Points of Light, write what feel because that is what is real!
Have you ever tried holding your breath? You know you can hold your breath and you know this because at some time in your past you’ve done just that. Now, it doesn’t matter if you’ve held your breath to swim, for “holding your breath” contests with family and/or friends, for acts of random silliness, or just to time yourself to see how long you can hold your breath, you know you've done this. Still no matter the reason, there always comes that point when you can’t continue holding your breath and YOU'RE FORCED to gasp for a life-saving fresh breath of air. From that point on you don’t have to give it a moment's thought as you continue breathing. It would be a pointless exercise to ask you, “Are you breathing now?” I mean, you haven’t given it a minute's thought that you’ve moved through time and space as you spend your precious time reading my present musing, but you’ve done just that even as you’ve continued breathing. We can both call that a no-brainer, but it’s not a non-sequitur to the real story I want to write for you. Think about that last time you held your breath and then consider how you felt when you arrived at the moment you told yourself you wanted to continue holding your breath, but your primal intrinsic instincts took over and forced you to breathe. That primal drive survives in all of us to keep us alive. I mean, we all love living, and we barely give it any notice that breathing is a very small price to pay to remain alive. So, I want to ask you to do something. I want you to pause for a moment, yes pause, and as you pause, I want you to feel your chest move up and down, out and then in. Now, listen to hear the tiny, slight sound of the air as it passes in and out of your nose and of course, I want you to feel it’s passage. These sensations are something we take for granted for what they are, but breathing each and every breath, well it's something very beautiful in a life lived. Now I hope you’re dying to know, maybe holding your breath waiting to hear why everything I just wrote isn’t a non-sequitur to my real story. Writing IS my breath! When I can’t write I feel my primal intrinsic instincts yelling at me, trying their best to command me to write. When I can’t write, it’s as if my body convulses and my arms and legs flail as I struggle to write just the right word that’s full of light, color, and beauty so I can give it to you just because I love you. So you see, now you can understand this because I took my time to get you here.
For the last month, I’ve not written anything and now you know for the last 30 days I’ve felt as though I couldn’t breathe, and my body was convulsing while my arms and legs were flailing. For the last 30 days, a powerful primal intrinsic instinct was screaming at me, “Tod, write! You have to write; you must write to continue living!” But I was having none of it and I had no idea why. I mean, I had come around to believing in one obtuse notion that I wanted my writing to center around a goofy bird in someplace that was south of North America (and I can always circle back to that destination in my future writings). Then I had another obtuse notion that I had a sure and fast idea that I had to write about how when a man has gained the love of a woman, he’s won the most precious substance in the universe. I pondered on both those notions for quite a long time - and y'all know how deeply I think. I had ideas, and once or twice I even had a starting place to begin a story, and it might have been a good story, but something didn’t feel right, so I refused to write even the first letter.
Time passed and metaphorically, my skin was turning blue as I struggled but couldn't even write one simple line of one of my very simple musings. I felt empty as though I held no light to put colorful letters together that formed beautiful words, and that led me to feel miserable. Still, within all my misery, that primal intrinsic instinct fought me because it wouldn’t and couldn’t give up on me.
Then today happened! I was at the gym listening to the music you’ll usually find me listening to when my struggle ended, and I gasped to breathe in a beautiful breath of air. According to some algorithm YouTube uses, a song I know well popped up on my playlist. This song has always whispered to my heart and asked me to calm down. Then, as I calm down and listen, it always gives me a few moments to consider something life can offer a man - something that to me is very beautiful, and beauty is always worth finding, even if briefly in my pitiful thoughts. Today, I needed to breathe and as I listened to this song, I allowed intentionality to seize every part of me and the words to this song took me to an ethereal place where two someone's permeated my senses (you have my permission to laugh at that word "someone's", but I like it in this context). Of the one someone, because of what she’s meant to my heart life. And of the other someone, because she’s made me look both to my inside and outside life to expand on who and what I am.
The song, oh, it’s very simple, short, and to the point. Still, when you look for something deeply real in its words, they're not missing and you don’t have to look hard to find them, you just have to look at your heart and feel. As I listened to this song, it’s exactly in this looking to my heart and seeing what it is I’m feeling that I was finally able to find why I hadn’t able to write anything these last 30 days. You see, in writing, I’m free to share my heart with you and I never hold anything back from you. In every word I write, I want you to find an emotion and my desire is that you intimately know and understand each and everyone. If I can’t find that, then I’d rather not write at all. For these last 30 days, I’d been in my head trying to will myself to feel this way and that way, that is - I didn't want to feel what I was experiencing in truth. I tried to tell myself I had to write something that was inside my head and not something that was real to me, but fakery has never been a part of anything I write, at least nothing I wrote that was beautiful. Thus, the reason I've not written anything for you these last 30 days.
“So, what’s the song TOD!” Yeah, I can hear you screaming that at me, and I can feel your hot breath as you scream it. Okay! Dang. “The Way You Look Tonight”. It has only four short verses and as I was working out at the gym, one line out of those four verses hit me like a 2x4 right between my eyes, “With each word your tenderness grows, Tearing my fear apart.” I should back up and tell you why I felt like I had to pay attention to this particular song. You see, one of the someone's I mentioned above, I only know her in the virtual world of the internet. As a citizen of the real world, she's traveled to several of its destinations. In our many virtual interactions, a couple of times, this song has played in the background and every time time it played, it’s music would calm my mood. Still, I always had trouble experiencing the full potential of this song because every time this someone sang the words “And that smile that wrinkles your nose, touches my foolish heart”, she always distracted me from realizing what the words were trying to say. So, in the gym, as I heard Michael Bublé sing about her words tearing his fears apart, I remembered having one conversation with with this someone that almost mirrored those very words, so, the entirety of the song spoke directly to my heart, feelings, and emotions, and I finally knew I'd be able to breathe again. As my heart smiled, I was happy!
The other someone exists in my real world, here in the cornfields, right here in the middle of my country, my part of this big, beautiful world. I love her, as someone has said, “Bigly!” I love her so much that I’d take a bullet for her – thank God she has a boyfriend, so I never have to worry about making that commitment happen. But several years ago, when my life lived had taken me to a really bad place inside my body, mind, and heart - she came along beside me and shared with me some very tender love that only she could lavish on me. She gave me her heart with a few simple words, “Tod, I just saw your video, and I wanted to say this. I know you know it, but everyone is imperfect. And sadly, no one will ever be perfect. But I think it's important and admirable of you to strive to better yourself. And I also wanted to say, that as imperfect as you may be, there are people around you that see all the amazing things you have to offer, myself being one of them. You've always been a great friend to me, supportive and there to listen when I need to vent or needed advice. You're intelligent, you have a good sense of humor, and I always enjoyed our conversations together. I'm so proud of you for all the effort you have been putting in to looking inward and figuring out who you are. Most people don't have the guts to do that, it's truly impressive. It seems like your faith has been an anchor for you throughout all this, and I encourage you to cling to that. I love you always and I miss you! And I would love to get together soon when you're free. I hope you have a wonderful evening and hit me up soon!” Through those beautiful words, her love entered my heart, and it has never departed - in my heart, her love has found a permanent home. When I was estranged from my daughter, I might have attempted the ultimate act of foolishness if I didn't have this someone's words to fall back on. Had I actually committed that foolish act, of course it would have either terminated my relationship with my daughter forever, or a failed act would have furthered our estrangement and made our eventual reconciliation impossible. With those words and this someone's love, she bequeathed to me the time I needed to work hard
to improve my life, and I did that work with ferocity! It was love, her love that showed me I’m a painter of light through words, that I’ve always chosen to write about light, color, and beauty. So yeah, when I heard the song whispering to my heart, “With each word your tenderness grows, tearing my fear apart”, I was compelled to think of this special someone that meant and continues to mean so much to my heart life. I mean, just recently, she spoke to me about the other someone when she told me this, “You can be thankful for what inspiration she gave you. She sparked something in your writing, and it led you to step out of your comfort zone and try something new and fresh in your writing. I hope you hear back from her because it sounded like she felt a connection too. But if not, she still helped you to find a new and exciting thing in your mind and in your writing, which is still a beautiful thing. And at the end of the day, it’s a massive world out there. And if you’re concerned about losing a companion, I can guarantee you will find many more around the world, if that is what you’re searching for.” With that, my heart should be full, right? But there’s the other someone.
“Someday, when I'm awfully low, And the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you, And the way you look tonight.” In a virtual world, I often have the pleasure of looking at this citizen of the real world, a world that at this time more than many, many other times, can seem pretty damned cold. I appreciate every night I get to see the way this someone looks. But you have to understand, it’s more than her looks! She has an intelligence that floors me. She’s knowledgeable about any subject you want to talk about. I mean, with her beauty and intelligence she could easily be the femme fatale in any old film noir you’ve ever seen. But when you begin to know her, you find in her calm peace, light, and beauty. So rather than a femme fatale, if you were to exercise a fertile imagination, you’d more likely find her at a big fundraiser explaining to some billionaire industrialist how he could help solve climate change.
Then she’s a student of psychology. Now, anybody who's ever been in a close relationship with me - ex-wife, kids and others - can tell you how in real-time my feelings can get tangled and not being able to figure them out, well, I explode in anger! I never liked this about myself, but I always talk honestly to you. This someone has showed me how I’ve never given talks a chance. There have been times when my feelings have gotten tangled, and my past seemed to tell me they couldn’t be untangled. She’s helped me understand how I used to think my feelings would make people want to leave me, which made talking through them difficult - especially when I needed help just to understand what they were. But yeah, she’s helped me understand how I can talk through my feelings and avoid anger by showing me how to work through them in a calm and rational manner. So yes, those words whispered to me again, the ones that kept telling me her words tear my fears apart.
Then she’s found a way to push me to better myself even more than I already have. I’m now working out at the gym, I'm working my brain to learn a new language, I want to take classes in either karate, judo, or yoga. I want to take classes to learn to dance. Being totally tone death, I want to find a vocal coach that can teach me to sing two or three songs - at least reasonably well. So, when Michael Bublé sings, “I will feel a glow just thinking of you”, yes this someone makes my heart feel warm.
Anyway, this was less an attempt at writing a story as it was of me just exercising my breathing for the first time in 30 days. I want to close by saying something to my heart. Heart, you are BOSS!
As Always,
With all my Love and So Much Peace,
Tod w/only one d
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