The Bridge

Music transcended his spirit.  Ever since he was a boy, he could make music come from anything, and his senses were carried away.  He not only brought music, he moved people with his music and brought laughter and love and reminiscence of times past.

But things change and, even though your deepest heart’s love never changes, your circumstances and your life do – and then you’re left trying to piece together how your work and your dreams fit together.  For a musician, sometimes time moved you to an orchestra pit; sometimes, a small, intimate restaurant; occasionally, you spent your days passing your passion on to small children who were fed ice cream after an hour of attempting to squeeze a melody out of some acquired instrument.  And then there were times that the only place you could freely give your heart to others was to sit on a bridge with a group of your friends and introduce visitors to the melodies of your youth that silhouetted the history of your country.

And then, at the end of the day, you packed your most valuable possession into its portable home and walked the streets to a night’s rest that would lead you to another day on the bridge.  A day regulated by weather and crowds and coins tossed.  A bridge that led to a place that everyone pushed to go to; but once in a while , someone stopped to listen to a group of men sharing their souls.  But life with your passion and your friends – his heart was fully content to be on this bridge.

On The Other Side

It was not even 6 a.m. but the heat of the sun was already scorching the skin and heating the pavement. They wrapped their shirts closer around their necks and shifted their bags from their shoulders to the ground.

The train was starting it’s warm up and women and children rushed to grab seats in the cars that were already beginning to fill. The men waited – it was best to board last so any breeze that might come would rush around them while the train moved towards their destination.

They stood outside a windowed car, gazing around at passengers coming and going.  They felt eyes on them but they looked the other way.  They knew the people who sat behind those windows.  People who didn’t understand who they were or know where they were going.  These people just sat in their cool, air-conditioned cars on their cushioned seats and white-sheeted sleeping bunks.

All their lives they had only known the heat of the summer and the stink of garbage and sweat of being crowded into places that cost little money.  Their hopes were never to be on the other side of the window.  They only hoped to survive where they were and to enjoy what they could along the way.

Time To Rise

You can only hold someone down for so long.  History would show that people who are persecuted will only comply for a time and then they will have had enough and will rise to the challenge.  Its only a matter of time.

Marching feet, guns firing, little food, darkness, no hope.  They were a part of life.

But one day, it was enough.  They needed sun, they needed options, they needed to be valuable in and of themselves.  

And now its a memory – strong to some, a shadow to others.  The importance of looking back is remembering to rise up and move forward, away from the past and towards a future that doesn’t repeat itself.  But the trick is remembering the past as it was, not how you want to see it.

 

 

 

 

One Thought

Ice cream.

She had one single thought – ice cream.  She would follow her parents through castle and churches, over bridges and through tunnels if she only had a cone of some sweet, cold, sticky ice cream in her hand.  For that matter it could be anything cold and sweet and melting – gelato, sherbet, shaved ice, frozen yogurt – her mind went blank when her stomach was filled with a frozen treat.  They had bartered doctor’s appointments and shopping trips and she came away smiling and no memory of anything but the final stop at the little shop with the freezers.  She went blank when ice cream was involved.

The proof had been they had been in Italy for two weeks already and she couldn’t remember anything except all those brightly colored little plastic bowls and spoons that she had gone through.  She would never remember the canals in Venice or the tower in Pisa, but she would remember the chocolate gelato she had all along the way.

Memories….

Spring In Hiding

Sometimes it helped to think of spring.  A time when there was nothing but a blanket of flowers on the ground and the lengthening sun in the sky and the fresh scent of earth all around you.  It was often best to savor memories of this time when the holiday season was over and the long days turned into long nights and the chill in the air was greater than the chill in your basement freezer.  This was the time when the dark thoughts and the deep longing to run to a beach with pounding waves and massive amounts of sun overtook ones head.  Sometimes its best just to not go there.

Soon there would be banks of snow piled up where the flowers once bloomed and the cold winds of winter would push you down the sidewalk with your head bent down and your shoulders hunched towards the ground.  The waves of the lake would run up on the shore and would threaten anyone who dared to go near.  That was the time when your head would swarm with the pictures of flowers in bloom … and there’s no reason that it shouldn’t.  So sometimes, it doesn’t hurt to have an actual picture to put into your head when you needed that happy place to go.

And so she looked with fondness and longing at a picture of a time and place that was and would soon be again.

Agony?

They were stretched out in front of her like a long, confusingly overwhelming line at a bread buffet. She had boarded the canal boat to simply see the sights around Bangkok, but now she was suddenly taxed with a series of meaningless numbered choices that all looked the same on a vessel empty but soon to be full of experienced riders.

Choices to be made and decisions with conclusions. You pick one seat and it could lead to continual spray of filthy canal water, or you could pick the right seat and enjoy the breeze of a speeding boat that helped relinquish the dread of the summer heat.

She stood stationary on the dock, staring at the boat bobbing in front of her and her mind whirred frantically as she felt a group of people coming up behind her. What was her choice – what would be the best – the row 1 by the back or waiting for everyone to board and sandwiching herself in a middle row.

And then it hit her – maybe this was why life could be so hard, because of agonized decisions; should you look at a situation and then just make a decision and enjoy whatever happens?It may be good or it may be bad, you get off the boat wet or you get off cool, but you made the decision and what was the worst thing to happen – you have to go back and change your clothes?….

She headed onto the boat and sighed with a smile as she settled herself in a seat with no second thought. It was sometimes best just to enjoy the ride!

A Plagarized Christmas Greeting!

I’m going to cheat by quoting a greater author than myself…. This shot from Israel has always stuck with me and reading the Christmas scriptures, this picture is it…

” And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Luke 2:36 – 38

Have a very Merry Christmas!

The Expectation

Why had they waited so long – it was excrutiating to sit here knowing what was going to happen, just imagining it, almost feeling it, but not being there yet. The pain was already shooting through her body and her mind raced with terror.

She pulled her hoody up and rocked to soothe herself. The gentle pats on her back did nothing as the origination of those pats was the very reason she was sitting here and she wouldn’t be calmed! They could tell her it would be all right but of course they would say that, it was just to keep her quiet and make things easier for themselves.

The door opened and from under the border of her hood she could see a pair of black leather dress shoes that stood in front of her. While she stared down the buzzing in her ears grew louder and the hood was removed from her head while a little voice inside her screamed “No!” She wouldn’t let him hold her arms, it wouldn’t happen like this – she would fight! She would push them away and r…. Wait ….. This couldn’t be! It was done and she was left with two little bandaids on the left arm and two little bandaids on the right and a ride back to school.

She smiled and looked down at the vaccination chart that was destined for her school records.

This story was written for brave Emily who was forced to undergo 4 shots in one day due to her mother’s procrastination… And she’s learned it’s not always as bad as you imagine!:)

Someplace New

It wasn’t that she was running away, she was just trying to go someplace where no one knew her. She was so far from home she had made it inevitable that she would never bump into a single soul who knew her name. And now she simply rode the train from one country to another, visiting sites and spending time thinking. Sometimes it was good to have no one with you to preoccupy your mind and use your time leaving you with small moments where all of a sudden you realized you’d accomplished nothing.

But sometimes, being alone could only last for so long until it pushed you to the brink of insanity. You’d wake up in the morning with this sudden feeling of missing something, and then you realized, it was not something but someone. You walked down the street and tripped but had no one to grab onto; you’d have a humorous comment ready to rush out and then you’d feel the bite of no one to share it with; an emotion that was stored up in the recesses of your mind that would have to stay tucked away because the woman who just served you coffee probably wouldn’t care to know what you’re feeling at that moment; so much to give but no one with which to share.

And so she got back on the train. Not to lazily roam to another new destination, but to return home – the place where you always came back to when you had been everywhere else and now you just needed to belong. And so a smile flashed across her face because she knew that someone would be waiting for her at the next stop.

Voices

Her heel clicked down into a small groove and she shifted slightly.

They were standing on a well worn floor in the middle of a great domed church with a past – a history trickling down through hundreds of years with the variations of ages and races.

And here they occupied this space of time, contemplating the angles of the massive ceiling, the windows that looked out with colored eyes and the marble tiles nicked with ages and lives past.  Listening to the quiet murmur of voices and somber cathedral music accented by the flickering of candles it was easy to think of things that were no longer.

There had been peasants and paupers and kings and lords; business owners, physicians and servants; children and mothers; old and young.  There had been wars and there had been peace.  Every groove in the floor, every mark on the wall was reminiscence of someone who had been there and a life that had intersected with the being of this towering monument to God.

She walked farther as if in a trance.

Her heel dug into the floor.

She had added her vestige.