What’s On Your Mind?

Looking back through a couple of years of writing this blog thing, I see a pattern. Certain ideas keep appearing and re-appearing. Perhaps these are the most important dreams my mind can focus on. Then again these may be problems I cannot overcome.

Some of these words have described journeys and travels, trying to capture the significance of the drop of a leaf, the sound of a bird song, a passing hawk, or the bright sunshine. Some of these words have spilled out from a series of stressful occurrences. Some of the subjects are serious and some are just silly.

Again, I remind the poor reader, this is only a journal of a madman, not to be analyzed but to be enjoyed in its declaration of insanity. The structure is raw and properly incorrect, but stream-of-conscience writing happens like this. Proofreading seldom happens. Like an artist brush stroke, once the paint hits the canvas, it is what it is.

I must also inform whoever visits this site that I am also writing recollections of a former times of youth and music. To accompany that effort, I am digitally recording and in some cases, re-recording two hundred songs written by others and myself since 1965.

As my wife used to say, I’m living in the past. True, but it is a time that shaped my future. It is a harmless recollection of experiences so important that they never were forgotten. Which ones remain is part of the discovery of how I got here.

Perhaps this happens to everyone. Is this why we put photos of events on the wall or videos on YouTube, to remind us of an event or occasion that etched a groove into our gray matter?

Riding a bike is one daily ritual that has become a constant topic. What started as an inexpensive manner of transportation to work while getting some exercise, then changed to be a place of recluse, as comfortable as the morning run to a jogger. A steady pattern of movements over familiar pathways created a time of silence to contemplate what could never be spoken. Now I find being outside, in the sunshine, wind in my face, accompanied by black birds and yard monkeys, seeing unknown neighbors who wave and smile energizes the body and mind. Each day’s ride is a new experience opening my eyes to the wonder of the everyday surroundings.

Isolation and solitude are recurring subjects due to the adjustment of living alone. Many past conversations have expressed the desire for “me time”, but when it is really here; amazingly, it is not as satisfying as expected. All the toys and tools and space available do not afford motivation. My favorite method to actuate dreams is to write them down like a to-do list and check them off as I go.

Conversation seems to be a topic I return to again and again. I may have been silent longer than I thought. The jester facade has diverted meaningful exchange of words describing wants, feelings, desires, passions or any other emotions stuffed away.

The old trunk has brought out lots of subjects. Treasures that have been stored through so many years must have significance. The effort to drag them along with me through the years has now become a revelation of simple items I have cherished.

Photos, letters, newspaper clippings, books and pamphlets, trinkets and memorabilia put away in a dusty trunk for some unknown reason are finding their place again. As I have found with so many photos, there is only a description to someone who understands. Now I can trash some of these reminders though the memories are fresh. Other treasures have been passed on to surprising joy. Maybe that was the reason for keeping them so long.

Dreams and sleeping have awoken my realization that the nightly rest our body requires is not as easy as it once was. Time has allowed me the privilege to explore these visions that come in the darkness.

Some of the writings are just descriptions of surroundings or occasions. A fascinating experience that occurred during this period of spreading out type involved feeling the pain and pleasure I had felt a teenager anguish while having the understanding to appreciate it.

The “Adventures of Ike and Ginger”, to anyone who knows me, was a release of craziness. A core group gave me characters I had already recreated in my mind. None of the players reflect reality but were visions of what I manipulated in one point of view perhaps is truer than imagined.

While these writings are a journal, endless ramblings not worthy for others to read, I will continue to use this format to express my thoughts. If nothing more, it gets me to confront what would cost big bucks to a professional head doctor.

As more thoughts turn to the daily struggle to get simple tasks finished, the wonderment of our surroundings, the joy relating thoughts and visions to print or recreating sounds flooding my head, I will continue to fill the memory of some foreign hard drive with letters, turned to words, linked to sentences, trying to relate to myself that it is all “Just Another Life”.