I caught up with an old friend most recently. People move. People get jobs and change jobs. Their hair grows and cuts and sometimes falls out. Or not. But in all of that time, people can still be there for you.
My job scene, at best, has been varied. It breaks and builds and falls down on its face only to rise up among my lower lizard monkey mind. Women have entered my life and left with force and guile. Weather moves from rain to clouds to sun and back again. My cat still sleeps all day, though.
But there is a small, discrete group of humans that are there for me when I need them. We modulate between catch-up and hide-and-seek. We get short peeks into life and then the moment is gone.
But I guess it is never gone.
Sunny muggy days by the river, swatting at mosquitos, brushing off fire-ants and finally ending up in the river, shoes and gear on the shore.
Or climbing the cliffs outside of Lake Travis and pushing off into the cool lake water below, hoping against hope that that lake rock wasn’t all that big. Climbing up into the sun, no clouds for days, dragging each other off of the rock. And yelling and screaming and laughing.
Those days that seemed to go on forever ended so quickly. They are now just moments that I briefly recall amidst job hunts and lonely self-pity tears.
But what is nice is that these people are still here. And will continue to play in my mind the moments that make sense and the ones that don’t.
I care an unbelievable amount for these few people in my life. They had long ago come to the conclusion that I am quite crazy and have screws loose and rattling about. They have seen me scream and yell but not for joy but for broken minds. And they persist. The life that doesn’t break doesn’t have character, or maybe it does.
Maybe that is just a way for me to deal with my mental impotence. Maybe it isn’t. It doesn’t really matter. That my friends have met the right person and can make it work is important to me. It doesn’t give me hope to my life but to all life.
And right now I need that. Hope in heaven here in this garden. Hope that the hell that we know can exist right here can temporarily move out of mind and the gates to the garden open up yet again, if only for a brief respite.