Be Mindful of Strangers Who Offer You Candy

“Be mindful of strangers who offer you candy.” Years later that phrase popped into Annabelle’s head in the voice of her Italian Grandmother. Annabelle thought about that moment with her grandma. The way she was cooking something on the stove and stirring a wooden spoon made her imagine a younger version of herself. Annabelle was taken to that place for a moment or two. She remembered the aroma of a vanilla scented candle and the comfortable circle rug in the middle of the living room.

Be

Mindful

Of 

Strangers

Who 

Offer

You 

Candy.

Annabelle was reminded of the phrase because of the series of negative events from people who claimed they were one way and ended up being completely horrible in all sense of the word. Two words combined together is the perfect way to describe who they were, ‘AssHat.’ If these people could radiate a smell it would be ass, pee, and vomit. Actually, if they smelt like an emotion it would be fear.

These known sick individuals are perhaps under something, a spell if you will – or some force of habit, disease, dis – ease, confusion ridden rituals and actions that they think is out of their own control. Perhaps, for reasons unknown, it is true that the control is no longer theirs because they unknowingly or ignorantly give it away to their habits. Or perhaps it is even worse off than this, maybe they do know exactly what they are doing and refuse to make any efforts to change.

We are all strangers to others and remain strangers until we decide consciously to reveal ourselves, not only to others but to self as well. Annabelle experienced many confused souls lingering in environments that encouraged their already poor habits. They linger their in their horrible decisions of habit. The profound disease was barring consequences of unknown magnitude. Annabelle always took the approach and philosophy to ‘know thyself’ in order to know others. She believes that human beings can only help, love, be honest, be a good friend, be playful, have fun when they are able to do this wholeheartedly for self, by self, and then then the transfer to others is much more of an easy flow. Being authentic was hard for these people because it seemed like they believed that they had to impress others, and sometimes they even enjoyed their destructive ways for reasons relating back to their past experiences.

Unfortunately, the for mentioned diseased ridden individuals flooded Annabelle’s life for a while insomuch that it brought her to action. It not only affected Annabelle but others surrounding these diseased individuals were also affected by their trickery, manipulation, and the saddest thing about this was these people were unable to see how they affected the people around them.

That is surely a selfish act and the ego is loud with many. However, Annabelle released her ego space and recognized her own challenges and realized that these individuals may simply be ignorant to their ways or perhaps are learning their own lessons. If they are unable for whatever reason to let go of their shadows and bring it to the light, they surely in best case scenario, show others the importance of knowing self.

Motivation is sometimes best coming from ‘AssHats,’ for they really can push people to action. Action is what Annabelle did. She recognized the lesson in all including this. She eliminated herself from those people and did so in a manner that was both respectful but firm. She no longer needed these lessons; she already loved herself and it was obvious to her that these people needed to still learn, comprehend, and experience that in whatever form it may manifest into for their personal growth.

5 days at the Bottom of a Well

Day one at the bottom of a well,

All I can see is the blazing sun,

Singing dodadodadodadeee,

a little lizard is staring at me,

I snap and clap and yell,

To be free of this incapability to move my arms  about freely,

To be free from adapting to this space,

For someone, anyone to reach me,

As I’m stuck here stomping my feet vigorously,

I scream in anger, I cry in fear,

Night has fallen, nobody’s near,

Here thinking about my life and my being,

Staring at the walls and get an uncomfortable feeling,

Alone in life and Alone in death is my last thought

Before I drift to sleep with one eye open,

Softly muttering sweet nothings.

Two days at the bottom of a well,

Singing dodadodadodadee,

I clap and yell and stomp my feet,

It’s been 48 hours and I’m starting to become weak,

I’m hungry, tired, and my shoes are soggy,

And every now and then I feel something crawling on me,

My voice feels cloggy from all the screaming,

I want to give up,

I see the night sky and remember what it feels to be in a field of fireflies,

And now I only see these walls,

I’m becoming claustrophobic,

I feel my mind choking,

I feel my tummy rumbling,

I feel the pain rising from wasting so much time,

And for jumping in here in the first place,

Maybe I can learn something, 

Maybe I can see something that my life is blocking me from,

That’s what I thought before I made the jump,

Now I’m in here with the mixture of self-evaluation and self-destruction,

And I wish I could eat a piece of Angel Cake,

Goodness sake,

The salt’s burning in my ache.

Three days at the bottom of a well,

What the hell,

What the HELL,

Singing dodadodadodadee,

Please please, someone please hear my cry,

Hear me speak,

Rescue me, Discover me,

Time to be okay with the moment,

I am in it for I feel it,

And I’m starting to hallucinate images on these circular walls,

I see it, I see it, I see it all,

But I want to get out of here,

Yet I am loosing steam,

If no one finds me, what will become of me?

Four days at the bottom of a well,

Singing wah wah wah wah, oh well,

Better keep up that yell,

Better shout loud and clear,

Better keep on breathing in and out,

And in and out,

And innnnn and outtttt.

Five days at the bottom of a well,

I put my hand in my pocket and found a 25 cent piece,

And I bang bang bang on the walls, all day and all night long,

My voice needs rest, My eyes need to close,

I banged that quarter until I woke up from my slumber…..

LOOK I’m not in a well, I’m not in a well, 

I scream so loud, and smile, and laugh,

The dream was so real,

I embrace the moment of knowing I’m not in a well,

I go outside and smell the wind,

I lay in the grass and make pictures with the shapes of the clouds.

Big Questions

I have a lot of big questions on my mind, B I G philosophical, life-altering questions. These big questions answers have changed throughout the years, just as they would change throughout anyone’s years. I have always been obsessed with big philosophical questions, for example: How do I store information in my brain? Then I picture my brain having little envelopes of information varying in importance or varying based on the significance of the emotional response it triggers.

Yet, the biggest question for me is:: Do I question the question? Why are these questions there in the first place? Is it a check-in with self zone? Is it something else?

I think about the difference between the small details and the bigger picture and recognize the importance of each. The small details add up into a bigger picture. The bigger picture is the perspective one has from a far (ah look at those trees over there). The small details is the perspective of being smack in the middle of something (the tree has ants crawling up several of its branches).

When did I start these big questions? Was it before philosophy was introduced and understood by me? The fact is, I don’t remember. I love these big questions but they are also questions that I am unable to figure out fast and often find myself understanding the answers from different perspectives and analyzing them. More so, I love posing these questions for others to answer for themselves. I like the wheels of the brain turning, trying to figure out puzzles about directions and paths to take.

I like answering the big questions with broad answers :: Any path you take, is your choice. All roads end at the same place. Change begins from within. The answers will only provide more questions. Question the quest if it is no longer the way of the heart.

Maybe One Sentence

It’s amazing what one sentence can mean,

How one sentence can mean something inspiring,

How one sentence can change your mood for an entire day,

How one sentence can make you reflect,

How one sentence can make you feel direct emotion,

Laughter, tears, or warm inside –

Maybe one sentence reminds you of someone or some past experience,

Maybe one sentence ties with your nature in the moment that you read that one sentence,

Making the significance of

That one sentence adjust you,

Modify you, help you to see what you were seconds ago blinded by,

Maybe just one sentence will bring you to action,

Maybe one sentence will make you want to read more,

Maybe one sentence will disgust you, turn you off, make you enraged,

Maybe one sentence is enough,

Maybe one sentence tests you, confines in you, trusts you to take it in any direction,

Maybe one sentence open doors to lost communication,

Maybe one sentence reminds you of the burnt toast in the kitchen,

Maybe one sentence brings you back to smells, triggers the feeling of your favorite textures,

Maybe one sentence binds you to the next sentence,

Maybe one sentence guides you,

Maybe one sentence bores you,

Maybe one sentence is a lifetime of questions,

Maybe one sentence is all you need,

Maybe one sentence is all you fear.

Thoughts on Missing

Do you know the feeling of missing someone? The questions that remain on the front of the brain::: do(es) [she, he, they] feel the same?  Are [they, she, he] missing me too? 

And then you may start to question yourself::: Why do I miss [them, she, he] so much? What is it about [their] personality, laugh, their particular non-verbal communication, their relationship with you or lack of relationship with you, the potential relationship you could have together, the experiences you have shared with each other, that makes you yearn for their presence in this particular moment? 

You may begin to think you’re crazy::: Maybe I’m just tripping. Maybe I only miss them because I’m missing something within myself. 

Then you may start to have self-doubt::: What if I can never fill this void? What is this emptiness? What is at the end of the tunnel? 

So you may turn over on your bed or a couch and dream about the end of the tunnel. Perhaps there is no light, maybe there is a bright light, or a light laugh, or some glimmer of hope, or a shadow of fear, or simply and more accurately the unknown — And then you wake up from said dream, check your phone, and see that they texted you back. Your heart skips a few beats with the thought that perhaps they miss you in a similar manner that you miss them, and they regard you in a similar manner that you regard them.

Is it common to remember the ones that affect you in your particular particle of life experience and perspective? But what makes one more important than all the other ones in this gigantic spectrum of humans each of us chooses to interact with? Is it timing? Is it more than timing, is it the stars aligning?

And what if the one you miss, does not miss you? Maybe they miss others more or maybe they are living fully in the moment and believe missing is a waste of time deepening your ties to the past and not the present.

Do we miss people more when they are gone? When we know we can never see them in the physical realm this life again?

Ladder to the Moon

Have you ever had a dream so loud that it echoed reality even though parts of it became obvious that you were operating on a different plane? 

Ladder to the Moon

I was on a mission and I knew how to play the game,

Because I’ve been traveling, searching, storing information to know your brain,

Not just your brain but your precise thoughts about the sky,

Because you live somewhere far from these night trees and fireflies,

I made a ladder to reach the moon [it took me several dreams], 

and now it’s here outstretched and I’m climbing to your being,

Are you awake and up and happy, ready to slide down on a rope?

The moon is so large and beautiful, 

I almost tear up and cry in bliss, 

Returning to some known, partially lost innocence,

A forever thought that doesn’t get erased from any form I decide to take,

And you come into my view with grace,

An image that cannot be replaced with another,

And you’re small and mighty and full of thunder, 

You are flying between the shimmering of stars,

And I smile and decide I can fly too,

So we fly around until I wake up and think the whole dream through,

I’ll create another ladder to see you tonight, 

Made of wood and golden passion,

I’ll run to the top like speedy Gonzalez,

My arms will lift up and we will say our hellos,

and play with the night creatures of the sky. 

dream[s] of you by me

Hey, did you awake? 

I kept trying to wake you up in my dream. 

I would touch your shoulder and you would wake up but then if I turned around for one second

or got distracted by the details of the tree,

you would nod off again. 

I would become more aggressive and get upset 

that some power, invisible to my eyes, was affecting you and I could not 

control 

it.  

   And I would keep waking you up

And you would be so very happy to be awake,

 And happy to see me

And free. You felt and looked so free. 

 And I could see your feelings as colors. 

There were others that kept falling asleep and I was struggling 

to wake everyone up, but my main focus was 

you. 

I could be waking another person up but 

commanding through the third-eye

that you would stay awake. It was as if a beam of light was extruding 

that energy from the space 

between

my eyes, 

straight to your cranium. 

At first, it worked, but then the invisible force became stronger

 And I was unable to help. 

You would wake up and then fall asleep, wake up and fall asleep. 

I would bleed every time someone fell asleep. My blood was a soft light blue.

And I started crying

 And I was cursing the way the invisible would trick me to believe I had a working chance,

And then come down and unexpectedly attack.

Why was I the only one who could remain awake? Why was I unable to perform the tasks I wanted to act upon? 

I had a melt down on the floor and melted, then converted into a purple gas

 And covered the sky with intention – 

Wake up, you have to, 

do not keep sleeping forever, you were not meant to. 

You then woke up, 

 You understood everything

You shook the dusty petals off your skin

 And converted into an eagle

And flew to the top of a high tree

 And cried in happiness…

 

Make Decisions

How many decisions do we make,

in a single day, an hour or a week?

How indecisive I’ve become,

And even now, I think it through

I cannot remember what decisions I have

let and left to a-maybe-plate,

My indecision had its turn,

And now it’s time to close a door and open a new one of something more,

As we make decisions, more decisions come

Like an everlasting waterfall that’s never undone,

Consequences have open wide its mouth of giving,

I have found myself laying in a cloud,

Just floating by, it’s time

to drown that part of the path, and move

Towards some choices. Tough choices,

Fun choices, Easy choices,

Difficult choices –

My indecision has made me finally decide,

It’s time to make my mind up and

Confidently follow my powerful soul.

 

Recovery

We went walking out of the dream with undecided confidence. We opened the door and there was reality in front of us. As we waved goodbye to the malleable door, it transformed to sequence and spread its parts all over the bright morning sky.  Year Zero was playing throughout the street. Looked like we walked into another place but the surroundings looked the same. I was starting to feel the air was warmer and the light was hitting the trees differently, creating slightly different shadow shapes on the grass and concrete. Not that this does not happen anyway on the regular. The shapes of shadows tend to change every day hardly noticeable but these little changes never affected the air. Today was different. Today I noticed.

You stopped walking and stared at me. I didn’t notice for a few steps because I was distracted looking at the environment around me. I finally glanced to the side of me where I expected you to be standing to find you not there. I turned around and you were still staring at me. How many seconds passed, I had no idea but we both knew we had some issues to talk out. I could see it on your face. Your will to confront me.

I looked at the sky and wished I was a bird so I could get away from you. It was not because I was completely in the wrong but when one wakes up from a magical dream side-by-side and the whole world drastically changes immediately, who wouldn’t want the same shape shifting action to happen? My instant reaction was to get away from you but I thought, I have done that in the past and it got me steadily nowhere —  so let me try something new. I took you by the hand and led the way to a sunny patch of grass. I let go of your hand and sat down.

I could feel the violence in your heart and knew it would be an attack so I decided to put an invisible shield on that protected my soul at the core. Deep down I knew you didn’t want to hurt me but because you were hurt you could only see pain. You put your hand on my thigh as a means for me to pay attention. You looked in my eyeballs and stared. You didn’t say anything. I stared equally hard into your eyeballs and I didn’t speak either. We stayed like that for a few mins. Something so intimate about staring into eyeballs of another for any extended amount of time. We went through different phrases of emotions just by getting in touch with each other through staring. A soccer ball came flying through the air in our direction. Someone said, “watch out.” The ball landed in my lap and we laughed really energetically loud together as you saw my face changed from startled to humorous. I handed the ball back to the person. He said, “Thanks,” and was on his way.

Without talking we knew what we were thinking and now looking back at it, I had that with a few people in my childhood and it’s a nice cozy feeling. You told me you had to leave but nothing was resolved and because I wanted us to move from the past I had a problem with you exiting my presence. I told you what I was thinking but you said you cannot talk to me about it now. You left me there and I stayed in the sun all day looking at the water and shadows.

Were we taking opposite roles? I do not know, all I know is that it was resolved by just being in each other’s presence that day. The staring had a lot to do with recovery. 

 

 

 

The dream in your head

 

You wake up every morning with a dream in your head. You skip the coffee and go straight to picking up your favorite pen and a notebook you have yet to fill. You’re not worried about filling said notebook because before you know it, it will be complete with words, diagrams, and notes of how to improve the words written. You’re addicted, and in love with the routine. Every day you pick up from where you started. Some days you are at a loss for words. That frustrates you. You throw the notebook at the wall and then a few moments pass and you laugh at yourself. You go get your coffee. You sit back down after picking up the notebook. You get distracted by random things, obligations, conversations on the phone, and emails. You decide to do 10 sit-ups. You go back to your notebook and reread whatever you put down. You change it. You edit it. You change certain words or placement of sentences. You get into that. You keep doing it. You take a break and have a chicken burrito at the restaurant across the street from your apartment. You have a short conversation in broken Spanish. You eat the burrito and watch soccer. You go back to the notebook and write something down that you thought about while in the restaurant. You write more and have a flow of writing for 20 minutes. You put the pen down and pick up a book, one of your favorites. You read, you get absorbed with the book as if you no longer exist. There is only the words and your brain. There is a knock on your door. It scares you and makes you jump a little. The door is open, it’s your roommate who hands you your mail. You thank her. You look at the mail but do not open it. You toss it to the side of your desk. You go back to writing. You reread whatever you write. You change the words. You write a list of characteristics you want to show with a certain character. You write what needs to be researched. You watch a movie related  to the topic you are writing about in the notebook. You take notes on the movie you watch. You take out your computer and start typing the words from your notebook. You edit as you type. You open your window and take a long breath. You like the sunshine and decide to go for a walk. You run into a neighbor and dog. You have a mild conversation about something you now forget. You text a friend or two. You put headphones in your ears. You remember something you once forgot. You forget something you once remembered. You take a nap at the lake. You get back home and write more. You do this every day you can do this until you do something else. You lay on your bed thinking. You lay on your bed meditating. You lay on your bed. You remember something from your childhood. You call your sister.