Bet you can't guess where this ends,..

I ask my brothers can you hear the call of spring? So many go to their may pole early and think of fertility, lust, and the toils of the flesh, but March serves a deeper purpose. The name of the month even comes from the Roman God of War. It also states in a large clear purpose with its name, and the name alone speaks volumes. Soldiers march when the soil turns and the snow subsides. From March to October there are only the mercies of the campaign. Now we are not dependent on season. We have trained and equipped ourselves to the point were we can bring angry steel to the corners of the earth at any time or place.

My people of old took to sail or to horse. This was a time of raids. Cattle lay in fields of fresh green shoots, showing the signs they are ready to run fat with a calf. Sure there is time to think of the rabbit, the symbol of the fertile Goddess. The eggs hidden in hopes that their fertile symbolism was discovered by children, there by welcoming another child into the world. They sing to there own, and those children are the future of a people. They are our collective past. They are our hero's, role models and ancestors. Those generations of children born of spring dreams.

While those children ran through the fields, their fathers and some of their mothers marched through March to a different field. There were times they did not return to those fields to enjoy these sweet thoughts of spring that many focus on. This was a time many warriors kissed their last goodbyes to a lovers lips. Young boys dreamed of being men and took to the sword. Older men wise enough to know war went to the plow. It was a time of change. It was a time of life and life's end.

You can tell the measure of a man, and the years he has lived by how he looks to spring. Some are more measured to desire, and give to the throws of the flesh. Others give to logic and tend to their fields. Those measured few give to their will and look to their purpose. We do not all hear the warriors call. This does not lay one man above the other though. Some men make the beer, so others may drink. Some men grow the wheat, so that others can eat the bread. Some men look to the walls of other homes so that those left behind might think.

So what ever purpose spring brings to you, know your path and enjoy it. Understand the paths of other men, and do not focus to much on one path. So while you think about plowing a fertile pink field, don't forget those looking to work the rich black soil, or the red fields of memory. Answer your ancestors call. Take the path they ask you to take, and make sure you give thought to it when you honor them. Passing a plastic basket with plastic eggs, stuffed with candy, and that infamous ham. Oh that honey glazed ham, the wealth of a villager displayed for you to admire. It was the ancient equivalent of setting out your check for others to admire, then going one step further and giving your guest a signed check sharing your wealth.

All these things you do had purpose before. It was not so hollow as it is now. It had meaning and it can again as long as you understand the meaning they uses to have. Pick up a book. Study your history of your people. Connect to the past, and give your future cause and purpose. So march into March. Let spring be sprung, and look to a bright future. Carry your past into that future and honor the path that all your people choose. Guard, soldier, baker, farmer, or lover, we all have purpose. Understand the purpose we all have and find yours. To look forward you have to look back though, and not to the crap the consumer society is trying to spoon feed your fat ass.

Train keep a rollin,..

Work work work, day after day. All I seem to hear is this is work, that is work, this needs work, and you need to work on that. I understand the aspects of work. I understand the need for work. I am very much a task oriented individual. I understand that life is boring as shit if you have nothing to work for, but today I am I going to put my foot down and say that sometimes we focus to much on the damn work and forget what we are working for. We lose sight of the prize or purpose as we toil away like zombies with our heads hung down drudging through life, trying to figure out what work needs to be done.

So many things in our life require work, really they do, but why are you working? That is the question I am working through in my head. I would like to think that one works toward a purpose, so you are working to move forward. You are working towards something right? You following me so far? So in the movement forward you are in motion. Maybe not in the totally physical sense, but alas you are moving forward. So even if you are toiling away in a cubicle farm there is still a goal that you are working towards. For most the goal in happiness in one form or another.

So lets think about this movement to happiness. There are these things that the Newton guy came up with, not the fig, but the Sir Issac type. There are three of these laws and they are fairly simple to grasp, but if I lose you, pick up a book. Maybe you should have paid attention in secondary school, and if you didn't go choke yourself. Teachers work hard enough as it is for little money, and you are impeding their motion by being a dim witted self absorbed tool. So the first law goes something like this; Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. So an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless something stops it. So if you are a lazy fat ass eating a bag of cheetoos on the couch and forget which was your cheetoo hand, and end up with orange dick, well its because something stopped you. What stopped you, usually its you, you know that apathy that retards to laziness. Yet who knows that might be your form of happiness so go with it there tiger dick.

The second law of motions is; The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma. Acceleration and force are vectors (as indicated by their symbols being displayed in slant bold font); in this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector. So mass and acceleration are expressed in the force of your life, not the star wars Jedi stuff, but velocity. This means run fat ass, run. The more you move forward to your goal, and the more weight you put into achieving that goal, the greater the velocity you will have to propel you to that goal. So your efforts do pay off, just make sure you are pointed in the right direction. Without an understanding of your target you will shoot by it.

The last of the laws is that for every action there is an equal an opposite reaction. This means if you run into someone with all of your force their force will be applied to slowing you down, or ping you off in the opposite direction. So many times your happiness can be derailed by the pursuit of another happiness because you run at them instead of with them. If they are not a chip eating fridge grazer, odds are that their velocity is greater then yours, and you will feel like your happiness was hit by the proverbial train of their pursuit of happiness. Then both of you are losing the efforts or momentum of your work. This is conflict, it is part of life, but rarely does it get your happiness, unless you blew by your happiness and the conflict makes you stop and think about it.

This is my thoughts on relationships. If you are running at each other, neither of you can achieve happiness. If you are running with each other, then you need to be running at the same thing, or you will end up moving apart. Three degrees of separation get pretty damn big with the mileage you are going to turn during your life. Its not good or bad, it just is. So think about this when you are looking at your life. Are the people in your life running as fast and hard as you are? Are you running in the same direction? Or maybe you are running into each other and stopping each person from achieving happiness. Work is good, but working to just work is a waist of your time, and therefore a waist of your life. So get a move on, try to keep pace. Build up the mass of your smile, and run with the pack you want to run with. If paths part they part, but understand why, so you know if you are pulling someone to their happiness, or are they knocking you away from yours. Life shouldn't be bumper pool.

So on that note, understand I am a cannonball. I am that fat kid heading for the pool, and when I find my happiness I fully intend to keep running with it. No point is fixed, the universe is always moving, so if you stop moving happiness will blow on by. Get moving and get living, or get the fuck out of my way. If you something is to much work and not putting you in motion to the things you want to do, maybe its time to let them go. Work with me, and not against me, and maybe we can all be happy before we stop moving in this life, and move onto the next.

A step away

Today I am going to share a paper that I received a high grade for. We had to write an autobiographical essay about a pivotal moment in our childhood. We had a few subjects to choose from, and this is what I wrote. Its a bit long, but I think it is a more positive than what I normally post here. I am very proud of it, but not to the point I can not hear critique.  So reflections on the essay and feedback are welcome. It can only help me become stronger as a writer.

"Steps"

Its one small step for a boy, one giant leap for manhood. That first step off the Post shuttle is the hardest one. I had been here a thousand times before, but this time that side walk might as well be the surface of a strange and distant planet. The concrete was as old as the greatest generation and looked like a dalmatian of chewing gum. It was a long twenty yards to the steps of the movie theater, and it was a matinee. There was only one screen in this converted stage house. Sure it was probably great in the in the vaudevillian days gone by, and now it looked like a palace restored to its former glory and purpose in my young mans eyes.

Each step was with a gallows humor, a dim light shined through the dreadful gloom. It was something new in a old familiar place. The salty sweat glazed my palms, my breath matched my steps, rapid but lost in distorted time. A brisk nervous walk would have been better suited for the mischief typically accustomed to a boy of fourteen years. This was not about cherry bombs, or toilet paper though. It was something new and scarier than mayhem. This was about a girl. Not just any girl, but a girl that had said yes to me.

Looking back the causal conversation of adolescence was ripe with discovery. A whole new world opened in in the poorly folded notebook paper. This digital age was about digits, as in fingers. Those curious fingers of his fellow students passing that paper across rows and rows of uniform desks. Each one of them shared in the thrill of keeping it from the teachers eyes. With each scrap of the chalk on the board it would jump row after row, only pausing when the writing did. Much like the search light break out from prison in movies that had graced this very theater year after year.

It was rumored that some guy named Frankl had spoken in this very theater about his time in Auschwitz, to the crowds of soldiers that had liberated them years before. You could picture those poor souls trying to pass notes with deeper meaning, yet it did not strengthen my nerve knowing that people had gone through much worse on these very grounds. Baumholder Germany was miles from Auschwitz, and one could speculate that they where not concerned with a trivial first date with a member of the opposite sex. It might not be a big deal to them, or those great hero's of liberty that watched black and white love stories unfold as they tried to forget the burden of the war they just fought. This love story was in color, living color, vivid, visceral, and very very real.

The car pulled up at the bottom of those teared stairs. Forty three stairs down as a matter of fact. The significance of forty three stairs could be lost to time, or it could have been something as simple as to how many stairs it would take to build the theater on level ground. It was not important, it was the chasm of fear right now. Those steps might as well have been the brink of the Grand Canyon as far as I was concerned. This was vivid, visceral, and very very real.

The object of my youthful affection stepped out of the front passenger door. Her sixteen candles thrift store attire gave me a sign she had put at least some thought into what she looked like. It was important to her, and the ribbon holding her hair in a casual fashion spoke volumes. She cared, but gave an appearance of confidence and control. It was a sharp contrast to my over gelled wet combed hair. My old jean jacket was replaced with a collared itchy polo shirt. Sneakers rejected under my bed, cast aside for Sunday loafers only worn on sacred occasions. This is what she wore each day, just the best of it. I had changed my identity in an attempt to impress.

It took me awhile to break that first gaze of this breakfast club beauty. My eyes traveled up and caught the eyes of her chauffeur. The man who drove her to this first date did not leave arms reach of the sedan. His eyes spoke volumes across that great divide. We conversed a deep threat and spoke loudly to my young mans heart. If I was not the picture of nervous now, I was the embodiment of nerves for that moment. You could not mistake that he was her father. He was a soldier. He could kill, and would kill if one hand roamed further then allowed. If a kiss was given it would be giving quarter, and should not be spoken of to any ears beyond those walls. Sure it was to protect her reputation, but also to protect me from the whims of the vengeful father.

She bounced up the stairs with no care to the events ahead. This was exactly as she imagined. She was cool and controlled. She knew she was in the drivers seat, and it was me that desired to be a man. She knew the secret of this whole ordeal. It was written in every book she has read since she first dreamed of Prince Charming. The days of pigtails and inkwells are behind her now. She was already becoming a woman on her own, but the boy I was, needed her and her company to figure out how to take that step into becoming a young man.

It was not innocence that was lost in the lobby of that movie hall, but a return to innocence. It was not about sexuality, but human interaction on a deeper level. One awkward touching of the lips to lips was all anybody ever saw in the world running and changing around them. This however was a tale as old as time, it was the beginning of a first love. Though short and sweet as the events of army brats usually are, it left a lasting impression on both of them. Her father was stationed somewhere else a mere year later, but that year was the best love ever tasted to either of them. It was discovery of joy. It was sacrifice of self. It was all the great things that you read about in books, and it ended on the best of notes of the most broken of hearts.

We were not mad at each other, and to this day I still pine for her. It was not until a decade later that a girl moved above her in my heart. My daughter was born on the anniversary of that first kiss, and it took that first kiss from my daughter to dethrone the queen of my heart. Still some decades later she still lingers there. It is that romance that guides me, and I now look with dreadful eyes. I wait to drop her off at the movie theater to meet her clumsy boy. I know now more of that woeful guardian and knew that he meant every word he said through closed lips and open eyes. Oh that first kiss will never be spoken of in locker rooms for fear he might hear about it. It will happen though, and one can only hope it carries the same weight to shape that young mans life.

Fold and Fluff

Alright people enough is a fucking nuff. I am actually getting pissed, and I while people think I am pissed off all the time those that actually know me know this not to be true. I am just direct and I call it as I see it. It is not about being PC, because PC is soft shoe bullshit that I do not have time for. When I get pissed it is something that few people have seen, and it is not the loud opinionated diatribe that I spew out on this page. When I am actually pissed, it is efficient and painful. I severe the ties to what is causing me to be painful. I do this by means that are the fastest and easiest for me. This means the source of my anger is not given consideration as to their precious little feelings. So trust me when I say you do not want me to be angry with you. I will drop you like a bad habit, and if you choose to get back up and try to hang onto what ever issue it is that makes you feel so damn self righteous, I will drop you and not in the social sense. I mean it physically and with a finality that few will or could understand.

That being said I am going to but this out and say this is my life, this is not the game show of the same fucking name either. There is not team jerseys or sides being drawn here. There is change going on in my life, good or bad, this change is happening. Those that the change affects are dealing with that that change in a logical manner and doing what is best for parties involved. Those not involved can remain not involved. There is no need for you to nose into my business, and start being team me or team somebody else. Seriously when did you graduate high school, and when you did were you able to leave that childish gossip girl bullshit behind? I left that world two fucking decades ago. That means I have been out of public school a damn sight longer than I was in it.

So with that, I want people to think about this long and hard. This might help you out in your own life. So some of the things I have going on that are just not coming to light have been brewing for years, and you are just now finding out about them. What does that mean, or at least what should that mean? It means that my laundry is my laundry and I have no need to wave it in your face. I keep my private life private, because that is just what it is, private. I share some of my private thoughts, but that does not give you a VIP backstage pass into my life. I will talk to you about soldiering issues. I will share my insights into the human condition, but what I do behind closed doors is just that, done behind closed doors and none of your damn business. If I bring something out from behind that door, it is not for you to decide right or wrong, choose sides, or attempt to fix it.

I am a big boy. I have lived my life and learned from my mistakes. I do not see life like you, but I do believe in reason. So I can and have worked out troubles in my life with thought, and even with some weight offered to desire. I have worked out things with people that care about long before I met you. I have had several relationships social and sexual before I met any of you. I can work shit out on my own and I do not need you to wear the Team me jersey. I do not need you to change my diaper, and I do not need you to vilify myself, groups or people I am dealing with to satisfy your own ego. Some shit is just what it is. There are two sides to all stories, and sometimes there is no bad guy. Sometimes the situation just sucks and neither party is right or wrong.

So in that, if you don't have a fucking clue what is going on in someones life shut the fuck up and keep your opinion to yourself. If you have not walked the same miles in the same shoes, be there for support and take guidance from them, but do not jump to the annoying cheerleader immediately. Just because they do not agree with you does not make them evil or out to get you, it makes them human. Sometimes there is no side that is not piled in shit and holding up a turd to the air and declaring it awesome does not make that turd awesome. Life is suffering, so let people suffer without you declaring to the world that their suffering is better than everyone else. If you take my laundry out of the hamper and try to wave it like a flag understand that I will knock your fucking teeth out. If I ask you to help me to put in the washer, cool, but if I don't you got no right to go through my basket. I am a basket case, I know this, we all are. I do not wear my dirty laundry in public though. If I do, then and only then do you get the right to say anything about it. Until then, shut the fuck up and stay out of my basket. You wear my sweaty underwear on your head and its gonna be more embarrassing when you are knocked out and laying there with those undies shoved down your throat.

If this does not make sense to you, insert any event going on in your life, or the life of another person. If this still does not make sense, ask yourself when is the last time we hung out and talked. If it has been awhile, you have probably been cut out of my life. Why? Because you are not my dry cleaner, and I do not want you near my laundry. It is probably because you are a loud mouth drama lama that feels the need to share other peoples issues with the world s you do not look so bad, or maybe you are worse and do so, so people can see your issues as worse. One up everybody else because some how that makes your suffering more valid. So you use others as a smoke screen or a magnifying glass, and this doesn't make sense to you, because you are not a part of my life. The rest of you that get it, cool. Let me know the next time we are going to have a beer, break bread, or just sit and talk about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Sometimes a tantrum is just a tantrum

Some people piss me off in their blind aggression. I am all about people expressing themselves, but after you get your point out try shutting the hell up long enough for people to digest it. Cram it in my face and you are most likely going to shut my ears down. It is not that I don't like or support your cause, I just think you are a loud mouth douche. So because of that I will work to shut you the hell up, because I like things quiet. So you get obnoxious and I get hostile. Both are aggression but one is focused and used in a positive way. I will positively shut you up.

You can got about your actions with purpose or you can just scream at the moon. So many people are like grease headless chickens let loose on frozen lake. You can go through life being angry about all the crap that is heaped on you, and you can flail and flop around splashing that shit on all those around you. I do not want to be covered in your crap. I do not want to watching you flop and twitch on the ground. You don't need to be in my face for me to know you exist. Keep your youness to yourself, or be prepared to deal with my reaction.

Blind aggression is childish and untrained. It is useless in my eyes. I like to focus my aggression. I like to give it purpose. I see things I do not like, and I use that aggression to get rid of those things. I use my aggression as motivation to create things to keep those bad things away. It is not wild, it has purpose and thought. If I do something I typically plan it. I do things when they need to be done. Good, bad, evil, these things are the way you look at them. I do what is good for me when you look at it. Call it evil, but maybe that guy was trying to kill me. Maybe that pot of coffee is bad for me, but I think its good. The fifth rum and coke might be excessive to you, but I am hugging you, not stabbing you. Now tell me that it is bad?

What I am saying is that I am okay with people being angry, since there is a lot going on in the world that you should be angry about. Express yourself, but not in a wild way. Please do not be a broken record. If you tell me you think something is bad and I do not react maybe its not bad to me, or I don't care about it. Respect that, there is no need to burn calories trying to convince me why some bullshit project is so awesome that it deserves my time. I am pretty good at knowing what I want to spend my time on. You don't need to be asking me for a hand out like my time is your currency.

I like my judgment. It might not be as good as yours, as good as you think yours is, but its gotten me by. I smile enough to make me happy. I know what I like, and your unfocused misguided anger is not going to change that. If I tell you my expectations and you do not measure up, don't get shocked and appalled. I look at life differently than you. I don't hold your view against you, and all I ask is that you honor mine. You don't even have to understand it, just honor the fact that it is mine.

Either way all the flamboyant prancing, and large displays are not a way to influence me. I really do not care if you are gay, straight, black, white, liberal, conservative, or what ever label you want to carry. I just care that you are what you are and respect my desire to not have you thrown it in my face. I respect who you are and what you want to do enough to not really give a shit about what floats your boat. If I do not know what you are, or what you claim to be is okay with me. Just because I don't know doesn't mean I am not cool with it. Center stage is only desired by those weak willed people that need praise to be whole. They will never be whole and they can take their anger somewhere else.

Black and White or some shades of Great?

Many a philosopher attempted to determine what the soul was. Socrates stated it was one part, reason. This was in opposition of the popular thought of the time called the "common sense" theory. The common sense theory stated it was two parts, desire and reason. Socrates stated that there was not desire, just good and bad reason. So if you made a bad choice or gave into desire that your reason or ability to think was weak, not that reason was overpowered by desire. Now his student Plato went further into the theory of the soul and actually added to the concept and made is much more complicated. Not only was the soul reason and desire like the common sense theory stated, but it also was will or spirit. Reason was impartial and thought bore no weight. So it needed the weight of will to pull against or counter the weight of desire. Big thoughts from great thinkers. Kind of cool to be reading more and more about them.

Now there are more and more that take on this great endeavor as time marches on. There is also much more to the conversations that these people brought up through out time on the concept of the soul. Now I am wanting to take a crack at it, but through my own train of thought. I am thinking that they do not have it wrong, but I think they are making the mistake of all great thinkers and not taking the path of the engineer. I think Socrates was closest to my idea. The more streamlined and simple, the more it makes sense to me. After all our body is made of simple concepts all working together to create a complex machine. The complexity of that machine is one of the reasons we break down and wear out. If it was simpler it could run longer.

This point is proven time and time again in a literal sense, and also in the metaphysical sense of simplicity. Look at your life and and those you know. Those good people that where cool enough to share their life with you that died can attest to the benefits of living simple. At least in my experience those that lived a simple life held onto the mortal form a bit longer, then those that used their bodies like a stolen car and drove it into the ground, literally, faster then everyone else. They both lived their share of life, some just crammed it into a smaller space of time. They enjoyed it with a greater intensity, but it was much more complicated, therefore more inclined to break down. While those that did not live in interesting times, enjoyed less complication and took their measure of life and savored it, and rationed it.

Both ways are good, and each has its place. I personally do not mind if I die early, because I like the richer flavors that life has to offer me. I also like to look at the soul more than the flesh. You see to me the soul is indeed eternal. It can survive as long as the universe survives, because it is energy. Energy can neither be created or destroyed right? So if you die in the straw or by some other great means, it is only your body that dies. Your soul is freed, and will go onto the next mission. It will continue to live. It will thrive or stagnate as it sees fit, and with the ambition it has.

While I agree with Socrates, I think the soul is whole, not separate parts, like a body is whole. Things like emotions, memory, education, these are the organs of the soul. They can not survive on their own but you can make them out. So you can work your biceps in favor of your triceps, as you can work your will more then your desire. These are all part of thought, and therefore all part of you, or your soul. So you can rationalize your life choices, and exercise short term judgment, or you can exercise wisdom and make good long term choices. Either way those choices can be brought into different shades of good or bad.

I think we are more intuitive with this as children because we have not been told all kinds of crap to break up our sense of simplistic good or bad. A cookie is good, so we eat it and smile. Now we eat a cookie and we think about running an extra mile so we don't get fat, because getting fat is bad right? We learn to not trust people on appearance, and we start learning to judge. Children do judge, but it is much more simple than the judgment of adults. We complicate things, and get one step closer to wearing things down. Its not good or bad, its just the way it is. You either stay in a simple black and white world, and avoid having things happen to you, and in that world you live a long long time. Or you embrace the complicated facets of life, and bring those complications into your life. When you bring more complication you do not get any more or any less of a measure of the physical life, you just use it up faster. Its like gas in the tank, and how much do you mash the pedal, and how often do you stop and look around?

So when you stop at the cosmic gas station you can plan your trip, or you can see where the road takes you. It is your choice, your decision, and your level of involvement that gets you where you want to be. Either way the trip ends, and your soul leaves the car behind. The only constant in this equation is not matter if you try to prevent it or not, we all die. So you can live your life as you see fit, race to the end, or stave off the inevitable for as long as you can. Me, I am not so worried, my soul will live on. I plan to have some great stories to tell the other souls I come across.

So what parts of your soul would you like to work out and work on. Do you let your soul reflect the average body? Do you pack some weight on? Do you let your cholesterol run out of control? Or do you fight to run a two minute mile? Does your intangible you have great six pack abs? What scars does is have? Do you walk with the limp of a pimp? Is it a meek little creature that other souls shove into lockers at the cosmic gas station? Does it shine and declare your presence? Or is it dark and unnoticed? Good long term judgment, or short sighted self indulgence? Do you work on the carefree aspects, or do you hold onto rational behavior with a death grip? How much of an effect do others have on your reality? How many shades of gray are you? Me I am better describe by how many shades of great.

The little things.

It is the strangest details we can recall from those grand moments of our life. I am looking back in a few assignments in class and thinking about what I remember and what paints that scene so vividly in my mind. I can recall the days and times of some events, but its things I rarely give passing thought to today that recall from yesterday. I can remember the big things of course, like my first kiss was with a young lady named Michelle. I do not remember her last name, or her fathers name. I do however recall the smashed smooth blackened chewing gum that polka dotted the side walk leading up to the movie theater. I remember my sweaty palms, over combed still wet hair, and the smell of the lobby in the out dated movie palace. It was twenty three years ago, but I can still picture the soap in the rest room, though I can not remember how many stalls were in there.

So I started looking at the details I see around me now. I was hoping this awareness would help me with my writing. I know the career focus has shifted in college from writing to teaching biology, but that does not mean I have to stop writing. I enjoy it. Its fun. I like to use it as a vent, and hopefully I will perfect this, regardless of my career path. So before I go off on a separate tangent, I wanted to come back to those wonderful details. How many of them do we ignore in our daily life. Have you smelled you coffee lately? Can you describe how your eggs felt, not tasted, but the texture. How many little details do we miss day in and day out that we will recall when dementia sets in?

In those details I found a great many things. That curve of the butt, when it meets the thighs. Oh by the way that is fed by my love of the sweater dress and the underlying tights I described in a previous blog, but that detail is a fresh prospective that supports my already strange fascination with the sweater dress. The ninth street park offered some strange sensations that were sensual in a non sexual way, unless you are a dendrapheliac? Not even sure how to spell that, but I know how those worn wooden rails felt. These rails polished smooth by centuries of touch. I wondered who might have held their hands on those same rails generations before I thought to attend this school?

I tried to find other sensations where I thought they might hide, like in the Tivoli. That used to be a brewery, and now it is the campus student lounge. Fitting in an homage to Animal House, but alas no beer made in those hollowed halls any more. Yet I found myself wanting to smell the now absent hops that once mashed in those walls. Yet I did not detect even the faintest hint of that ghost. What I did find was a strange orchestra of scents that assaulted my senses. Flowers, fruits, fast food, clothes soap, and body odor. So many scents, and so many dancing around. Rich vibrate colors, mixed with the worn and faded structure. So much to process, and I could do was wonder what I would remember in the decades to come?

Now in this mission to find these details, to enhance my writing, I made another discovery. Maybe I just reenforced something I already knew? It is the little things that hold the greatest value, and it will be hard for us to remember what had an impact on us in the twilight of our life. It might be the touch of a banister, the look of a certain person, the taste of stale air moved around with youthful exuberance, or feeling you get when the air rushes past you when you open a door. What is it that will jog our memory, and what moment will we hold onto?

I am going to try not to limit myself so as to appease my future self. I will not deny any sensation my attention because I do not know what value it will have when its time comes. Each breath, each glance, each moment of contact may hold a secret in a conversation years from now. So I will try to savor each moment, and let the world tell me what it wants, and later I will reflect on what I desire with fondness and expectation.