Untrained Hearts

All hearts are trained. Eventually. One way or another. 

Discretion was never my strong suit. I'll tell anybody anything. Ask me to keep a secret and I can. I will. Left to my own devices, though, nobody has to play the bad cop with me.

Ask me a question today and I'll give you a different answer than I gave you yesterday. I fancy myself a reasonably honest soul. I just change my mind a lot.

 

Love In The Time Of Corona

As the wails grow louder, closer, I find my heart opening wider. My head snaps between a day to celebrate birth and an acknowledged end to another precious life.

Joy is there for the picking like wild berries on the edge of the woods. The thorns, though. Watch the thorns.

Love? I may not know much but I love more than you'll ever understand.

Slippery When The Sun Shines

Remember the first time you saw a Mad Max movie? Seems like only yesterday that most of us had to scramble for a dictionary to check "dystopia." Come to think of it, do you know where your dictionary is?

Richard Florida and Stewart Brand pitched visions of a future that was, for the most part, pretty rosy. Of course we had Animal Farm and 1984, too. Oh yeah, Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange.

My generation had Paul Ehrlich and Rachel Carson laying a path for Greta Thunberg and other brave, articulate souls who just happen to notice that the emperor is naked.

Truth doesn't have anything to do with what your political party believes. It has no real relationship to the rituals of the church in which you were raised. No god worth the title is on any side in any war.

Truth just is.

If anybody had ever paid much attention to me, somebody would have probably killed me a long time ago. Fortunately, I preach to a small choir. All they do is kick me off FaceBook.

We can't do much hugging just now but there's no ration on love.

When My Blue Moon Turns To Green Cheese Again

Wasn't the moon a lot more romantic before Mr. Armstrong tracked in all that crud. Of course most of you don't remember. Sometimes the beauty is in the mystery. 

The lucky ones are well aware of how little they know. 

We communicate with words. Most of us do. We "think" in words. We dream in words. What about all of those words in other languages that have no direct equivalent in English or whatever language you generally speak? 

You won't find a language or a culture that doesn't have lots of words for what we call love. So many words, not enough love.

Made Up Words

Words are tools. Weapons, if you consider yourself a warrior. Don't take a thesaurus to a quilting bee or a ballerina to an orgy. This old world is gonna change more in the time that I have left than it has in all my time on watch duty.

I'm damned if I do and well-hung if I don't, if I say so myself.

Is it just me or if they mail everybody a thousand bucks, haven't they just got ol' zero a new suit of clothes?

Wouldn't it be grand if the Marx Brothers were around and working on a new movie?

Wash your hands before you self-immolate.

Out Of Tune, Out Of Luck

Heroes are always there, I suppose. You find 'em when you need 'em. I'm not sure when I first recognized the power of kindness. Looking back, nobody was ever gonna make a "tough guy" out of me. Much as I would love to boast that I'm a lover, not a fighter, you know better.

Fear is turning the world into something that moves at my pace.

As an old, white guy I have to worry about dying or, worse, running for president.

Somebody Wave Bye- Bye

When I think of all the broken ceramic pieces that I've thrown away over the years, it breaks my heart. The art form, Kintsugi, or Kintsukuroi, mending pottery with a mixture of lacquer and gold dust, creates a new history and an extra layer of beauty.

Well, now, I can't afford gold dust and it's hard to get good lacquer these days. That gold, sparkly glue that is made for kids' craftwork is readily available and cheap, though. 

My house is full of patched-up vases and dishes now.

You're wondering, "Are they beautiful?"

They are to me.

Oh, and that broken heart- I've learned to patch that thing up, too, and I think it probably has a lot more miles to go. 

A Time To Fold

A life's work looking for a cause. A damsel in distress or an underdog under the gun. The struggle to find a purpose still gets me out of bed every morning.

If there hadn't been rock'n'roll, I would have found something else, I suppose.

We all talk to ourselves. I write it down and put it here. Nobody ever accused me of mystique.

Maybe These Are The Rainy Days

Just look at me over here, won't you- turning wine into water and thinking about Tuesday Weld. They taught me to save it all for a rainy day and I did. Now what?

The only real relationship I ever forged was with a member of a different species. She died.

I should probably start over but I never really started the first time around. Here's to the lone wolves. Here's to the lonely.

Did You Feel That?

When the earth shifts its tilt, I notice. Life without the proper armor takes a toll. A romantic in a world without romance is unnatural. That's okay. My romantic struggles were worse. 

It's not so much that I have given up on life. The realization that everything comes to me makes me realize that my struggles were pointless. 

For me, I suppose, rock'n'roll served a purpose. It was always that carrot on life's stick.

They All Get Away

You haven't heard my best stories. I just tell the ones over and over that feature hot shots, heroes and famous people. We just celebrated my Aunt Jo's one hundred and third birthday. She wanted to tell us about going to tea at the white house with Eleanor Roosevelt. Well, sir, it's a fine story. She's got better ones, though.

Sometimes I wonder what stories the legends tell.

What wouldn't I give to sit at Lottie's side and listen to her stories about donkey baseball and bottomless wells and mad dogs and the Klan. If the house goes up in blazes, I'll have to gather up my memories before I run outside.

Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.

Run, Ronny, Run

There are days, today being one, when I can't quite decide whether I'm taking up space on the planet, waiting for the end, or if maybe I should be running for president. You know- like those other old white guys.

You know I'm just kidding, right?

Kindness seems to me the virtue that matters most.

This is not my century, boys. Neither was the last.