Longing for waters

The beach makes everyone put their arms around each other’s waists. even the beaches with the icy cold sand in the middle of the night. you can’t help it. the wind tells you to do so. It seems a dogs age since I've stood before those vast waters and their ethereal grace. They soothe and cleanse, enliven and destroy with equal ease. My respect and love affair with large bodies of water began at a very early age, the joy and sheer freedom of just being as I floated, ran, sang, and danced through waves were a welcomed balm to any and all ailments. I would spend months surrounded by waters, when  had to leave; a part of me remained swimming between distant shores and delving beneath their tranquil depths.

I am haunted by water.

Lone Rider

We've been friends a long time.  A long time ago we were more.  Occasionally we still are.  He's stalwart and yet far to compassionate all at once.  His unspoken need to "save" those around him, even when they've given no effort of their own to be saved has been his greatest accomplishment and downfall.  At the end of the day the only peace he seems to find s on his bike.  Riding alone through the twist and turns as though he can outrun those that will be waiting to ask his favour.

No matter how many times I've attempted to help him step back and take a breath before diving headlong into another one of his crusades, he slips through my fingers like smoke.  Assuring me that he's fine.  He can handle it all.  And he does.  Right up and until it all becomes too much for him to stand, and then he comes back, spends a night or two seeking solace in a place that no one knows about, with a woman he's come to call family.  We sit in silence, laughter.  Joke, and share thoughts, ideas, cares, successes, and secrets.  We breathe life into the other until the next crusade comes calling.  

Lady Ego

Lady Ego began working for us about 4 days ago, and has since systematically driven each and every teammate to plot her demise.  I have thus become the voice of reason.  So you can now understand how terribly wrong things have obviously gone.  Lady Ego, I am certain has many a great virtue.  Making friends, and being  team player is not one of them.  She has shown through her words and actions that she believes her age should be respected and thus all knowledge she holds must also be law.  She is the second we've found that paints on a mask while the boss is around but once gone, she feels she may do as she pleases everyone else be damned.

While there may very well be no I in team, there is a ME.  My team knows very well the lengths I will go to protect them and their happy work environment.  We are after all this time and combined experiences, one big oddly happy and completely dysfunctional family.  A family that Lady Ego has decided to treat poorly, talk down too, and walk all over.  It's going to stop with or without her cooperation.

  I always protect my family.    

Cowards

Things change. Daily. I believe many would just like the ride to stop, for a brief while if not come to a complete end. The ebb and flow of life demands change. Nature after all does abhor a vacuum. Most people downfall is refusing to change. Holding out hope beyond hope that it can all go back to exactly how it was. Before. Before the hurt. Before the pain. Before they we forced to face their own stifling weakness. A weakness born of fear, chosen ignorance, and greed. Staying exactly the same as they've always been for as long as possible the would be goal. Silence, stillness, unmoving, unbroken. To the masses it feel safer somehow. Their known and self imposed suffering is welcomed. The pain familiar. After all killing the light within is easier than fighting back the darkness without.

Bleed into the cracks

I met Mr. X for dim sum today and talked about the last few months of goings-on. How can you sum up months in a few hours? I can tell you how. By dishing out red chili paste into small, white finger bowls and dipping dumplings by their corners into it, letting the red of it bleed into the cracks and letting the juices dilute it a bit.

Wanderlust

Going back there today just reminded me of being elsewhere. Where you are, and you, and you, and you. I can't let wanderlust keep my head in the clouds forever. This just isn't working. His head is spinning with the thought of me leaving and I can't help but think of not.

Watching Change

Today I sat across from a man. A man who has inherited a responsibility he didn't ask for. He really isn't prepared for it. He sat on the other side of the table and tried to understand, tried to hold onto his place in the world. The spot he believes he has known, owned and understood. How hard it is to wrap your mind around change. To accept that what you thought you knew might not after all, be what you knew it to be.

Today I wanted to reach out to a man in need. I felt his pain because I caused it. But this is mine. I do know how to make a better place for those that are with me, counting on me and my compassion to give them a a moment of solace. It was hard to watch. I wanted to help him. For all I know how to do, the hardest thing for me to know and accept is that I can't help him. It isn't his fault he's never been prepared for the reality now before him. He doesn't know anything else. The last woman in my position treated him like a child. He was never made to grow up. But it isn't my fault that he's never been prepared for the world either. That was another series of unfortunate events that occurred long before I came along.

I watched him. I sat and watched him without a word. I could see the sense of victimization flit across his face. Then the internal accusation reach outward to me in his body language and the deep marring across his once likeable face. If only I would take back those words. Follow the path of all those women before me. Not question, or demand more. Keep doing it the way it's always been done. Then he wouldn't have to grow up. He wouldn't have to accept that responsibility he isn't ready for. Wouldn't have to reexamine hs choices. Look into the mirror and growl at the changes I imposed. Why can't I just keep it the way it's always been?

I sat and watched and waited wordlessly.

He finally reached for his stack of well arranged excuses he's carried with him as long as he can recall. Displaying them to me, showing me how it used to be, how it could be again and stood. Then I saw the final level of defeat. The small hope that maybe he could find someone who would make me accept that it had to keep being the way it has always been. I realized then that I wasn't watching change, I was watching failure.

So many things I could teach him. So many ways I could help him. Why didn't he listen to me when I told him? He came to play at life, I came for blood. Why is that so hard to believe? I don't have that pretty a face. Sooner or later the one behind him will inherit a mantle he isn't prepared for either. Then he too will sit across from me.

Like little domino's lining up one after the other, waiting for me to see reason. To accept their failure as mine. To bow to their chosen ignorance, and take the path always traveled. Firefly 5, culturally unprepared men, zero. Sooner or later, a man amongst them is going to reach out and stay my hand. I'm getting impatient expecting him.

For now, I keep waiting to watch change.