Read this epic type thought, rumination?

Once there was a time that seems only like a dream. Now the impression is life only has complexities to offer, along with a few small crusts of grace. But this grace is sweetened by that very fact that it is not a common thing, that it is an exceptional quality of living - grace.
Along the way I lost sight of friends, and places changed from what they use to be, smells, they now are different in some way. There are times when I catch a certain view of a stranger and wishfully think it might be my old friend, but it never is. I even went back to some old stomping grounds and saw that they had changed, changed from what I knew them to be to something that was strange to me, different. Every so often I will catch an old familiar smell of the pine trees I lived among in my teen years or the hunger inducing taste sense in the air of Bulgarian stew. I loved those days, but I didn’t know it.

Now I walk often alone looking at the world from an experienced view, exchanging my sometimes surprising experiences for nostalgia. Recollections held for the rest of my days in close proximity to my heart. Sometimes I can recall some of the smallest things like what it was like riding for the first time on our black mustang we bought when I was 13. Bobby was a horse with personality, and his personality was that you shouldn’t get to ride him for too long before he’d rub you off on some old oak. Or the first time I had a really good friend who had to leave for the summer just after we had become good friends. I remember actually feeling depressed that whole summer.

Many times we don’t get to say “bye-bye” like we were taught as babies. So many times we loose touch of someone or a place or a week night routine in a silent passage from our past. It is quiet and we almost didn’t even see it slip away, until we have a last look, after it has exhausted its precious moment, into our future.

I guess it is all a part of growing up, of becoming human, full of maturity and experience. Setting aside that innocence we all hold so dear. But in reality it is something more than just growth and gray hair, or even hair where none grew before, like on my knuckles, or in my ears. Maybe making room for all those memories is expanding our capacity for living, or for love? Perhaps it is in preparation for that mystery we all embark on at some point beyond that curtain of unseen, the after-life. That certainly becomes a more cogent reality as the years meander by.

When old things die off like leaves off a tree and are replaced by new green ones we still can see the wilted dried foliage below covering where green grass use to be. Memories of last season, last year or another time. Soon the wind and gardener’s rake cause another change and new grass is seen pushing toward sun beneath the fresh leaves of spring. But our days are so much more than the leaves in the front yard. And when they lay there brown, crisp and dried, they have a certain soundless wail about them. They cry to us, in their dormant condition, and we wish we could revive them. But nature is not likely to return to last years greenery. So we move on, making note of that last time when we played with our friends in the shade of yesterday.

But from what I can make out, it seems to me that most everyday that has passed has garnered with it an unattainable feeling. One that I can mentally reminisce about but can’t get back to in that old comfortable sentiment. It just is never going to be the same we hear someone say, maybe an inner voice. We know it is right, even in the midst of our trying to think a way back. Back to the way it was. I know I am fooling myself and perhaps it is better that way anyway. I mean who wants to be a 45 year old still trying to ride for the first time again? That would be like spending your time trying to get to know yourself over again. Maybe that’s not a bad thing either.

This is our epic myth we are living out right now. Each passing day transcribes a new page into our eternal records, for God or us or some reason we just aren’t sure of yet. Writing along as if we didn’t even concern ourselves with the direction or depth, just putting pen to paper - living. Breathing in and out the words of self directed sentient beings, cohorts in a drama we call life.

Maybe what I feel and you feel is felt some where else in the universe? Is it echoed in the passing of an ancient star? Is it reflected in the eclipse of a distant heavenly body? Surely we can’t be the only things in this vast open cascade of darkness with glimmering lights we call stars that have this experience…can we? I like to think not.

For what its worth though I have learned along this journey of life a few minor details. Like compassion beats pride hands down. Like love is the way and revenge is for little minds with empty hearts. Violence is the expression of a soul that doesn’t know it needs to create to breath. That smiling to a stranger, or for that matter being smiled to from a stranger is really no small thing, though we often don’t give it a second thought. I know now that we all carry a heavy load and that at one time or another each of us has been left out in the rain for whatever reasons. It has been revealed to me we really are differently alike, or alike differently. Our unique experience is not a solo flight, but one in tandem with all of humanity.

As I write this it is 1:15am, and I am poised on the edge of forever. Looking out at those distant reminders of hope telling me that we might know sooner than later what we question for. That all of this living is more than we can imagine, therefore we can’t grasp its totality, its comprehensiveness.

Some people call life a poem and others call it a pain in the ass. But I think it can be both depending on whether you writing or sitting. I feel I am an invited guest to this world and have certain obligations as one. Obligations of decency and courtesy to all creatures be it whatever their place on this planet. Like a guest in an hotel floating around our sun, open for business 24/7 and always charging less than the expected rate. Just be here it says in it’s promotions of the heart, just be here. Its not a bad place or sad place either, its quit nice actually. Of course there are horrible things happening, but that is like the light that has to cast shadows. If we are to have light, we live with the fact that some places will be shadowed.

It can even be said that it is like a dream this world, this living thing we call life. It is a dream of beginnings and endings, of holding on and letting go, of new things and of old. And yes sometimes it’s a nightmare that rides us mercilessly into our deepest parts of our soul, sometimes that being the only time we venture deep within.

But I know that everyday it also holds out a flicker of hope for those who want to see it. That sometimes it is a dream of extraordinary swirls of flavor, of experiential divine softness that lingers like a sent of a freshly picked strawberry, sweet and juicy to the senses. And sometimes it is like the making of a new friend, with new hopes that they will like you even when they truly get to know you. That you’ll meet with not judgment but with grace, not distance but with an ever closer intimacy that speaks to you of a truly eternal love, a love we never thought we’d find, let alone have. These things my friend are the phenomenal dreams we live in, that is the crusts of bread we find in Grace.