Category-5

The phone rings and it's Chuck. Come up for dinner? Sure, no problem. I'm on the way. The first storm of the year builds off shore. Category-5 typhoon just inundated the Philippines. Villages buried under mud. People swept away in floods. Upgraded to a Super Typhoon -- whatever the hell that is. Fisherman in the South China Sea call them daaih-fùng or big winds. But it doesn't sound good in any language. A nasty business these big winds. Anybody's guess what lies in store for us. But it's dark and ugly. That much I know.

Batching it is never quite as desperate as it sounds. Chuck turns out a respectable meal with a modicum of flair every time. We eat some spicy vegan concoction and wash it down with a fine red wine. It seems many of the local farmers are in a bit of a jam. By waiting for that one last week of sunshine to fatten up their pot gardens, they are now perilously close to being royally screwed and losing it all from a monsoon three weeks early and now only hours away. So the calls go out to friends and friends of friends to jump in with both feet and lend a hand in finishing the harvest.

One kid literally stepped out of his battered Toyota Forerunner 12-hours ago a complete stranger without any ties to the community or any reasons for local job prospects. For bailing out my farmer neighbor, he walked away with about three pounds of the exotically named Afghanigoo. The sweetly pungent, sticky buds will move at $20 per gram back in his hometown of Phoenix. The 453 grams in a pound will bring in a staggering nine grand on the street in Arizona. Multiply that little stash times three and it's not bad for a day's work. No wonder he's grinning from ear to ear as though he's just won the biggest lotto in history. But, I don't blink an eye. What's given away locally as a neighborly gesture is nothing short of a major crime where he comes from. All it takes is for some sad sack to have the misfortune of a run in with a redneck deputy in the Grand Canyon state and they might be staring at a ten-year stretch in a federal pen for interstate narcotics trafficking. Some may say, changes in latitudes - changes in attitudes. I say, pure and utter insanity.

The sky continues to darken over a night cap of aged single malt scotch. Thank god, neither Chuck nor I have a green thumb much less the inclination to ever consider driving across the desert and into the arms of trigger happy Arizona rangers. I'll take my chances with a northern California storm. As the first big drops splatter across my windshield, I pull into my driveway with yet another new appreciation for the sounds of a howling wind through the trees and the crackling roar of a fire waiting inside.

Doesn't it always feel good to be home?

Cheese Steak

I'll do better next time. I swear to God. I know I can. Sweetie, you know how I feel about you. You're the only one for me. Of course you are! What -- you don't believe me? How could you say those kinds of things? All right. Maybe I do come across a little like that sometimes. What's that? You really mean that? But, I thought -- wait a minute -- let me check this other call -- Hello. Oh, baby. Could you hold the line just for a minute, let me get rid of this other call. Right. I'll be back in a sec -- Hi sweetie. Oh, some telemarketers. Listen, fix yourself up 'cuz I'm comin' over right now to take you out to dinner. Of course, I mean it. Oh baby, you know your the only one for me. Gotta run if we're gonna make it to the restaurant on time. Hurry up! Love you, too! -- Hi baby...what's that you say. Of course, your the only girl for me!

Around the Next Bend

Dear true friend,

I feel your heart with my soul. I listen to your words with my eyes. I, too, hang on to those beliefs that others long to have abandoned before they realize never having discovered them to begin with...for it is the journey within the heart that one traces the path to the soul... and it is by far the longest, frequently most perilous and often loneliest journey of all.

Many years ago I re-entered the temple of my personal vision quest alone, hurt and bewildered by fate's course. I sought to absolve my past, live fully in my present and rekindle my future. Soon thereafter -- and to the astonished disbelief of many who feigned having known me -- I became a father, a husband, a provider and inherited a part of myself previously unexpected. It was a brilliantly perfect time for I shall always relish the unexpurgated simplicity of life on its own terms.

It was later I rediscovered that when we walk into the flames it only burns for an instant before we are released. Into what I cannot say with any degree of certaintly. I only know that in the moment of surrender, we are reborn with a new life --- free from the baggage and bondage that holds us back from ourselves -- and with no plans other than to be fully alive in the exact moment.

Living in real time is what it is all about and always has been for some.

It is precisely in that moment that we live our lives in a state of blissful elation. Without preconceptions or contrivances, there are no expectations or disappointments. We experience absolute freedom to become whatever it is we are in our dreams. It is only when we attempt to mark our time that we become aware of its passage. And, by crossing an imaginary line with that passage comes a sense of loss. Opportunities never seized. Dreams never realized. Promises never kept. Relationships never fulfilled. A life never lived. A shadow creeps from overhead ushering a sadness unlike any we have ever known. Life's joys are diminished. We are overwhelmed by darkness and despair. We feel anxiety. We experience depression. We become listless and lost. By the time we hit rock bottom, we are practically marking the days on the calendar like a death row inmate awaiting the executioner. Much like aboriginal "dream time", the concept of linear time is foreign to some and when imposed upon them, ultimately, fatal.

We are taught that lives without measure are failed in themselves. But, from whom or what do we view those virtuous examples of existences? And, for what purpose do we examine such trivialities -- other than to satisfy others? And, just who are these "others" that we sacrifice all that is precious in our own existences to appease?

I believe the answer is absolutely no one. For many, the moment of truth is to distort who they are by allowing external influences determine precisely whom they have actually become. They become trapped in a hall of mirrors which conceals their real identities from themselves. They have lost their perspective, balance and judgment. They are uncertain as to who they truly are for they have lost their sense of self.

What a paralyzing predicament. To be at the cross road of one's life, completely freeze in the middle of the intersection and be run down by an oncoming bus with anyone other than yourself behind the wheel is patently absurd. By taking your foot off the gas, tapping the brakes to supply air in the hydraulics and pulling to a stop along the side of the road, one can open the door, get off the fucking bus and walk away from the whole kit and kaboodle. Oh yeah. You're behind the wheel of your own bus. That person who looks like you in the cross walk is just the imposter that you've allowed others to convince you that you've become wandering aimlessly across a busy thoroughfare!

Of course, that person is no one that you or I actually know. It could be any one, including ourselves, but more than likely it never seems to be us. However, while the view of the road from a higher focal point might allow us to see further ahead, it doesn't change the outcome of the final destination. Sure, we ride in a little more comfort. But, the road doesn't really change on our way to where we are going. Only our perception of the ride itself.

And, in the end, all we usually do is readjust the rear view mirror and keep our eyes focused on the road ahead. Isn't our ultimate stop always just out of sight and around the next bend?