I didn't come here (and I ain't leavin')

   So, there I was minding my own business and all of a sudden I emerge here on earth over sixty years ago. With some hazy memories of an old man walking down some stairs and sitting in a chair and then...

Right smack in the middle of the Bible Belt in Ala-damn-bama, U.S.A. to a teenage mother and an absent father and thankfully two grandparents who were happy to see me.  I'm not going to argue the merits of that old time religion because to be honest I have mixed emotions about it. While I have come to doubt the fundamentalist religion I grew up with. The faith and prayers I was taught as a child has saved my sanity and maybe my life on more than one occasion. Still, the false guilt and just so stories of an angry Deity didn't help my sanity. So, I'll call it even and keep going on down the road.

  I've gotten over the need to convince people of anything. So, I don't spend a lot of time trying to prove my beliefs or my political leanings to people. I have come to think of life as a journey and not a destination. This is one part of it. 

Now I've heard there was a secret chord. That David played and it pleased the Lord. But, you don't really care for music do ya? ...Leonard Cohen

  I sometimes think I've seen and heard that secret chord but then the earth rotates and I think I miss the beat. I spent a lot of my early life trying to play the tune that would please other people. As a child you try to say the things that will please your parents so they will give you what you want or at least not (as we say in the south) whup your ass. 

Then you try to please the teacher so you can get a passing grade and move up to the next level. You try to please the preacher so you can be "saved" and join the church. You try to please the girl or boy depending on your gender or preference so you can uhh, well anyway.

You try to please God so that you can get the right job so you can get the right girl so you can have the right uhh, anyway.

Wait a minute. Am I doing the male thing and making this all about getting uhh, you know. 

That's what she said...Michael from "The Office." 

Then this thing called social media comes along and everybody has to make sure that everybody else knows how great "my" family and friends have got it and did you see the picture I posted from my phone at the Olive Garden last night of my salad and bread sticks?

It goes like this the fourth, the fifth the minor fall, the major lift. The baffled king composing Hallelujah. ...Leonard Cohen

  Well, I admit I'm baffled alright. I'm not the king but still aren't we all the kings and queens of our little domains? I sometimes feel out of place and out of time. I think if I could just pop back to around the early to mid 70's I could find something I misplaced. 

  Must have been my hair. I haven't seen that in awhile. But, no that's not it. Maybe that feeling of youth that the road in front of me is longer than I can ever get finished traveling? No, that's not it because that road sure don't seem as long in front of me in this part of the journey. 

and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep...Yeats

I remember youth alright. It was an amazing and crazy and sad and exhilarating time.Some say youth is wasted on the young but I disagree. Because if I hadn't of had the silliness of youth then it wouldn't have been youth.

Don't bogart that joint my friend, pass it over to me...Little Feat

I do wish I had paid more attention though. Stayed a little more soberly focused. Not to be extremely serious because life is too important to be serious all the time. I knew a girl in the 80's. I swear I can't remember her name but back then I wuz in luv. Anyway, I remember that she was smart. She said once that she wished she hadn't done so many drugs in her teens because she felt she would be a lot smarter than she was. I understood. Still do.

Not that I was a drug head in my teens. I actually was pretty spaced out without the use of chemicals back then. Still am at times but that's another story.

I know what freedom means to me. And I can't give a reason why. I should ever wanna die...Eagles "Twenty one."

  I don't think we are mistakes so I really feel like we are on an eternal journey back to God, Source or higher self. I personally still pray and so I feel it's a journey back to a personal God or Ground of Being. But, if you don't then I don't think it matters. I highly doubt there is a petty old angry man somewhere marking your name out of a book just because you question reality. 

Sometimes to keep it together, you got to leave it alone...Eagles "Wasted Time." 

  So, I won't be voting for Trump and I don't care if it makes some silly macho type mad at me. Some of you think if you talk in a slow southern drawl and can pull a trigger that makes you a man. It doesn't. Any idiot can pull a trigger.

I also won't be voting for any far left wing social warrior who thinks I am some kind of scourge on the earth and have privilege. Child if you had of lived my life you would be over in the corner in the fetal position sucking your thumb. 

Also, just because I do speak with a slow southern accent doesn't make me stupid or less of a man.

So you can get on with your search  baby. And I can get on with mine... Eagles

  No matter where I go. There I am. 

Says she talks to angels. They call her out by name....The Black Crowes.

I try to listen to my better angels at least some of the time. I do have reason to think they are there. But, I'm hard headed. So, I have to hope my guardian Angel is merciful. Because some days I can feel the hope of forever but, other days it just seems like a play written by an idiot...Apologies to Shakespeare.

I was watching a youtube video recently. Stephen King was asked what he felt happened when we die. I don't know why but we seem to really put a lot of stock in what famous people say about life and death. But, I digress. I agreed however with his answer. He said that he believes we go on. Because we are so cool and it would be a real tragedy if we just stopped. So, he chooses to believe we go on.

I agree. I choose to listen in the end to my better angels. It may seem like a play written by an idiot on some days. But, that's just because the idiots grab the pen sometimes. But, in the end I have reason to believe that a master storyteller has already written an ending that is out of this world. 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  

Peace!