and oh does that apply to me... one of the most personally profound lines in the book, because I have no blood family... the only family I have ever known are through mutual adoption... so maybe we are supposed to adopt each other and be family... I should probably get over my dumb poor-me phase, skip past the aloof pretense of confidence, and just bare my soul... suddenly another book comes to mind, The Celestine Prophesy by James Redfield, but that is the way it is, isn't it?... when the mind opens, all the paths that ever made sense become clear and easy to follow... if only I was always so lucid...

my choice, I know, but it is easy to forget which way to go when just about all the other fish swim with the current... Waiting For Godot, or whomever... the flow of the collective consciousness of humanity (or any species, I suppose) is much like a river and the further upstream one swims (or out to sea, from another perspective), the lonelier it seems... I suppose it is inevitible, for the more we know, the more we know the more there is to know... opening our minds to the infinite allows us to begin to understand just how small we are, and yet, we can feel as big as we can imagine the universe to be if we realize we are part of everything because we share in the flow of energy...

John Lennon once said, of why he chose to live in New York City, that if he had lived 2000 years ago, he'd have chosen to live in Rome... it was something about being at the most critical energy vortex, the most concentrated mixture of thought, energy, creativity, and progess... or something like that... personally, I thought it to be very egocentric... and still I smile...

for I also believe I understood what he meant which is why it took me more than thirty years to actually leave New York City... that is where I spent most of my first few childhoods (what?... you say you haven't had a second or third childhood yet?... well whatever are you waiting for?)...

I remember driving home from work in the rain and hearing rare silent air on a long time radio DJ on WNEW-FM, the premiere NYC most cutting edge rock radio station for decades... reverently, a very familiar voice almost breaking up said with disbelief that a report just came in...

John Lennon has been shot outside of his home...

earlier that afternoon a fan stopped John on the way to a recording session and asked for an autograph on Double Fantasy, John's current album celebrating love, life, and family... John stopped and signed, as he was so apt to do, for as famous as he was as a member of the Beatles (and my mind drifts back to my early youth and the memory of watching The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and the manic wonder years of living life to extremes that followed and I wonder if there was any better time to come into this physical form in this world than the year rock and roll burst from the loins of youth on to the staid scene of complacency and benign neglect that was the mid-fifties, the visceral energy that stripped naked the pretenses and turned us kids out into a time of ideals, but as Harry said, that's another time), he, John Lennon, was just as approachable walking the streets of NYC... apparently that fan, still holding the autographed copy of Double Fantasy, also had a gun and waited until John returned from the studio that evening to empty the gun into John's chest...

I drove blindly to where John lived and stared into a sea of candles as a cold mist filled the air... hundreds of us gathered, at least... we did not count... we cried, we sang, we hummed, we moaned, or just mostly held each other...

but I digress... this was meant to be a show of appreciation for the gift... but of course such a gift will take me back, for it is a book of words that is so interconnective... that night in the rain and the ensuing year (saying farewell to Harry the following summer was another blow on the bruise and ultimately, a wake up call) was one of the pivotal milestones alone the way as I tried to understand humanity... I realized that I may never... but still, I will not believe in the impossible so I keep hoping that someday I might... anyway, I crossed over from a wasted teen to become a young urban professional not long after that night... and spent about ten years climbing the ladder of success only to find the obvious, but more, it is not only lonely at the top (or in high places), but it is also rather drafty and very restricting... mountains may be majestic and high, but generally mountains do not fly...

that this book should take me back there should come as no surprise...

about 10 years later I decided I had enough of the professional rat race and was deciding where to go next... I spent enough years in New York City to satisfy my egocentric desire to be at the center of human madness (at least for this part of the world) and narrowed my search for a new place to call home to three cities... Seattle, Orlando, and Tucson...

the only reason Toronto, the fourth runner up, didn't make the final cut was the weather... I wanted out of the cold and into some tropical weather... Seattle finished third because it wasn't tropical enough... Hawaii wasn't in the running because it was too expensive and isolated and remember, my primary mission in life was to find the one person meant to be my soulmate and partner in life and everything (all I ever needed was the one)... ah, that elusive the one...

the kid in me made the final choice between the two... I think Orlando won out back then because I wanted to be off to see the wizard and this place was as close to Oz as I'd ever been... the idea, though, as I said and am sure I repeat now and then, was to find someone to share my second, or third, or thirtieth childhood with and ultimately, the rest of eternity... the sharing part never happened quite as I hoped... but there is always hope, right?...

and I did (hope), in these past 13 years since leaving the mecca of decadence and prosperity, build a home and lost a home and live happily and tragically in Orlando, with a mid-nineties detour to Toronto for a couple of years that felt like an eternity (but that dream of love crumbled as it turned to bitter frost while I looked on in disbelief... I left my heart in Toronto, a half dozen times) and cold nights on the streets of Buffalo, monument to wasted affluence, consumption, and frozen decay... returning to Orlando broken, spent and wasted I've been rebuilding from scratch for a few years...

this has turned into a bit of an introduction I suppose... there have been some very rough spots along the way, but mostly this life has been the most enjoyable life I can remember... the most painful, as well, but that only gives me more reason to and evidence of why I can and should appreciate the sunrise and the smiles and the singular moments like when a flower blooms with all the wide-eyed wonder I can bring... and in spite of the cynicism I've learned along the way, I can still be taken by surprise by a raindrop or the look in the eye of an animal or small child seeing the wonder in my eyes for the first time...

it has been some time since I saw that wonder... or felt it...

your gift surprised me like that...

and I wonder why you sent it... and I wonder who you are... your name looks so familiar, but that could be just cuz I want it to be an old friends name, and family... family I've never known... because your simple act of kindness reminded me of what caring is about... and that I can still feel it, if just barely... though it appears so far away, distant, and hardly mine...

I shall pause now, before I write too many words... I see a leap here and I take it to my journals to continue... I hope you don't mind my wanting your inspiration to be part of my gift to the world, the little I can do..

it is, for what it's worth, the most precious gift I can give today...

I hope to be understood... and thank you for being J

ric

             Don't be
           dismayed at good-byes
       A farewell is necessary before
     you can meet
               again.
                         And meeting
                        again, after moments or
                                lifetimes, is certain for
                                those who are
                            friends.
                                           ~ Richard Bach ~