I can remember like it was yesterday my father telling me over and over again the importance of finding a job. From an early age I was rolling the mower (my Bigwheel) through the neighborhood with a trailer my father built for me to pull the gas-can. I remember rolling that mower through the yard with the leaves crackling beneath all the heavy equipment. I remember my father standing and smiling as he toked on his Kent Golden Light shorties. He had a pop belly then just like all the other rail dad's. I swear there should be a hug your favorite railroad engineer day. I have never met one who wasn't a total pain in the ass. But when push comes to shove, you will never find a more loyal individual than someone of the railroad persuasion. All his friends are gone now and his wife, my mother, is engaged in a battle with Alzheimer's. Nobody in the family ever calls them or sends them cards in the mail with the exception of the oldest. The only thing they both did their entire lives was work and pay the bills and give each of us our own individual and cherished experience in life growing up. Times could be good and times could be bad and times could be all and everything between. I suppose most families are like that and the word "normal" cannot be applied. I told them a long time ago I would be there. I am there.

I don't think people appreciate the fact that nothing is what it seems and everything is really in the way you see it. No matter what anybody says, no two people see the world in the same way(s), no two people.As young people we break ourselves off into groups... the final testing ground and pregame, so to speak, is high school. High school breaks society down into its various social and economic parts where groups (children of community players and non players and everything in between) learn how different they really are from each other. The formulation of group identity seems to be based in the rhythmic expressions of humanhood and the development of one's own acting ability while operating within a framework of people where similar interests exist... but change with age.

My earth my beautiful earth. Way out in the middle of nowhere and everywhere at the same time. You are so small, so blue in a sea of absolute darkness. You sit alone in a trillion mile wilderness of stars and time. You are a wonder. If there is something out there, then that same something must exist here, in you my earth my beautiful earth of which I cannot escape.

As much as people try to hide their motives, more often than not, their efforts at hiding their true desires reveal to the one who pays attention all he needs to know. By and large, the higher one moves up socially or economically the more competition there is to get there. In order to make such moves, politics comes into play. It is just like my grandmother told me once: Jon she said, there is politics in everything. Looking back at her life, I saw politics in the ways in which she had to deal with grandpa. I saw her work people and charm people to make sure there was a homey type environment... the very environment that made grandpa happy and hungry. Back in the day, it was the job of the woman to have a meal prepared for her man when he arrived home from work. Grandma's motives were clear: Keep the old man happy and full so he will sleep and not be such a bitching, moaning and groaning old man. Time can teach how one might be able to see the wordings of people that exist behind the words and movements they use when speaking. It is in this arena where real and true motives live and breathe. Sometimes, if you pay attention, you can watch as people raise legitimate drama and still make time for the cursory pause and stare into the light with just a hint of a grin. What is it that truly motivates a man or woman?

Christopher Cross - Ride Like The Wind

It sometimes takes time to remember how your authentic self is the one thing that has sustained you through your various other selves and once you drop all associations with the selves that are in no way affiliated with your authentic self, then you can pick up where you dropped it off which was at the doorstep of expectation where the very nature of the beast requires the formulation and maintenance of various selves that serve one purpose, to dominate the most inner portions of the soul with feelings of accomplishment and greatness; to exceed what was expected of you. If however the joy can only be felt on a level where the authentic self is not welcomed, the imposing battle from there on in will either be recognized or not recognized... but will have an affect on the life of every self. It will especially affect the life of the authentic self... if it is known and recognized and cherished in any way. And as age takes its course, not dealing with these crosses in the road only makes the journey more fragmented,  yet I suppose a bit more interesting. It is the journey, as they say, not the found nugget at the base of the big rock at the edge of the stream.

Africa