A Season for Adventuring

ghosting through the morning mist
as day slips from gray to gold
my stomach growls
the road replies
with a small cafe
cradling coffee
I watch him devouring a mountain
of syrup dripping hotcakes
he turns
we smile
 nod
fellow travelers
men of the frontier
last night
rocketing into starry oblivion
riding Cat Stevens’ peace train
saluting the shadows
of cacti sentinels marching in the moonlight
roadtripping
on the loose
free again
all those blue highways
all those maps
all those little country stores
all those stops  to buy a soda
asking directions
where the heck is Boggan’s Oasis?
all those steps into the unknown
into the magic of surprise moments
wild horses splashing through a sea of purple sage
golden eagles spiraling from heaven in their mating dance
“Jeez! That’s a helluva rattlesnake.”
sweating
cresting  the final ridge
running
diving
plunging into
sparkling turquoise water
erupting into rainbows and sunshine 
screaming with frigid delight
lost in steaming holy water
alone on a desert ocean
swaddled in eternity
sky slowly slipping
from gold
to pink
to gone
so many Shangri-Las
I will not travel these roads again
but they will haunt my heart when
 once again
Fall calls the vagabond
to a season for adventuring

tio stib

You might also enjoy: A Wilderness Pill; Breaking Trail


Blind Man on a Bench

a surprise lover
the cool breeze kisses my cheek
my body delights
in sunshine’s warm embrace

wavelets lap softly on the sand
the scent of seashore drifts into my nose
a fly buzzes by

birds surround me
chirping behind
squawking above
honking across the water
laughter approaches

raucous conversation
“good morning!”
“Good morning to you”
the footsteps fade
a blast of male perfume persists

I bite an apple
crisp
juicy
sour
my lips pucker

smile

immersed in a beautiful day
mind swimming in memories

a blind man on a bench

tio stib

You might also enjoy: High on Gratitude, Hope

The Blind Side Parables 21 – Life is Like a Broken Egg

Yesterday I dropped an egg. Actually, I didn’t drop it. Being blind, I surmised it rolled unseen off the counter. I heard a noise near the floor. In a microsecond, my brain flashed through the possible sources of such a noise. At the same instant, my brain reached another conclusion. The toes on my right foot were also sending signals to my sensory center. Something gooey was down there. 

A broken egg! 

As I groped about, cleaning the shattered shell and its slimy contents from between my toes, I pondered the symbolic relevance of this event.

Yes, I am easily drawn into metaphysical absurdities.

Perhaps, I wondered, my life is like a broken egg. Here I am, marching along unseen by most of the world and then, crash! I splat into eternity, possibly making a mess for someone else to clean up as I exit. 

That's one possibility. 

My mind drifted off in other directions. I remembered a structures class where we dropped eggs in specially designed containers from a third story balcony. The object, of course, was to preserve the integrity of the egg. The challenge was to do this with as little material as possible. It’s no problem to put an egg in a big box of bubble wrap and drop it unfazed onto the floor below. The trick is to drop the egg, mostly naked, with the same result.

 Similarly in life, I thought, there’d been times I’d insulated myself with such 
things as work and selfish interest so that the rest of the world couldn’t touch me, and I couldn’t touch the people who cared about me because I was too closed off from them. 
There have been naked opposite times when I was raw and open, times when I felt that life had run me over and left me for roadkill. Going bankrupt and watching friends die come to mind.

My lesson from these experiences: Sometimes it’s good to overprotect. Sometimes it’s good to hurt. The pain reminds me of happier times.

All this you may say, from simply having an egg hit the floor? Yes, and there’s more.

What if I’m like an egg? A hard, durable shell on the outside and a soft sticky mess inside. My outside, that part of me I show the world, is a lot like the shell of an egg. It’s quite resistant to general pressures, quite strong when grasped firmly. But, the shell has its weak points. It doesn’t do well with pressure applied to a single point.

Oh yes, I have my buttons. I hate cleaning up other people’s messes, such as wiping up their broken eggs. I have no tolerance for fools, which is why politics disgusts me. The egg shell is also brittle. It doesn’t do well when landing on sharp objects. I explode when subject to sharp noises, and am even more violent when subject to the sound of barking chihuahuas. 

Really, all this from a broken egg. 

My last thoughts on this surprisingly deep self-dialog.

How do you crack an egg? I use two hands. Even so, I often make a mess of this simple action, sometimes striking a nearby surface so hard that the shell cracks open and leaves a trail of egg goo from there to the frying pan. (This is a clue to what I usually do with eggs, hinting at my limited cooking repertoire). Sometimes, when my mind is somewhere else such as now, I fail to hit the egg hard enough, it doesn’t crack, waking me from my reverie to initiate another strike on the shell. This usually results in the previously mentioned egg goo trail. 

What does this say about my life? I tend to be overly cautious and conservative. Do I lack faith in my creative abilities to expand my egg cuisine? Maybe I’m just lazy.

One of my life goals is to learn how to crack an egg with one hand. I think this may take quite a few eggs. I’ve heard that gin fizzes are a good use for egg whites and an easy way to forget about life's deeper concerns. 

Time to get out the blender.


Moral: If you think too much making breakfast, you may find the yolk is on you.


tio stib

You might also enjoy: Where the Sidewalk ends; The Blindside Parables 17 - Superman



Paddling a Submarine vs. Living an Authentic Life 

Last night I dreamed I was paddling a canoe up a lake in the middle of the night. It was calm, I felt peaceful, yet there was one concern. The canoe was underwater. I was trying to paddle a submarine.

I’ve spent years listening to my dreams, paying attention to patterns, weighing the emotions of dreams with respect to my life at the moment. I believe larger forces speak to me in that unconscious world, forces that can guide me to awareness of deeper truths. This pushes me to wonder, why was I paddling a submarine?

I know there are many ways to interpret dreams, but ultimately, I tend to accept that my dreams are about me. Over the years, I’ve noticed that when I’m honest about how I feel in my dreams, they have given me clues to parts of me I needed to pay attention to.

Paddling a submarine. I feel this dream was about my need to live an authentic life. Paddling the canoe was me moving forward in life. My goal was to get to the end of the lake, to a state of inner peace, but I was struggling because I was keeping my emotions below the surface. If I would allow my feelings to express themselves above the water, I would have less resistance to life and my journey would be immensely easier.

I need to be genuine, original, true and trustworthy, and not be in fear of what the world may think of me in my many moments of  smallness.

Authenticity means to be honest, to be vulnerable, to take risks. Authenticity is built one day, one choice, at a time. It is a process of continually stepping out of my comfort zone and engaging the world from a place of worthiness vs. shame.

Authenticity is a daily journey into the wilderness of being fully alive.

What’s the greater risk I ask myself? Living life based on what other people think, or being vibrantly alive based on how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

This blog, “Travels with Tio, a blind writer’s path to happiness,” is my journey, my choice, to be all of me, fully alive. It is one way I will raise myself from paddling a submarine, to paddling a canoe, to perhaps even flying.

What does authenticity mean to you? How does it affect your life?

Please share your feelings on being the authentic “you”.

tio Stib

2013, 2017, 2018

Brene’ Brown recently gave a TED talk, “Listening to Shame,” in which she explores the challenges of authenticity. Brown believes authenticity is a process, a series of choices we make in our lives, choices made each day, in each moment, to be real…or not.

Here’s the link: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/15/opinion/brown-authentic-self/index.html?hpt=op_bn2

 

Morning People

You’ve seen them or
if your eyes won’t open yet
you’ve heard them
buzzing into your life at 8 a.m.
babbling about how great it is to be working
anxious to charge into a new day

morning people

I groan
who started the myth that 3 hours sleep 
can propel you through a new day

it certainly wasn’t me

Lifting an aching head from my desk
I rub my eyes in disbelief when 
a morning person
complete with bright smile and jogging shoes
asks if I’d like to take a quick walk during break

I groan
head collapsing back onto desk

thank god, it’s Friday
I’ll have the weekend to recover

from morning peoplitis


tio stib

You might also enjoy: Life is Like a Broken Egg; Control Freaking

Old Men Walking Dogs

I meet a lot of old men walking dogs
sometimes we stop and talk a bit
how’s it going? 
what’s your dog’s name
Charlie
Galahad
Spook
one guy is a poet who offers his daily verse
I listen, smile, and pet Rocky

continuing on, I wonder
should I get a dog?
do I need a dog?
my daughter thinks so
she’s always urging me 
you need a pet
something to fill the hole in your life
the emptiness from losing your wife

yes, I concur
there is a hole
certainly an emptiness
but there is also a deep, rich
feeling of gratitude
that I was blessed to have had
even for a short time
the bliss of perfect love

I do like dogs
have had a few over the course of years
but these beautiful creatures require, yes need
a certain kind of responsible care
and you can’t just lay them off on your kids
like grandchildren
when you tire and can’t keep up your end of the deal

so I do my morning walks alone
greet the other old men passing by
pet their dogs
and walk on

but I’m never alone

love is always with me now


tio stib

You might also enjoy: Walking With My Lover’s Ghost; Life in reverse by George Carlin


Oh Treasured Sleep

after hours of insomniac hell
I slipped off to sleeping bliss
until a screaming blasphemy
jerked me back to consciousness

with no rational thought
no lingering guilt
I slammed the insolent alarm

off!

I’d paid my dues
with lack of sleep
and conscience free
I snuggled deep

ah-h-h
I so love my sweet cocoon

wake me with the next full moon


tio stib

You might also enjoy: Passwords: The Comfort of Complacency



The Blind Side Parables 17 – Timeman

Dan Chen was obsessed with two things.

Time and numbers.

When he discovered computers, he began to explore probabilities and statistics which led him to research the numbers associated with human lifetimes.

Once we are born, how much time do we have to live?

His research had brought acclaim in university and several insurance giants had offered him prestigious positions in their actuarial departments. 

But Dan had another idea, an idea that had made him a millionaire

The LifeTime Watch, an innovative device that worn on one’s wrist, not only displayed the time of day, it also showed how long you had to live.

Dan had created a program that integrated human body metrics such as pulse rates, body temperature, sleep time and stress levels, along with environmental sensors including air quality, temperature and humidity, as well as an active internet connection that monitored local and international weather, economic and political information. All this data was fed into a unique analysis program based on thousands of human life statistics to produce a current estimate of one’s actual lifetime expectancy.

It had taken Dan years to perfect his program and then produce the prototype LifeTime Watch, which had been tested on real people for more than two years. 

And it worked. The LifeTime Watch was 97% accurate to years and months to live. Millions had been sold. He was nicknamed Timeman. But Dan’s obsession continued. Now he and a select group were beta testing a new model that would bring this same statistical accuracy down to days.

Dan was checking the new Lifetime watch as he walked along a busy San Francisco sidewalk. He was troubled by the anomalies. What about the 3% who beat the odds. Did they have something in common? He stopped and looked around at the moving mass of humanity that had flooded outside for the rare summer sunshine in downtown San Fran. Who was going to live today? Who was going to die?

He looked down at his watch. He shook his head, that couldn’t be right. He looked again.

The display was filled with zeroes. Zero years. Zero months. Zero weeks. Zero days.

Dan’s watch said his lifetime was…

Failing to notice that the traffic light had changed, Dan had walked out into the busy street.

He never saw the bus that hit him.

Moral: Time stops for no man, and sometimes buses don’t either.


tio stib

You might also enjoy: Control Freaking; Life Journey Poems & Prose



Listen First to Understand


I want to help them
give advice
make them think I’m smart and nice

but then I hear a wiser man

listen first to understand

I want to brag
shout what I’ve done
make them want to cheer me on

but then that wiser man again

listen first to understand

no, I don’t always heed the rule
neediness makes me play the fool
but in the quiet of evening light
I look back and know what’s right

listen first to understand

and I will be a loving man


tio stib


You might also enjoy: “If” by Rudyard Kipling; Life Journey Poems and Prose






The Cloud

I don’t see it in the clear blue sky
romping gaily on my way
no hints, no thoughts, no memories

just a perfect day

but then a shadow passes by
and suddenly I give a sigh

and darkness sweeps across my soul

and loneliness exacts its toll


tio stib

You might also enjoy: Life Journey Poems & Prose; My Dementia Diary