Took a walk this morning to help dispel this myth I've had in my head that keeps telling me that all those early morning walks are behind me. Used to do it all the time, need to get back into the habit. Have lots of good habits cropping up again right now. I've become more frugal, stopped using credit, drink in moderation, well, to a point, and have once again embraced keeping my house in tip top shape. Now if I can just take that spirit of hard work out into my yard!
So, I took a walk this morning. Dropped off a couple letters at the Geiger sub-branch post office, hit up St Vinnies and found a nice paperback Japanese cookbook, walked around downtown and found that the China Chef has closed, that Slip 45 has closed as well and that the bakery no longer makes donuts. I also found a Chevy Astro van for sale down the street for seven grand and found that that silver grey Focus I had my eye on was gone. Six grand was a good deal.
But it was when I passed the art house cinema that I found the inspiration to write you a line this morning. It's not a quote that I could pull of that bag that sits by the side of my bed, but it is now. It's good enough to print on the side of a Starbucks coffee cup, like the kind you used to bring by the house.
"The greatest sin of all is risking nothing".
It's all about risk. I suppose that's why you used to find me out on Sylvan, waiting for you to pass by. I suppose that's why I used to hammer message signs by the side of the road off Anderson Hill, why I still tend to forward illicit recipes and such to you, why I take long walks to places like Freddies and shop real slow, just to see if I can catch you passing by. I suppose, too, that's what we shared back then, which was a life filled with risk a mile wide. We were crazy, yes, wild, no, but better, in love and wanted the world to know about it. We made plenty of choices, certainly, had window of time big enough for an elephant to jump out of. We had plenty of reasons to stop, too, had ample materials on hand to build up firewalls, to end everything when the heat got to be too hot.
But we kept on stoking the fire, taking the temperature up, fanning the flames. We risked it all and in the end lost it all. No matter, it was a good ride, good enough for me to hard-headedly keep up the risk quotient. Sometimes we see things when we should. Those are the times where we step back up onto the curb and avoid being hit by a passing car. Other times we walk straight out into traffic, movie star style, and hope that those stunt drivers will stop on their marks, get that shot right and avoid mowing us down. I believe I took that mowing down quite well. I ended up where I started, in this house, waiting for somebody, anybody, to come back.
But then, funny thing, I took an even bigger risk, I stopped waiting and started living again.
Risk is a funny thing. You look at life and all that you have to lose. You mentioned that in your last coda to me, how you found that you wanted to keep what you had, that you finally found the value in your life and possessions and didn't want to lose them. I look at my life right now as an embarassment of riches. I look at my risk quotient as one that could be covered by insurance, filled with stuff that, if I should lose them in a fire or burglary or divorce settlement, I could find all over again in a second hand store. That's where I found most of those things to begin with.
But it's that bigger risk that we took, the one where we tossed the dice and lost it all, that has been the biggest lesson of my life. It didn't leave me bitter, or sad, or despondent. Well, I suppose that it did for awhile but now that the lesson has been learned those feelings are all behind me. I'm onto something else entirely right now and it feels good.
I look at that lesson we shared and say "thank's" to you every day. I look at the risk we took, at that line in the sand we drew at the track, at that moment when you walked away because you had to for the sake of your girls and goods and community and where I stood and stayed on because I given you my word, for whatever it was worth. That word as the seminal moment of my life, the cornerstone of my existence. Not the moment when I was born or first got laid or first gave myself over to matrimony. No, that moment when we said "I love you" to each other. When I decided to stay on to honor those words was the moment that I became an adult, a man. I left it all to chance after that and have never looked back.
Yeah, what a risk that was. To open our mouths, to utter I love you, to hand over our hearts to each other and then let life take over after that.
Silly as it seems I took those words to heart if only because they mattered then and still matter to me now. We ran into each other almost a year ago, right up the street from where your kids used to go to school. We sat in your car, drank coffee, told tales. Before you left I passed along to you Captain Nemo's trunk, we hugged and there in front of God and everybody told each other those magic words I love you once again. It was a major risk for you to be standing out there with me, to sit in your car in an open public parking lot. You could have been seen and busted once again. But you did it anyway, risk taker you.
Haven't seen you or shared a word with you since, but you must know, through friends and signs and dashed phone calls, that I am out here, risking it all by waiting for no one while I wait for you. That is the biggest risk of them all. Hanging it out on the line to dry and waiting for you to come by to claim your laundry.
There'll be no risk in that. Come by. Claim that life, and it'll be ours to live.
Your WHMB
So, I took a walk this morning. Dropped off a couple letters at the Geiger sub-branch post office, hit up St Vinnies and found a nice paperback Japanese cookbook, walked around downtown and found that the China Chef has closed, that Slip 45 has closed as well and that the bakery no longer makes donuts. I also found a Chevy Astro van for sale down the street for seven grand and found that that silver grey Focus I had my eye on was gone. Six grand was a good deal.
But it was when I passed the art house cinema that I found the inspiration to write you a line this morning. It's not a quote that I could pull of that bag that sits by the side of my bed, but it is now. It's good enough to print on the side of a Starbucks coffee cup, like the kind you used to bring by the house.
"The greatest sin of all is risking nothing".
It's all about risk. I suppose that's why you used to find me out on Sylvan, waiting for you to pass by. I suppose that's why I used to hammer message signs by the side of the road off Anderson Hill, why I still tend to forward illicit recipes and such to you, why I take long walks to places like Freddies and shop real slow, just to see if I can catch you passing by. I suppose, too, that's what we shared back then, which was a life filled with risk a mile wide. We were crazy, yes, wild, no, but better, in love and wanted the world to know about it. We made plenty of choices, certainly, had window of time big enough for an elephant to jump out of. We had plenty of reasons to stop, too, had ample materials on hand to build up firewalls, to end everything when the heat got to be too hot.
But we kept on stoking the fire, taking the temperature up, fanning the flames. We risked it all and in the end lost it all. No matter, it was a good ride, good enough for me to hard-headedly keep up the risk quotient. Sometimes we see things when we should. Those are the times where we step back up onto the curb and avoid being hit by a passing car. Other times we walk straight out into traffic, movie star style, and hope that those stunt drivers will stop on their marks, get that shot right and avoid mowing us down. I believe I took that mowing down quite well. I ended up where I started, in this house, waiting for somebody, anybody, to come back.
But then, funny thing, I took an even bigger risk, I stopped waiting and started living again.
Risk is a funny thing. You look at life and all that you have to lose. You mentioned that in your last coda to me, how you found that you wanted to keep what you had, that you finally found the value in your life and possessions and didn't want to lose them. I look at my life right now as an embarassment of riches. I look at my risk quotient as one that could be covered by insurance, filled with stuff that, if I should lose them in a fire or burglary or divorce settlement, I could find all over again in a second hand store. That's where I found most of those things to begin with.
But it's that bigger risk that we took, the one where we tossed the dice and lost it all, that has been the biggest lesson of my life. It didn't leave me bitter, or sad, or despondent. Well, I suppose that it did for awhile but now that the lesson has been learned those feelings are all behind me. I'm onto something else entirely right now and it feels good.
I look at that lesson we shared and say "thank's" to you every day. I look at the risk we took, at that line in the sand we drew at the track, at that moment when you walked away because you had to for the sake of your girls and goods and community and where I stood and stayed on because I given you my word, for whatever it was worth. That word as the seminal moment of my life, the cornerstone of my existence. Not the moment when I was born or first got laid or first gave myself over to matrimony. No, that moment when we said "I love you" to each other. When I decided to stay on to honor those words was the moment that I became an adult, a man. I left it all to chance after that and have never looked back.
Yeah, what a risk that was. To open our mouths, to utter I love you, to hand over our hearts to each other and then let life take over after that.
Silly as it seems I took those words to heart if only because they mattered then and still matter to me now. We ran into each other almost a year ago, right up the street from where your kids used to go to school. We sat in your car, drank coffee, told tales. Before you left I passed along to you Captain Nemo's trunk, we hugged and there in front of God and everybody told each other those magic words I love you once again. It was a major risk for you to be standing out there with me, to sit in your car in an open public parking lot. You could have been seen and busted once again. But you did it anyway, risk taker you.
Haven't seen you or shared a word with you since, but you must know, through friends and signs and dashed phone calls, that I am out here, risking it all by waiting for no one while I wait for you. That is the biggest risk of them all. Hanging it out on the line to dry and waiting for you to come by to claim your laundry.
There'll be no risk in that. Come by. Claim that life, and it'll be ours to live.
Your WHMB
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