Rhyme (or Reason)

Sometimes I am a World War II decoder hunched over an intricate machine hoping to translate the mysterious codes into something that makes sense. If I am the enemy, why can’t I figure out my own plans?

Other times I am a sorcerer hovering over a pile of tea leaves, interpreting the splotches and stains like a Rorschach test. I need stronger glasses or I will lose the patterns. Is that a puppy?

But most of the time I look to the sky for the writing that I know will appear or the hand of doom etching my fate in the thick clouds. Can the mystery be locked in those grand and ominous puffs of water vapor?

We see what we want to see. We interpret what we think the universe wants us to know and where it wants us to go. Most of the time we are wrong. Does the universe even notice us over the hum of chaotic existence?

Lately it is best not to expect anything. To leave it to the wind or the gods or to something more powerful than myself. The burden is much too great for me to carry on my weary back. Were we ever meant to carry it alone?

The wheels turn and we peel day after day off the calendar, hoping time may give us just a glimpse of wonder, exhilaration, or confusion. Anything beats the humdrum predictability of our daily duties. Do we even hope for catastrophe, drama, or anger to make us feel something…anything?

Sometimes we are lulled into experiencing the mundane and dreariness of repetition, habit, and programmed simulations. Maybe there are those who thrive on that way of life, but I can’t stay there long. If we are patient, wouldn’t the certainty of reality change our mindsets and jolt us out of our slumber in due time?

Feel your lungs expanding. Count the rise and fall of your chest. Translate the thumps of your heart like Morse code. You are a miracle in a curious, fleshy container. You are the bringer of change and the master of the everyday. Take another breath and enjoy that one as well. Cherish each ‘what comes next’ moment as it passes by you. When should I schedule my next disaster?

 

Change: It’s a Feature, Not a Bug

In my brain, the image is crystal clear. A memory unlocked and played on the small screen of my synapses. It is a private show. No one else has these experiences. I have my own director, soundtrack, and cinematographer for the movie of my life.

The delicate images deceive us because many of these places and realities no longer exist, erased in time like a sandcastle brought level by the incoming waves. Does that make them any less real?

As our days proceed, the urgency to record these images and scenes rises with each grey hair on our heads. I feel the need to preserve remnants of the past because no one else seems to care if the memories live on. I know it is futile, but I try as I might to keep them intact.

Every person makes their own movies. The screen in which they work is unique to them, but we all have the same 3,600 minutes each day to build our lives and our legacy.

While the daily chaos whirls and suffocates us as we contemplate the horrors of the world, it seems selfish to worry about our own memories, images, and uneventful stories. They seem so small and insignificant. But we own them, just as they own us.

How powerful is our mind, that it makes the images alive again – the smile and laugh of my grandmother, the embarrassment of crushes in middle school, the exhilaration of mountain views on Boy Scout hikes, the heartbreak of deceit that stings the soul, and my spirit renewed by the gentle touch of love – all become real again as I bring them back into existence.  

These experiences may disappear when our light eventually fades, but that is not our concern for now. We must continue to build new memories, playing them back on our nightly screens, and smile at the thought of all that we have gained and lost, knowing that the memories, and all that we have ever known and experienced, will float away with us as the tide washes us out to sea.