Sometimes I wonder if the things I wonder about are normal things. I mean it doesn’t seem strange to me to but I wonder if everyone thinks about the same kinds of things:

I have a friend named Kevin. He was my best friend when I was around 9 years old. When you’re 9 years old your best friend might as well be your brother. There’s an acceptance and innocence in friendships when you’re young that doesn’t exist when you get older. My brother will always be my brother and I’m fortunate to have a great one. But even if he was a crap brother he’d still be my brother. That’s the kind of friendship I had with Kevin. I haven’t seen Kevin much in the past 23 years but I still think of him as a friend.

My family moved overseas when I was young and I used to wonder how different Kevin and I would be if our families had reversed roles. What if I’d stayed in America and he had gone to South Africa? How significant was that one big move in my life? How has it shaped my reality? I wonder.

I wonder sometimes about how people’s lives turn out so differently than they imagined. Mine has anyway. There’s a homeless person who cycles by the restaurant sometimes and I’ve talked to him a few times. His name is Harley. The last time I saw Harley, he had a huge gash in his head that was all stitched up. He’d fallen off his bike apparently. I gave him some money so he could get his prescriptions filled. I don’t know if he used it for that but I felt like maybe he would and if I didn’t give it to him maybe he wouldn’t get it.

I wonder what Harley dreamed about when he was a younger man and I wonder why he was never able to follow that dream. For me to follow mine took more than just my own will. I had a lot of encouragement and help and sometimes a bit of pushing and shoving. I had guidance and wisdom from other sources. I am like one of those little trees; tied to a piece of wood so that it will grow straight until it becomes thick enough to stand on its own. I guess Harley never had a good straight stick to grow against. But the thing I wonder about is whether Harley thinks about that at all.

There are bombs of a nuclear nature being made and tested in North Korea. I can’t begin to know how to think about that. Isn’t there enough shit in the world that countries should stop spending so much money on guns and bombs and implements of war? But then shouldn’t we prepare to defend ourselves in case some stupid thing leads to another and we find ourselves in need of defense? I wonder if I was a North Korean if I would feel the same way. I’d probably be scared that America might decide to bomb my country even though as an American I feel like that’s a bit ridiculous. But then again we are one of the most war-involved countries of all time. I wonder how it’s possible that any government anywhere doesn’t get that a modern nuclear war anywhere in the world would be devastating to the entire planet. Even if you’re the aggressor and you get yours off first you’re still just shooting yourself in the foot.

I wonder if it’s normal to wonder about normality.

Rain Drops, Hot Dogs, Wisdom

It’s raining…very, very hard. Lightning. The sky lights up in blue flashes. It’s seems close but I can’t hear any thunder. The rain on the roof is very loud. I’m trying to decide if I should wait a few minutes inside or just make a run for it. More lightning. This rain isn’t letting up anytime soon and I’m locked out of the restaurant. More blue flashes. So if I wait I have to wait in the back foyer which is covered but not really pleasant. Lightning.

I’m running across the parking lot towards my car. I’m soaked in no more than ten seconds and I have a good way to go to get my car. I’m nervous about the lightning and it all strikes me as incredibly funny. I have a huge smile on my face and I’m laughing out loud running through a soaking rain. It feels good to run. I’m really stretching my legs out fully and jumping puddles and running hard. I haven’t run like this in a long time. The rain is cold and feels good after such a hot day.

The weather in Nashville is whimsical and extreme. I’ve never experienced so much weather in all my life as I have in 6 months in Nashville. I’m in the Red Door Saloon in East Nashville. I love this place. It’s loud with people talking, the sandwiches are good (read: cheap) and it’s a good place to watch. There is a tornado watch in effect until midnight. I decided while driving home that if a tornado comes through I want to be around people and not in my apartment (I’m afraid it might fall down around me).

There’s a barmaid with an interesting hairstyle. She looks a little like Reece Witherspoon in the face and of course she sounds a little like her since this is Nashville. I think she’s older than me but she’s kind of pretty. I have my Chicago Dog in front of me. I have my PBR. My hair and clothes are soaked. The rain has driven a lot of people here tonight and they are mostly around my age (give or take 10 years). Age doesn’t matter in Nashville. Tattoos matter. Piercings matter. Hairstyles matter. Isn’t that what matters everywhere? When they named this place “music city” did they ever imagine it would become such a wonderfully vibrant mix of people? I imagine some guy in a cowboy hat came up with the name. He had no idea.

The rain has subsided. My dog and my PBR are finished. There’s a sign on top of the t.v. in the corner that says “I’m not bashful. I’m from Nashville.” It says a lot about the atmosphere in this place. I’m reserved by nature. That sign is kind of like an instruction to me. I look at it every time I come in here. If a wise old woman were going to give me advice about how to get by in Nashville, in America, in life; they could do far worse than to say; “Don’t be shy!”

Right Here. Right Now.

I’m in my car driving north on I-65 listening to this, “I found God, on the corner of First and Amistad, where the West was all but won, all alone, smoking His last cigarette. I said, “Where you been?” He said, “Ask anything?” I’m thinking that whatever I’m experiencing I should experience to the full and whatever emotions go along with that I should feel completely.

I’ve been writing a lot about loneliness lately. In fact, I’ve been writing about it so much that I think I need to stop. No-one likes a party pooper and that’s kind of what I feel like. But in the same moment I also think that I absolutely must write about it because it’s where I am. Suddenly Miley Cirus is singing about moving mountains and trying to enjoy the climb and I totally know what she, or whoever wrote the song, means. Suddenly I realize that most people probably get that but I never knew it before.

In the lane next to me is a woman driving an SUV and I think she gets it. She knows what this feels like and maybe even more than I do. I am an island but only because I forget that everyone essentially goes through a lot of the same stuff in life. We wouldn’t have words like “lonely” or “happy” or “love” or “awesome” if we all didn’t get what those words were about. We’ve all got associative pictures in our minds that flash like bulbs, brilliantly when words like that are spoken.

A few years ago I spent a few days in one of the most beautiful places in South Africa. I walked along a beach that wasn’t like most beaches. Where the land meets the water is a mass of rocks and boulders. In places the boulders are small enough to be moved by every wave that comes and goes and as the water moves over them a thousand rocks knock against each other and make a wonderful sound that I’ve never heard before or since. There are pathways through the forest and rope bridges connecting one side of a gorge to another. One evening the sun set and the sky turned purple and orange and red. Whenever I think of beauty I get that picture flashing in my head.

Two nights ago I held a girl in my sleep. She wasn’t there and if she had been I wouldn’t have held her. But I want to hold someone and everyone knows what that feels like. The funny thing is that it’s not comforting in any way to know that everyone knows what that feels like. Because I still have to feel it now. And I should because it’s where I am.

Difficult

Apparently America is “fireflies in June” amongst other things. Those other things include, “kids selling lemonade in a front yard, farms and cities, high school proms.” The list goes on if you are Rodney Adkins.

I’m drinking red wine at Rumors on 12th Ave in Nashville. The wine is good and free and there’s pizza and scallops and asparagus involved. Somehow I got myself invited to join a private party. This is America; sitting on a patio with people I hardly know drinking good red wine.

They tell me that being married is difficult. I wonder if it’s more difficult than being single in a new town. They tell me that relationships are difficult. I can’t disagree with that because I’ve been in a couple and sometimes they were exactly difficult. But I’m telling them that being single is difficult too. Perhaps it’s being single as well as not knowing too many people as well as being in a new environment concurrently that is difficult.

Earlier tonight I sat in church and the preacher was trying to answer the question of why there is so much pain and suffering and difficulty and tragedy in this world. His answer was that he didn’t have an answer. I don’t hold that against him because I can’t answer that either.

Lately everything seems difficult. I meet a lot of people and the one thing I have in common with all of them is that none of us are where we want to be. We’re all striving and straining and digging and reaching for something else. If happiness could be bottled, one of the ingredients would surely be ‘presence’. What I mean is that every now and again I feel happy and it’s usually when I forget about my dreams for a minute or two and enjoy the moment. There’s a lot of good things happening to me and around me and it’s possible sometimes to be present, in the moment, totally ‘there’, instead of wondering how it could be better.

I’m a single guy in a new place and that’s hard. I’m in America; a place I don’t understand yet, and that’s hard. I’m reaching for a dream and that’s hard. But tonight I’m sitting on this porch, laughing at jokes and enjoying this moment.

Maybe this happens in other places. I don't know. But it seems that for me this happens only in America. So if I was a country singer I wouldn't write about lemonade and fireflies. I'd have to write about strangers and scallops and red wine on porches. For me, that's America.

The Look

Human experience is vast. I cannot relate to anyone. I can relate to everyone. I am a stranger. I enter interstate I-65 every day and head south to get to work. I live in a ‘not so great’ part of town. There are shifty ladies looking through my car window as I drive by them on my way home at night. There’s always someone who needs some change at the gas station. Having no teeth seems to be normal. There are large 18-wheel trucks passing by on the highway every minute of every day. I feel homeless.

With such thoughts on my mind I get up from my table at Bongo Java and I’m walking towards the stairs that lead off the porch and towards my car when I get the look. I can’t interpret this look. I’ve never been able to as long as been alive despite the fact that I’ve gotten this look a lot. It’s neither a look of obvious interest nor is it one of distaste. It’s quite possible that a woman could give me this look and in the next moment a man could. It’s asexual in nature. It’s mildly inquisitive but not necessarily inviting. It’s obvious that ‘something’ is going through the mind of the looker. That’s the look.

I’m sort of minding my own business, as I tend to do, walking off the porch and if I hadn’t turned my head in that moment I wouldn’t have seen it. This 20-something couple is chatting away over coffees and the girl is clearly staring at me; giving me the look.

Of course my immediate response to this is, “oh yeah..she digs me.”. This response doesn’t mean that I am an ego-centric male person. This is the normal male response. Men are generally resilient creatures and mostly we like ourselves quite a bit so when we catch someone giving us attention we assume they are admiring us. Actually I am merely attempting to be humorous. I was an awkward teenager so most of my high school years were spent interpreting the look negatively. Everyone was an awkward teenager.

Nevertheless I am prone to further analyze these types of situations so later in my car I start to wonder what it all means; Do people in general get this look? Does this happen with great frequency? If I were someone else would I be more or less likely to act upon these situations? Should I talk to these “lookers”? Am I inept at reading social cues? Am I picking up on social cues that everyone else misses?