Singular moments.

[KB.]

“To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”



I have no idea where that quote originated; it really doesn’t matter to be honest.

My life is made up of singular moments not a string of happenings. Usually not linear; hence one of my favorite sayings. The non-linear thing is mostly my doing probably, but that is the way it happens. I suppose.

The thing about life happening in small bursts is the rest of the time things are pretty boring. Look at it like running a sprint instead of a marathon. You need to rest after each sprint or your body will just disintegrate. With a marathon you run, and run, and run until you are finished. Still tired at the end but you were occupied for a longer continuous period of time. You covered more distance.

The gun goes off and you flash forward leaning into the empty space between you and the finish line. You dig your feet in toes first and push as hard as you can. There is no reason to conserve energy or take your time. The only thing that matters is getting it over with. Then resting before the next sprint.

You hear the gun go off and you look out towards the horizon and wonder when the first runner’s high will hit you or if it even will. You start with a slow trot and for the most part you maintain it throughout. There may be a moment or two were you feel the presence of another runner gaining ground and you slightly speed up your pace. More times than not you finish the race at the same pace as you started it.

Singular moments. Let me share a few in no particular order. I am not in a comfort zone; new words are hard to find so I will talk about old ones today. Some shared here some not.



“February 24th 2007. I was three weeks away from my 30th birthday. A hundred women and a thousand kisses had not begun to prepare me for the kiss that night. A woman I had chased around for eight months, waited on, and who I had no idea just what impact she would have on my life set me on fire.

It had been snowing for two days, it might have been ten degrees outside but it felt like the sun had moved to with in an inch of my face.

We walked back from a little corner bar where we had been celebrating a friend’s birthday. A man and his wife who lived in the neighborhood had invited the ones left standing to his house for music, food, and drinks.

We were not interested in any of the three.

We walked outside onto his deck which over looked my favorite place in the universe from three stories up. The snow fell around us and she was wet. She was cold, and shaking. She felt warm to the touch. I zipped her jacket and then moved closer and wrapped my own jacket around us both.

A collision that shook me to my core was about to happen.

I looked into those blue as the July sky eyes and moved her honey colored hair away from her face. We exhaled and looked at each other and a desire that had been brewing for almost a year made the snow melt before it even fell onto our waiting lips.

If I could have one moment back to live over and over again that moment right before the kiss would be second on my list to the moment that came soon after. She was as tall as me or close to it; no need to bend or twist. We just come together in perfect symmetry and the world was forgotten.

Sex has absolutely nothing on a kiss like that.

That kiss has born thousands upon thousands of words, and will birth thousands more. Right now my throat is tight like that of a man crawling his way to an oasis; praying for water.”



A few hours during a cold February weekend that I doubt will ever leave my mind.

My grand parents have been married for 68 years, Marathons and sprints.

Lets go back a few years.

“I feel almost two tons of German steel sliding out of my control; I had taken the curve far too fast. The cars back wheels, have to love a rear wheel drive, hit the wet grass and everything goes into slow motion. It really did. No seat belt on, windows open, moon roof open. The car rolls, and rolls, and rolls, and rolls four or five more times. The inertia keeps it rolling up the hill. I come to a rest, upside down with me in the floor under the steering wheel. The thigh of my right leg is already swollen so large I can not move it. I look behind me and see the metal of the guard rail that plunged through the back window and stopped less than a foot from my head. Two hundred and fifty pounds of fool had finally found the answer in the bottom of that bottle. It wasn’t a pleasant discovery.

I crawl out of the window cutting myself to pieces on the glass and shredded steel. It was the early hours of Mother’s Day and I was soon to be headed to jail. I see the sirens long before I hear them. I stand there leaning against the remains of that faithful car, blood dripping from me in large enough quantities to make a puddle.

No ambulance was called. I pass all of the sobriety tests. My reward was a shiny set of handcuffs and a ride in the back of a car with bars. I remember Al Green coming over the radio and singing “Tired of Being Alone”; I was and I almost got to sleep for a very long time.”

I’ve never been that tired again, and I never will.

A single night and a single phone call to my poor Mother changed me forever; again.”



“Hey, how are you?” “I’m alright, how are you its been awhile. I didn’t really ever expect to hear from you again.” “I know, but I’m a lot better than I was when you left. I just wanted you to know that.” “I’m glad, happy. I was worried about you. I left because I had to; nothing good would have ever come from me staying in Houston.” “I know I’m not mad, I don’t feel abandoned if that is what you are worried about. I would have left too if I were you”

“Well, that doesn’t make it any easier on me, but that is my fault. So tell me why you called. You doing better isn’t the whole reason. I can hear it in your voice. What is wrong?”

“I have something I have to tell you. It is part of the program I am in. Honesty, no secrets, right the wrongs. You know how it works.” “Sh!t, just keep it in your head. I’m out of room in mine.” “I can’t do that.” “Of course not; well tell me then and when you are done just hang up.” “I was pregnant when you left. Two months or so.” “Was?” “Yes, was.” “I thought we talked about that possibility and agreed what we would do if it happened.” “I couldn’t do it love; there was no way I could have the baby.” “Don’t call me love, don’t call me at all. Bye.”

You wonder why I love kids so much, want some of my own so much. Why I always hold a single mother in such high regard. I hold all mothers in high regard, but the ones that decided to take responsibility for their actions; to not rob the world of what might become an amazing person. To raise a child that might some day change someone else’s life. To do it alone knowing their lives would never be the same again. Those I hold as high as the sky allows me. God bless you. Thank you.

I wonder how beautiful that babe would have been.

“It is stifling out here.” “It’s New Orleans Kevin it is always stifling. The heat and humidity are just there to balance the free spirit of the city.” “I suppose that makes sense. I’ve been coming here off and on for seven years now. Why do you always let me in your door?” “You are a good man; never let anyone tell you any different, and always allow me to tell you when I can.” “I’m just like any other man; there are a million of us out here walking around.” “See the stars up there. See how they are all bright, how they all have a little twinkle to them if you watch long enough?” “I see them.” “Now do you see the two or three that are so much brighter than the rest. How you can find your way home with them if you stray too far off the path late at night?” “I do.” “There is your answer then.”

“That was nice; thanks for that.” “Anytime. I feel like a song. Any thing in particular you want to hear?” “Into the Mystic of course. Skip to the good part.”

“I want to rock your gypsy soul. Just like way back in the days of old.”

“That’s enough singing. Lets go back inside for awhile. I don’t know when I will be back again.” “I’ll always be here Kevin.”

Always is the ugliest of all declarative statements. It looks like medusa, a head full of snakes just waiting to bite you and bring you to your knees with their paralyzing poison. The word can turn a man to stone.

“People ask the question, “Do you believe in love at first sight?” I answer “yes”. You know why? That first day I saw you holding Luke to your chest, the way your eyes sparkled when you looked at him. You were sober. I fell in love right there. Six years I had been single, no regular woman in my life, didn’t want one. I had a couple here and there that almost got in, but I kept that heart of mine way back deep inside. It came busting out of that little corner I had it hid in the moment I saw your eyes. Six years of restraint gone in six seconds. You were sober. I remember what you were wearing, how you had your hair, and those black and white tennis shoes. I use phrases like, “Eyes as blue as the July sky, hair that looked like summer wheat soaked in slow pouring honey, and she looked like salvation come to life” to describe that moment. I remember the sparkle you had in your eyes.”

Time is not a proper measure of life.

“I picked up a guy hitchhiking on the far side of Jackson, Mississippi one day almost nine years ago. He was heading to Hammond, Louisiana. So was I, by way of Slidell. His name is Clyde, and after driving for almost two hundred miles I found out he had started walking in Atwood, TN. I spent the majority of my childhood in Atwood, TN. I picked Clyde up two years later this side of Tupelo, Mississippi; he was heading back to Atwood, and so was I, by way of Milan, TN. He had started walking in Mandeville. We stopped and bought two six packs of Budweiser, leaded, and told the stories of the last two years. I saw a man walking down the interstate in Missouri in the early morning hours this Mother’s Day; he had a familiar limp, and when I stopped he never looked at who I was, he just reached out and opened the door. Clyde said he knew it was me; he told me he had been walking for forty years and I was the only one who had ever stopped to offer him a ride. He told me he was heading back to Hammond, and I wanted to take him the whole way. I told a story about how the skies were blue in Tennessee and how the Sun was always bright and warm. He looked like he wanted to tell me something, but when I dropped him off around the exit to Jackson, Mississippi he just shook my hand and said, “I’ll see you around the next time; maybe you can take me the rest of they way then.”

When I came back from St. Louis Labor Day week I picked Clyde up once again. He told me that the trips were getting closer together. I told him to quit walking down I-55 South so much. He asked if I were to see him on the north side would I pick him up. I just looked at him and grinned. Of course I would. Clyde must be close to 60 or 70 years old. He had an extra bag with him this time and I asked why the heavy luggage. He told me that he was going south for winter and wouldn’t be back this way for a long time. I dropped him off in Dyersburg and he headed in the direction of Memphis. He waved without looking back.

“I could write a book for you. Hell I will.”



“Have you ever known someone you could write a book about? I'm using book as a generic noun here, it is what fits me, for you it could be draw a picture, sing a song, name your favorite sandwich after, whatever.

It is more about the feeling than the result of that infatuation. You look at them and you see the words forming, you can feel your hand moving the pen across the smooth texture of the paper. The callous on your index finger from years of refusing to do anything but write everything by hand starts to itch. Chest tightens a little bit. If you are lucky you have real experiences to draw those words from. You know for a fact and are not just assuming that the taste of them lingers for days; the smell of their hair permeates the atmosphere around you.

If you are lucky you can tell a story that is believable, truth, one that makes the reader think about the person they want to name their favorite sandwich after.”



Find a muse people. Be a muse. Tell the people that look at you like you are crazy to go on about their unoriginal life.



KB

“Everyone has a story”

~Neil LaBute

[JacksDad]

Got one.

kthnxbai.

;)