Before and After Things Change | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the category “Before and After Things Change”

28 Mar 2012

Every Begining Has An End

At the other end of something that begins is always the finish. Some ends come quicker than others, while some seem to go on for a long time. But either way the start has an end. ♥ The fact that I am positive of it- itself is comforting.

Before I knew I had cancer I was feeling invincable, that I had my own destiny totally under my control. God willing old age would finally get me like many of my ancestors before me, but I would have all the time to watch my children grow up and be what they chose to be. I would have time to sit on the beach with my wife & lover of decades so many that we would have stopped counting. I would be at peace because life was full, through all the ups and downs it would present in its eventual path to the end. Before cancer came, my lover and I had pictured of our traveling the country care-free. making stops along the way to take in the goodness of humankind as God planned it.

In the days before, there were indeed some days it would be easy to take things for granted, not stopping to make eye contact with life itself – too busy to invest the time to share words of kindness or a silent smile. Anger was something to hold on to, and happiness was something to have to go find. Regrets would be about trival things that didn’t even matter to anyone but me.

After cancer, our life together changed forever (that is a strange term since this life is not a forever thing). The battle is on, but the invader is without mercy. No voluntary retreat, no sympathy for time. The picture changes and the reasons for living become clearer with sharper edges. Each day becomes more precious, every interaction with life and the things around it more detailed. There is a willingnesss for investment in the “now’ that you want to share with everyone you can. Even still- although it seems that there is a plan, it is needed to be careful for the cold-darkness that can creep in. Even still- thankful for another day, thankful for the opportunity to embrace the things that matter most, but knowing there is the feeling of being tied to an ending. Theres that feeling of doubt (not fear) of how it will be for the fight in the end.

Still after all I am grateful for each day God gives me. Making sure along the way that I can pay it back while I am here on Earth. Each day as we move from place to place, we can make a difference in someone’s life that may last their lifetime.

I am a fan of many movies about traveling time and how it effects something that will change everything after it. From It’s A Wonderful Life to Butterfly Effect. But this is not just a fantasy, it is a real thing. Each of us can do it and put our existance on Earth in motion for years after we are gone from it. Making a difference that is more than tracks in the dust. It is a decision to live life and also to embrace eternity when it is over. The begining… has an end. But then all of us knew that all along. It is so easy to forget – until that day the when something shows you your plans have changed.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Cancer, Living, Postive Thinking, Self-Awareness

19 Mar 2012

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Organization in the Clutter of Life

It seems sometimes it is so important to get organized in your life, than other times it seems that the freedom to let it all go makes perfect sense.

Those times when everything needs to be in order. You know, you look around and everything seems cluttered, out-of-place, displaced from the space it belongs in. The clutter can lead to confusion, to that feeling of being off-balance. Nothing is where it needs to be, and you can’t imagine how it got that way. Maybe just a victim of every-day living, running its paces and little by little things just go out-of-order. Other times it can just seem like one day it is all good and the next nothing seems in place.

All good are those opposite days, when you seem to be flowing back and forth though the daily machine of living…so at ease. Nothing bothers you , nothing goes according to plan, but you don’t care. The constant changes feel good, like surprises you can cherish one at a time. The changes seem to nearly confirm the confidence in those unorganized days being temporary. Bring the changes on!

But those days where it is cluttered, every noise seems to rub you the wrong way, like the high-pitched squeal of fingers on a chalkboard (do they have those anymore?). Nothing any one says seems to sit well with you, and you find fault in even the littlest of things. You become annoyed at nearly everything.

That’s when you need to reach deep, and take a deep breath. Reach deep into yourself and meditate on the important things in your life, in your love of the higher being, your center that brings you to your awareness. The awareness of everyone around you, and you in the world surrounded by everything else.

You find yourself re-arranging the clutter, putting things back in their place. You find new places for some of the things in your life, you throw out others. You move-on with the people and ideas that aren’t working the way you thought. You re-engage with the lovers and friends that you know will be there, whether you are all-together organized, or just totally bouncing from place to place like a rubber ball.

So today realize that not every day can be exactly as you plan, not every thing in your space can be exactly where it belongs. Some days when you struggle to organize things, it just isn’t the right day, other days it comes so easily that you have to sit down at the end of the day and be thankful. But either way, take a breath and appreciate the essential things that make you who you are, since you are the only “you” you have. Love yourself for what you are and what you can be.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged choices, clutter, control, life is precious, Organization

13 Mar 2012

Our Fear Factor

I have noticed more lately than ever before how much fear there is in the world. It is a controlling part of so many people’s lives. It’s simple things like being sure you wear the right thing when you go outside, or being sure you say the right things. But it can be more complicated; like fear of losing your possessions, or your relationship with someone, or losing the life of a loved one.

Like wandering down a dark street wondering what hides in the shadows, we often wonder thru life fearful of its outcome. We take the necessary steps to be on the defense and be sure that we don’t get hurt – but we do many of these things as a sacrifice to our life and what it could be. Sometimes fear generates anger, sometimes it generates sadness, other times doubt. But in defense of fear we also keep so many other things from entering our lives as well.

Being on the offense against fear can often lead us to do reckless things that we can learn to regret later. The offensive could mean we lose friends, we hurt ourselves carelessly or we falsely take on things that we shouldn’t have. Either way it puts us in the middle of reacting to everything with a single lens to look though ( and they aren’t rose-colored).

A good friend of mine once pointed out to me that the opposite of love doesn’t seem to be hate, it seems to be fear. If that is true, we do a great job of insulating ourselves from love, we don’t say things we could to others, we make decisions to continue relationships or end them purely based on fear. A lot of psychologist couches are occupied by people who have not been able to honestly share their love with/for another person – I imagine often because of fear.

Our love of God is compromised, our love of our fellow humans is painted with all sorts of prejudices. We isolate family and friends because of it. Is like FDR once said “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”? Can we exchange fear with love? Or will we forever be measuring our “fear-factors”?

It sometimes makes me sad to think we have so much more to give. Okay – I fear I have written too much. I am done now.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Doubt, Fear, God, Love

28 Feb 2012

The First Time I Heard The Music

The “First Time” for Music. There are so many first times in one persons’ life you could dedicate a book to it. Since music is a theme, I wanted to recall some of my best firsts with music that changed me forever. My top 5 Albums. What albums have changed your life? Made an indelible impression on you forever?

1 Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: I held it in my hands that summer day and listened to it over and over and read the words (they included the fickin words) and stared at the cover. I didn’t have the money for the stereo version- I bought the mono version. It didn’t matter, I was consumed by it. It still amazes me every time I listen to it end to end. It seems like a much longer album, but it wasn’t that long from begining to end.

2 Who’s Next: I blew a set of speakers because of this album. I think it was on “Baba O’Rielly”, but it maybe could have been “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. I can’t tell you how great it is that all of my teenagers love this album as much as I did in 71. They totally get how it influenced what they listen to today. It still makes sense even now. The songs. The lyrics. The music. Since then I can recall just one other time jacking up my speakers: Blink 182.

3 Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars: What Sgt Peppers did in its day, Bowie helped glam rock and all that it would be. It captures the heart of Velvet Underground and what would be the rest of the Mott the Hoople/T Rex/Lou Reed evolution. Even though there were better albums in that era in some pieces, this was the complete damn record.

4 Innervisions: Stevie Wonder man- in the way that this album was constructed is like some sort of opera for the inner city, but also like a painting, or a movie. It stands as a work of art. The album influenced the word of soul, funk, and everything that came after that. It influenced me by taking me beyond rock for the first time in a way that Motown music had not done before that.

5 Hotel California: The first time I heard this, I was in denial. I had heard the Eagles first album and it was stacked up with the America album in my collection. Then I listened to this album. It was the way that they captured the essence of California, and all that it meant to be the cool part of the next decade. The 60’s were behind us, this was the cool 70’s and this was the new band to take it there.

My top 5 list (of 50). Believe me when I say that there are a dozen really great contemporary albums on my personal list. I will forever be a Copeland fan (Beneath the Medicine Tree) and as emo it seems it is…Dashboard Confessional (A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar) or Something Corporate (North) or Jack’s Mannequin (Everything in Transit). Yes there is Dylan, Joni, Frank Zappa, the jazz of Dave Bruebeck or Miles Davis and others from the era gone by I guess- makes me feel old when I don’t feel old. But there they were.

Just bear with me here, music is the paintbrush that creates moments in time like pictures and the recollections that are always there. What are yours?