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Posts Tagged ‘hope’

  1. Music is My Mission

    September 30, 2013 by Diane

    Trumpet player

    Music is my mission.

    So said a seventy-five year old jazz musician on break during a gig.

    What’s your mission?

    Dunno, you say.

    What do you mean you don’t know? You know. You know. Get past the squirrelly thoughts.

    When you’re in dharma, you’re living your purpose, you know the reason you’re here on this big blue sphere and you’re living it, you’re digging your passion, you’re putting forth in the world whatever it is that juices you up in all the good ways.

    What’s your juicy passion?

    Be-Bop. Riffing on all things political. Well-thumbed books. Cowboys. Vintage fashions. Watching golf on TV. Dagwood sandwiches.

    Who cares, you say.

    Be-bop loving, cowboy-riding, political fashionistas who golf, read, and nosh on gargantuan sandwiches.

    You! That’s who.

    You’re doing your thing, you’re singing your birdsong, you’re tweeting your tune, you’re blogging your big bad be-bopping bottom and you’re not taking any of it with you when you’re gone because you’ve left it out here, where it matters.

    That kid in you who believed in the word possible, the one you drop-kicked to Fantasyland when you skidded into Realityville and possible became impossible; when you started paying the rent oh, that—that kid in you wants you to grab those dreams again. Not the bad ones; not the dreams about the wall heater lurching after you—the good ones. The ones where your mission was music, or tiddlywinks, or driving a miniature ball down a swath of green. Pull those dreams on like old pajamas, the snuggly kind with feet, and go forth. Make your mark. Piss on your hydrants. You can do it.

    You can.

    Listen to the voice inside that says you can, and ignore the other one, the one with the breath of a thousand dead dreams.

    Category Ain't Life Grand | Tags: ,,,,, | 1 Comment

  2. A Fine Day

    August 9, 2013 by Diane

    Traditional old mail box on the wooden wall

    Nobody writes letters anymore. It’s all emails.

    Back in the day, mailmen carried letters from loved ones, envelopes bearing the slanted blue penmanship of a mother, a lover, a soldier, a childhood friend. That letter traveled, from the curled meaty edge of the writer’s palm to the inner confines of the envelope, passing from mailman to mailbox or handed over with a greeting. Good morning, Mrs. Whitney, I’ve got the letter you were waiting for, here in my pouch.

    Bert remembers those days as he drinks coffee at his metal kitchen table, as he goes out into the dark morning hours, drives to the post office, and stands sorting the mail, trading quips about the weather, the latest political scandal, the collapse of the economy—important stuff. And then he fills his truck with the stuff that is unimportant: the bills, the circulars, the empty promises from political candidates. It’s a fine day when he sorts a handwritten letter, something he pauses to run his dry palm over. Ah, this will bring a smile to Mrs. Whitney’s morning.

    And every day he whistles. He whistles when he swings out of his truck and hefts the leather pouch onto his shoulder and walks his route instead of driving. He whistles because if he can’t bring the news they long for, at least he can deliver a moment of hope, of joy.

    “Good morning,” he hollers, lifting his heavy arm and flicking a wave. His bouncy stride says: all is well. “Good morning to you!” Someone cares, he is saying. “How’s that rheumatism, Mrs. Whitney?” Mrs. Whitney is twisted over, waiting outside her door, making the effort to stand.

    “No letters,” he says, knowing it’s not a letter that brings her out of doors, and it’s not the weather, “but isn’t it a fine, fine day?”

    Category Bite-size Fiction | Tags: ,, | No Comments

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