The Ending of 2014...don't tell me what happens.

   I've heard a lot of people say how fast time flies as we get older. Certainly my parents did. Well, I hope I'm finally on on some threshold of acceptance so I can just go on without the constant amazement. Cripes, time flies!  At this rate I'll be dead before I get a chance to notice I'm gone.

This post needed a picture. These are our neighborhood bears. 
                The mom and her 2 wee cubs

My friend Marco once said regarding death, "I just hope one morning l wake up and I'm not there"

   My parents, Dad passed last September. Mom is still here. She has the room across the hall from where dad was. Just before her birthday in November, my sister Nancy said, "Mom you are having a birthday soon". "I am?" says Mom, "How old will I be?" "95 Mom.". "Well, says Mom, I'll probably live to be a hundred". That kind of triggered these ramblings.

    As I age, I find it more of a challenge remembering dates, you know, when shit happened, when I'm supposed to do what, when.... and even what day it is. I clearly remember, like it was yesterday, my Dad asking over and over what day- time- month-even year it is. This from an ex- air force pilot. At the time, we made light of it, but now I'm smack dab on the border of it. So... here's where I'm going with it: Ever since I touched the hem of the garment of "enlightenment" (in a manner of speaking)  ... the profound reward, goal, understanding, is, was, and always will be: Here we are. The Present moment. Or perhaps more honestly, '"Here I am". This is all there is. NOT, this is all there was, or, this is all there will be. ....nope, simply put, This is it. So how come it goes by so fast?  

   I wish it was easier to remember that my anxieties stem from fear and a sort of regret. Fear of what might happen, regret from how I may have handled what already did happen. Nothing whatsoever to do with where I live and breathe right now.  
 This is where l live, create, think, sleep, eat, worry, wonder, paint and write and go kaka  This moment is also where for some reason, l seek the news of the world. I listen, watch, worry and wonder. How can we possibly be so stupid? Why are we doing these things to each other and our beautiful planet? 

I once took a look when I was younger. I travelled across the Atlantic on a steam ship. I worked in a sawmill between art school classes and saved enough to take off. A buddy and I went across Canada on a train. We got passage on a ship from Montreal to Liverpool. We hitch-hiked England and Wales and made our way to Germany where we bought an old Opal van thingy for $100. We were looking for good hash and God. We found bits and pieces of both. Denmark, where the kids stoned us. Portugal where we ate fresh sea food on the beaches, Spain, where, in Ibiza,we dove in the clear, clean Mediterranean  speared octopus for the family that housed us, ate fresh bread sopped in olive oil and drank red wine before dancing with the unattainable beauties in the discos. Took a silly sea sick side trip past the straights of Gibraltar to Morocco to buy kief to sell to the Ibiza hippies, but chickened out just before the return border crossing. We stopped by the side of the road and unscrewed the headlamp and took out our pathetic kilo and gave it to a shepherd. One of those aforementioned past regrets. Not so much the loss of good smoke, but more the misunderstanding we have contributed to in the Arab world.  We could have at least chilled enough to smoke a bowl with him. Wandered through France and Italy, then the incredible Yugoslavia, which is no more, at least not in the Communist form it was then. Over the mountains, slipping and sliding in the snow and down into Greece where we did a sketchy black market deal to clear the Opal from the passports and jump aboard a new (1969) VW camper wagon belonging to the girl I later followed to the other Communist country we called "the Love Family" . But back then, we were part of a very organic wave of seekers following the Beatles and other heroes of our generation onto the overland trail to India and possible spiritual enlightenment. If all else failed, there was certainly lots of very good hashish. If it was good enough, we could even sense God smiling at us. We had our clues on the quest. "God is Love" was a doozy. We were just beginning to flex those muscles and they were sort of saving our lives. Seems no matter how tense or scary a scene we found ourselves in, being open and loving won the day. 

Anyway...Turkey- pretty fukkin scary at first. Then we settled down. This ain't Europe. A hub of civilization for thousands of years. So much to learn and absorb. We actually had nothing to offer other than awe. We were tolerated in proportion to the amount of respect and interest we showed. I slowly got that.  Iran- scary at first. warm, generous, hospitable, Tehran was beautiful. People took us up a mountain where they were skiing. We got an inner tube and had a blast. The Persians were wonderful.  Afghanistan- scary at first- These powerful tribesmen were very respectful and generous as well. It was cold and freezing there in November. We dropped down into the lush plains of Northern Pakistan and were blown away by the green fields, warm air, flocks of parrots, and really fine hash. We had problems with the paperwork on the van and Pakistan would not permit us too continue into India. 
We were stuck in a small village for almost 2 months. Hands down, this was the richest part of my journey. Our host would collect me in the evenings and I would walk on the dikes separating the wheat fields with my new friend, Mehboob and we would talk about God. 

Recently I read that memories are not directly retrieved, but instead they are associated with the last time you talked or thought about them...or something to that effect. I thought it important to throw that in here because although these memories are part of me and make up a very fond picture of my past, they are, by the same token, a recollection of a recollection of a story of a time when I was creating myself. I've tweaked and twisted and stretched the events to my advantage in an attempt to have something I've come from...grown out of...some things wonderful and bright and others dark and ....well...dark. Things inflated, things suppressed all in a tangle of sweet and bitter, aerating the compost carefully placed around the little tree of my life. 

So here I am, such as l am. Stories I tell from the past are memories of memories of memories. They are fun and have a lot of possibilities due to lack of first hand witnesses. I try, however, to be as true as l can and hope they are somehow worthwhile. All this to illustrate the only truth available to us all. Listen, can you hear it? Love it. It's all we've got. 
Let's make nice in these precious few seconds.

                        Happy holidays