclusions that you already realized yourself….and then all of the sudden they throw something else out there that you didn’t think was even possible to make happen with only the couple of pages left in the book…but they do it, and it turns out to be logical….brave strategy, people like me end up with mixed feelings about how the book ended, not appreciating the surprise, but knowing that it makes perfectly logical sense for the whole storyline.

Movies do it to…all the time, especially by writers and directors that want to set everyone up for a sequel if things go well with the first one at the box office.

There are all sorts of surprises….how do you feel about them?  I know some people that hate them, I know some people who have mixed feelings about them, and others who love them and I mean love them…the best thing in the world for them is a surprise birthday party or a gift for no reason.

I was reading a list of memorable quotes listed by USA Today and one of the quotes caught my attention…

“Obviously a major malfunction.”

Steve Nesbitt, NASA public affairs officer, Jan. 28, 1986, shortly after the space shuttle Challenger exploded.

I feel like this quote can be applied to how we feel when looking at something that happens in life.  Sometimes you can only look at a situation and say “oh shit”…..I mean, really, what else is there to say?  It’s done, over with, a major malfunction in the plans that you had set forth and were going well until that point.  But now it’s in the past, you might not even be sure what went wrong, it probably doesn’t matter what went wrong, it simply did, and now you have a mess.  Just like the pieces of the space shuttle, floating out into open space.

Sometimes a moment catches you so off guard that it’s like it happens in slow motion, or in a daze, or just replays over and over in your head…and there is still nothing to say other than….it’s obviously a major malfunction.  Nothing more…nothing less….what else is there to say at that point?

They say that laughter is good for the soul…I’m not sure exactly what “good” means, but I think there is a general understanding of it, even if the dictionary version can’t possibly encompass all that the word is intended to mean.

It’s funny how certain people, pictures, movies, books, etc can always make you laugh, no matter what kind of mood you are in or what kind of day you have had…some people or things can unlock that thing that makes your smile turn into a laugh.  I love to see people laugh, I think that people were right when they told me that laughter is contagious.  It just seems to flow so easily out of some people…

I think it’s interesting how no one laughs the same.  Everyone’s laughter is different.  Some people laugh easily and loudly, booming out their emotional expression; while others can only manage a nervous giggle at best, or a half hearted..hah… that sounds more like someone clearing their throat than the sound of someone who is happy.

Laughter can make your day, or at least mine…if I’m having a bad day and someone can make me laugh, a lot of times it saves me from crying.  It’s almost like laughter has some type of magical power that washes over you and releases a lot of the tension and stress of the day.  I love it when I can start the day off laughing.  I’m always thankful when I can talk to someone who can always make me laugh in the morning, it just sets me up for a good day, a good start at least.  I have found that if I can laugh in the morning, then things that happen throughout the day never seem quite as bad.

A brick wall crumbles down as the waves of ambiguity break their caps

The flashes of white caps gain speed as their precision of aim grows apparent

The cold bricks brought down by the forces of nature

Natural fury that builds up until the growing coals that have been simmering erupt into a fire of passion

Passionate fury that explodes against the building blocks that lie on the bank

The high cold wall that moss attempts to cover, getting into the crevices

Weakening the mortar that that waves will soon crush

As the monsoon of life hits hard against the protective barriers that we have built up

One by one the bricks are torn down until the bottom gives out

And the wall crumbles down

Looking at the pile of ruble, what do you see?

A mess….a tattered beauty…..a waste…..what it use to be…what it could have been…

The beautiful remnants that lay in a disconnected heap at the water’s age

Nature’s true power and efficiency shine through as they crash into man’s week attempt to mimic what would come naturally

Or what shouldn’t be there, going against nature only infuriates the true master

Fighting the path of life, going down whatever road or over whatever hill we see

Only leads to natural disasters, your attempts at craftsmanship end up crumbling

Lost and alone in front of the chaotic compound of hopes in disarray

The persistent water rejoices at its victory.

I’m not sure how much you are suppose to take before you just decide to give up.  What does it take before a person just hits their limit and says it’s enough…and how do individuals react to such a limit being met….

Do you stretch your limits and just push it back a little further and a little further than you ever thought possible, or do you follow through with your original plan and just quit…

How long can you live on the edge of hating your life, or just an inch away from despair?

Maybe it’s not even in every aspect of your life, of course it’s harder when that feeling of worthlessness hits more than one area, or if not worthless, at least to the point where you don’t feel like you’re ever moving forward and most times feel like you’re being pulled backwards….Sometimes that feeling only hits one aspect of your life, social, financial, professional, etc….Sometimes it’s just one area that just can’t seem to get on the right track no matter how much effort you put towards it.

When it is only one area of your life, how much time and energy are you suppose to take away from other areas in order to try and get that one back on the right path?  Wouldn’t it be easier just to roll over and go back to sleep most days?

Floating on the horizon

Not sure how to hit solid ground

Not sure if you want to

You float

Skimming the surface with tip toes

You look down amazed

The golden colors that shoot from around the sun

The brightness fills you with happiness

The clouds are forgotten and turned into trim

Accent on the beauty of the evening

As the daylight closes in,

You are drawn towards the meeting at the horizon

The meeting of the lights just before the dark

The worlds of sun and earth collide.

So much to take in and breathe.