SHARE A MOMENT

Allow me to share a moment with you. Not here. Not you reading this, but an actual moment; us together, in person.  

I want to share a drink with you. Maybe, even a smoke. I want to sit back, relaxed on a comfortable seat with you by my side sitting as I am. Maybe, with an acoustic sound in the background and a good view of exposed water or a crackling big fire in front us. 

Share with me your thoughts. Not the ones that quickly pass but the ones that linger in your head, the ones that hold depth to your very being and to your wiring that makes you work and move. Share with me the emotions that flow through bloodstreams in your heart and plunge through the rest of your body. The emotions that sprinkle goosebumps all over the skin of your arms, the type of goosebumps that press against the sleeves of your shirt exposing its creator.

I want to taste the oak barrel in the accents of my favorite whiskey along the palate of my tongue as my gaze is glued to your lips as they crash against each other painting the masterpiece you are, as my nostrils drown in the thick smoke of tobacco that flows out of the cigar gripped between my fingers as the world around me exists only to distract me from your articulate curves that uniquely create who you are. My soul remains fixed on you. 

I want to hear you unconsciously illustrate how you are a part of this marvel we call the universe with stories of your experiences. I was to see your soul unfold word after word. I want to see your eyes squint as you attempt to remember specific details to your story. I want to see your cheeks stretched in excitement with the stories that produced memories you hold dear to your heart. I want to see your arms fly in front of you and your hands smacking the air back and forth as you use them to illustrate your story. I want to see you move effortlessly in this shared moment I will never forget. I want to see you alive in this moment as if we’re the only two people in this world and all other life only exists in our memories and we have to create the human race again with that alone, our memories, your memories.

I want to see you create life all over with just your words. 

I want you to speak life into existence again and again and again. I want to see how you hold the universe in the sparkle of your eyes and how you paint its truth to me with nothing but your body. 

I want you. 

MOMENTS.

Moments. What are they? They are the present. They are the now. They are all we have. The past is not lived in the moment nor is the future, for they do not exist; only what you have matters in the moment. Only what you are, matters. Not what you were, not what you will be. You ARE in the moment, you ARE the moment. Everything else is a figment of your imagination, for it does not matter at that moment.

But here I sit, at this moment, in this moment only thinking of what I once was and what I will be. Was and will, both terms used to describe the unreal, the nonexistent. Both words, used daily in my thought process. Fiction is all I know. It’s all I’ve known. So much time spent on this fiction. 

Moments are meant to be lived. Only that which holds life can be lived. Moments have life. Life is a moment. What came before the moment is dead. What comes after that moment has not not lived yet. They do not hold life. So they cannot be lived. And here I am, trying to find life in them. No wonder I feel so “just existing”. 

I am what I was and will be, but never have I ever been, I am.

RIVERS.

How magnificent are rivers? A constant flow that does not stop, no matter what is picked up on the way. It’ll face its obstacles; it’ll be smashed on, tossed around, caused to splash itself everywhere. Its obstacles will create a mess of it and paint a picture of it and how destructive they can be. But amazingly still, it’ll continue to flow full of life. Its obstacles did nothing less than portray its power and beauty. There’s nothing like it. We can admire a pond for it too is a body of water, but a pond has no flow. It remains still, unmoved, going nowhere and coming from nowhere. It just sits and accepts its current state. It allows itself to get dirty with the tree trunks that may fall into it, the creatures that creep into it, the dirt that slides into them after rainfalls. Like the river, they have the same obstacles too. But, they remain still in that state. What purpose does it hold or meaning does it live by, other than hold what comes to it?

You see, a river is flowing from somewhere life-giving, it is how it holds life. It moves because of where it came from. It goes, still attached to the life-giving place it came from. It does not separate itself from it. It is from there its purpose came from; its meaning is rooted there. A river is not just water, it’s a constant flow of water that experiences along the way, getting smashed on, getting thrown around, and getting dirty, however, these things do not bring it to a stop. Its journey purifies and strengthens it. A river does not lose its essence and its purpose to flow because of how the world treats it; it amplifies it. It does not become less but more. The river’s journey is to only expand that which it came from. Life.

So I sit here and I ask myself, how long will I tell myself that I am only water and not the river? How many creatures will I allow to creep into my life and allow it to stay there? For how long will I let the heavy trunks that are thrown on me sit in my life and continue to add weight? For how long will I allow this world to toss me around and splash me everywhere and have me to believe that I am a mess that has lost too much of himself to this world that caused me to believe I can no longer move? For how long will I settle for being a pond before I realize that I am the river that streams out of the Life-giving essence with the sole purpose to expand that Life and share it along the way without allowing the world to deter me from that truth? When will I see how life-giving water is when it flows?

HE GOT UP.

I’m stuck. I hate it. I’m losing control of who I am; the “me”, I worked so hard on. Doubt, clouds my judgment. It robs me of my sleep. It swipes my comfort right from under me, causing me to slip. It’s a bucket of oil tipped over and spilled all over the floor I stand on. Impossible to find balance on. Doubt: the pond of sinking sand that caught me by surprise. Covered so beautifully with a false pavement that illustrated the strength of the actual concrete pavement that accepted my many steps of before, that held me up this long on this path of life. 

A step into the bliss, expecting something new, expecting something I’ve been waiting for. Every step, as the last. Walking forward. I sink. The path of life is a foggy one way street, never clear on what’s ahead but always pointing forward. So I have two options, either stop or keep walking. Every step is a risk but never a wrong one. I can never step backward, so what lies ahead is meant for me. Even the surprise ponds of quicksand. I’m sinking. The path is getting foggier. Clarity is becoming foreign. Almost a new language I’ve never heard before. Forgetting what it’s like, the peace it brings, and the strength it provides. I’m stuck. Fog is heavier than ever now. My comfort waits for me at the edge of this which holds me down from getting up. It awaits to see what’s my next move, waiting for me to reach out and grab it and call it mine once again. But my hands are stuck to my side in the sand, not being able to pull them out. What a grasp? Only my head knows freedom as it sticks out above the tight grip of Doubt. Experience paints a picture of my past and illustrates a familiar image but it’s blurred. Of this image, all I understand is “Your freedom…” The rest I cannot interpret. 

I begin to jerk my body with panic. My comfort, that still awaits my survival, whispers gently in my ear: “it is your mind that is under attack. A battle that you will not win with your arms swinging out in front of you nor with the use of your legs to walk away. The more you attempt to fight this way, the faster you sink.” 

I relax. The familiar image is no longer a blur: “Your freedom lies in your mind”, it reads. The fog remains thick and heavy. As it always was. Never changed. It was my sight that changed, only my sight. 

Most battles we fight in life are never won because we’re normally fighting the wrong battles. I’m losing my battle because I’m not fighting the one I’m meant to fight. I’ve convinced myself that Doubt, an outside source, is the opponent I needed to overcome. And with every punch I swung and every kick I threw, I missed. My actual opponent is far greater and stronger. An opponent I've lost many battles to. Never able to get up from them. Always being knocked in even further into the ground. Each time, my opponent stands above me and watches me as I lay flat on the ground weak, it screams and yells at me. Never seeing it for what it is, I’ll look up at it and scream back, “the hell with you, Doubt!” 

Now, I realize why I never got up. Doubt was never the opponent, it was a mere costume that hid my true opponent: Trust. 

Today, as I stare at the familiar image that reads so clearly, “Your freedom lies in your mind” and with my comfort that has anticipated my resurrection, stretches towards me with arms wide open to receive me again, saying “For this son of mine was lost and is found.” 

I now hear clearly the screaming voice of my opponent saying, “I am not your opponent! I never was! Never will be! I am your partner! And always will be!”