8th Moanin' of Christmas

May 28, 2018

Greetings from the source,

Most people would not feel it.  You have to be close enough to sense it, and understand the relationship so that you would even seek it.

This fourteen mile rectangle has aged.  There are cracks in the blacktop.  When I bend over to stretch, sweat is dripping from the brim of my hat.  I watch the drops, made bright diamonds by the morning sun, chasing each other to the pavement.  Noiseless splash, the tiniest of impact on the bitumen, staining it slightly darker. 

The cracks are crosshatched like the lines in my hands.  The edges of the road are crumbling into pebbles.  A little farther on the pavement will run out and I will be on dirt for a few miles.  It has aged differently there.  I know this road intimately, know this swale tucked in between the field and cemetery.  This road and I have aged together.

Fourteen miles.  If you multiply the number of times my foot has struck the roads, or pushed off to propel me to the next step, there are millions and millions of pounds of energy driven into these roads.  I have been running out here for most of thirty years.  I am not up to doing the math.

Some of the roads have not survived without help.  This morning there is new blacktop, a sexy ribbon of ebony splitting the fields, unblemished yet by yellow lines.  I know that underneath this clean layer there lies the pavement and rock and dirt I have run over.  I can feel it.

I run until the new road gives way to it’s old face, pitted and scarred, creased with the weather and wear of cars and tractors and a man who runs in fourteen mile rectangles. 

It is a warm morning, and my legs are tired.  I coast to a stop next to the cemetery, lean over my knees and feel the heart pounding in my ears.  Feel the sweat coursing over my back, down my legs. Feel the miles, the ache of fatigue, the trembling from the willing but not willing muscles. 

I push up, hands on my knees and stand straight, my shadow does the same.  I can feel myself planted on the road, from my head down through my spine, through my legs, feel the feet pressing down into the cracked road beneath me.

Billions of pounds of energy I have poured into this fourteen mile rectangle.  Morning after morning, season after season, year after year, converting my desire into the next footfall down into the world, where the power I created is driven into the pavement.

Physics experts will tell you that the energy is returned with each step, but not all of it.  What they won’t tell you is that it is not wasted, it is not lost.  It is kept there, there in the road.

As I stand there panting in the sun, seven miles from where I would finish, I feel it.  I close my eyes for a moment, feel the sweat flip off my eyelashes, and feel it soaking into me.   The road knows what it owes me, what I have invested in it.

I look ahead and watch the road lead off under a patch of shade, over a small creek, up the hill ahead of me and disappear.  It is urging me to move, to take the next step and the next.  It is promising me it will give me the power I saved in it. 

I know this promise.  I have felt it all my life.  Every time I swung my leg over a bike and headed for the horizon.  Every time I reached the end of my driveway and looked at four or fourteen or twenty and knew the road will live up to its bond with me.

I lean forward only slightly, and my legs are already moving, reaching out for the first step, the first push off, then the next landing.  They know the relationship after all these years, without me explaining the physics.  They move me, muscles turning the desire into power, giving the road this first gift knowing that it will give it back, now and on the next day I need it.

With each footfall we renew our pact; I give it the energy, it holds it and pushes me on with it, keeping a small share for the day when I am not sure I have what I need to finish.  This road, and every other I have crossed, has always lived up to that promise.

Hope this finds you striding out,

David

Copyright © 2018 David Smith

9th Moanin' of Christmas

2-19-01

Greetings from somewhere in time,


The screen door slams open and the little boy storms out into the yard.  He stomps down the sidewalk, his feet pounding the Keds onto the pavement in angry slaps.  His face is set in an angry frown, his brow furrowed below the severe cowlick that etches his hairline.  He marches down the sidewalk, does not look back to see his mother watching him from the door.

He crosses the street, does not stop, look or listen.  He is transfixed in anger.  He tromps down the other side of the street, kicking a small rock in front of him.  Down the street past three houses towards the store to which his mother has sent him.

He is five.  His world is toy cars and Lincoln logs and comic books and crayons.  He was deep in this world when his mother gave him the edict to travel one block to the store.  Clenched in his fist is a note with a short list and some dollar bills.  He has been warned not to lose these. 

His pace lessens slightly as he approaches the alley that runs behind the row of stores.  He stops at the alley, bends at the waist and cranes his neck to look down the little road.  The older boys in the neighborhood have told him stories of rats that are big as dogs, rats big enough to eat small boys.  He hurries across and around the corner to the front of the stores.

He swings open the screen door at Mrs.Dodge's grocery, and strides in.  He slams the crumpled note and the money on the counter and steps back. His arms are folded on his chest, chin tucked in and he glares at Mrs. Dodge.

She stands with a broom behind the counter of the small shop, framed by shelves that extend nearly to the ceiling.  Cereal boxes, bread, canned goods, jars of pickles, form a mosaic behind her.  A white apron is stretched across her print dress, there is a pencil wedged in her gray hair, swept up into a bun behind her head.    She reaches out to the counter, and smoothes out the wrinkled note there.  She tries a few conciliatory words to the boy, but he is defiant.

Mrs. Dodge packs the few things on the list into a small bag, drops the change in the bottom and slides the bag across the counter.  She offers the boy a sucker from the jar on the counter.  He shakes his head.

Sliced bread is packaged in cellophane, lined in the bottom by a thin piece of cardboard.  Mrs. Dodge slides this liner out of a bag of bread and shows it to the little boy.  Printed there is a cartoon rendering of  a jolly King, smiling and waving.  The boy's countenance cracks.  He smiles.

Mrs. Dodge pulls scissors from her apron pocket, and frees the little King from the cardboard, and presents it to the little boy.  He beams at her.  He remembers his manners, and then picks up the bag of groceries and walks out, exchanging goodbyes over his shoulder.

All the way home the boy chats with the King, making the noises and laughs that five year old boys make.  He announces his arrival at home, brandishes his gift at his mother, and retires to his room.  The King is placed in a position of honor, next to his bed.

Weeks later the little boy is in the store with his mother, and baby sister. Mrs. Dodge is chatting and sweeping, and the little boy interrupts, expressing a desire for a sucker.  His mother chides him for his lack of manners, and denies him any candy.   The little boy looks to Mrs. Dodge for support, but finds she is allied with his mother.  He is betrayed.  Tears well in his dark eyes, and he runs out of the store.

He runs past the alley, down the block and across the street to his house, in the front door and to his room.  He swipes the King from the bedside and dashes back out of the house.  His arms and legs pumping furiously, he runs past his mother on the sidewalk, ignoring her call.  Across the alleyway with no glance for monster rats, he careens around the corner to the store.

He bursts into Mrs. Dodge's store and slams the King on the counter.  He is breathless from his run, but she knows what he means to say.  She looks at his tear stained face, and she reaches out her hand.  He spins around and runs back out.

The little boy and his family move away to another neighborhood.  Occasionally they visit, but time eventually erodes connection with their old neighbors.   The boy becomes a young man, not quite so prone to outbursts of defiance.  Fourteen summers pass, and one day his picture is in the local paper for some accomplishment.  He is handsome, confident, content, smiling out from under his beard.  Only a close friend might recognize the little boy that he was once.

And a close friend does.  A week after the newspaper article, the young man receives mail from Mrs. Dodge.  Inside is a card with a brief note.  And folded in a sheet of paper, the King.

The young man travels back to his old neighborhood.  He stands in front of his first home, which has been shrunk by time to tiny proportions. He walks down the sidewalk, across the street to the alley.  He stands and looks at the trash strewn there, and feels no glimmer of fear of rats. 

Around the corner he walks into the store.  A man is behind the counter; he eyes the visitor with suspicion.  The young man asks for Mrs. Dodge.  He is told that she could no longer work in the store.  The last time she was robbed, they locked her in the walk-in cooler, and scared her into retirement.  The young man remembers his manners, and walks out into the summer sun, holding the King in his hand.

Twenty four summers pass.  The young man's cowlick has vanished as his hairline crept away.

All manner of events have swirled around him over time, more good than bad, etching into him the character his parents hoped for when he was a born.  Happily, his wife saw this potential, and did not dismiss him as a defiant boy.

He is surrounded by his children, sitting on the floor of his bedroom, looking through old pictures and letters.  Amid the memories, an envelope with his name on it.  He empties it on the carpet and there smiling at him again is the jolly King from Mrs. Dodge.  A reminder of an act of kindness, patience, and of forgiveness.  Three strong elements of friendship.

The King is tattered after all his travels, missing the hand that once was his salute.  But his smile is there, and the man is reminded of his childhood friend every time he looks at it.

Like I am right now.

Hope this finds you in reverie.

David

10th Moanin' of Christmas

January 2, 2012

Greetings from the tips of my wings,

I have this list.  I have been carrying it around for a month or so, adding things and scratching things off.   I left it in a pocket and couldn’t find it for a few days but it doesn’t matter.  It is under my skin.

Murmuration.

Last week I saw clouds of starlings, swarming back and forth, creating shapes in the sky.  Sweeping across the road out over a field, doubling back and forming dark waves, then spreading out almost invisible in the grey sky then reforming in dark living pools over me.

You’ve seen this phenomenon, I hope, somewhere in the sky around you.  It is one of those events for which the word ‘awesome’ was originally created, before surfers kidnapped it and made it as common as Kleenex.  When you see it for the first time you are amazed and perhaps frightened and then….inspired.

Ornithologists might explain this swarming in dry bird words, but I like to think the starlings do it for a far more poetic reason.  You think so too, because when you see it, you want to join them.

A flock of starlings is a murmuration, a word I love rolling around in my mouth.  Makes me smile to have a word so unusual to describe something so awesome.

I think that starlings swarm and swirl and make shapes in the sky because it’s what they do when they have a reason to celebrate.  Like when you hear Sly and The Family Stone play ‘Thank You Falletinme Be Mice Elf’ and you either dance or explode.

When you are brimming with whatever is inside you and something pushes you over the edge into doing what you absolutely must do, must express, must say because it is the natural outlet for who you are, possibly who you are when you are at your best.

I have a list in one of my pockets that starts with ‘What I am doing when I’m at my best.’  It is something I have circled back to again and again, and as the year closed I started the list once more.  One of the things on that list is ‘Celebrating’. 

A few of you might be tempted to roll your eyes here.  Might seem a little superficial to you at first glance.  But, any of us probably feel at our best when we are celebrating.  Having a reason to celebrate and doing something about it.  Not just making a cake or decorating with balloons, or putting on party hats and throwing confetti, although I’m in favor of any activity that involves cake.  Celebrating in the traditional sense is just one part.  There is more waiting to be discovered. 

When we are children and everything is awesome we are inspired to celebrate more often.  That wears off; it’s not sustainable as adults.  Life is hard.  There are taxes to pay and stains to wash and people to correct.  We have serious responsibilities and it is frivolous to bounce all over creation like life is one big birthday party.  Right?

Every one of us is given gifts, and the tools to use them in some way.  We are put here for reasons we don’t always understand, but I think we come closest to knowing when we find ourselves where we are at our best.

So, when do you feel you are at your best; when you are complaining about how hard things are, or when you celebrate a moment that elevates your heart rate and your smile can barely keep from turning into laughter?   So, pretend you get to choose: how do you want to spend your day today? 

Perhaps not every moment inspires celebration, but the further apart those moments are, the more your life can feel like someone else’s ‘To Do’ list.  And we choose, no matter what your day is like, what we celebrate.

The other great lesson from the starlings is that when we celebrate, and really express it, the joy becomes contagious, it is fluid and natural and overwhelming and soon you find others around you pick up on it, and swarm and swirl with you.  That’s one of the moments when I feel I am at my best.

So here is what it is: first, I am challenged to really look at what I do in each day, and then push myself into places where I am doing what is the best expression of my gifts and my passions.  To live where I am at my best.

And on that list is to Celebrate.  To find the moments that are valuable and important, those that I decided, not the calendar, not Hallmark, and hold them up and laugh or sing or eat a piece of cake, find a way of marking the moment.  And share it.

I am looking over the leading edge of this year, thinking of how I would make this calendar better than the last, this chunk of days more satisfying, challenging, fulfilling.   I am determined to shape what I do intentionally, not let the days accumulate around me like lint.  I will figure out where I am at my best, and be there.  It starts with this list.            

Among other things on the list of ‘… at my best’ is when I am writing to you each Monday.  I want to thank you for that privilege.  I hope it gives you as much pleasure as it brings me.  Happy New Year.

Hope this finds you swarming,

David

11th Moanin' of Christmas

October 31, 2011

Greetings from my secret identity,

The sign on the door said “Open” but the building hinted otherwise.  No lights shown in side, no sign of anyone around, dried leaves gathered in drifts around the door.   It was a narrow storefront, three panels of glass, frosted halfway up to obscure the interior.  The small wooden sign bolted to the brick below the glass had two words:

Superpower Store

I pushed the door open, heavy wooden frame, leaded glass, so heavy I only got the door partway open, and had to reset my feet to push the rest of the way in.

The man behind the counter was leaning on his elbows, head down over a newspaper, idly flipping the pages.  In one hand he held an unlit cigarette.

“Afternoon.”  I said, walking across the wooden floor, the boards creaking. “Kinda quiet here today.”  I ran my hands over some boxes on the counter and looked at the dust on my fingers. 

The man looked up.  “Yah. Usually Halloween is packed, but funny, all the kids want to be ‘Angry Birds’ or Sara Palin.  Not much call for all this.” He waved one hand vaguely at his inventory and went back to his paper.

“Yeah.” I forced a little laugh, which sounded forced and little.  “So, you sell, ..uh, ..”

“Superpowers.  Yessss, you can say it.  If you’re in here it’s not a joke. Yes I sell superpowers.  What’d you have in mind?” He licked his thumb and turned a page.

I smiled a little sheepishly, watched my toes for a minute, “Well, I don’t know, I just …”

“You know, don’t kid me.” he said, not looking up from his paper.  “Look, all the good stuff is mostly taken; invisibility, elasticity, telekinesis, along with being able to leap tall buildings.”  He looked up suddenly.  “And don’t even ask me about X-ray vision.” 

“Ok, ok!” I said and I held my hands out in defense, and looked directly at him.  “That’s too bad.  I was kind of hoping, maybe, that I could turn into fire, or run super fast.  Maybe have incredible strength.”  The memory of the front door taunted me.

He leaned on his hands now, stuck his chin out a bit as he talked.  “You guys all want to be heroes or something.  Superpowers won’t make you heroic.  If you’re a jerk, you just become a super jerk.”

I waited a second, pressing my lips, trying not to say the first thing on my mind. “Seems like you should know me a little better before you insult me.”  I said, already wishing I had a superpower of some lethal ilk.  Wishing I didn’t already think he was right.

“Sorry, I just get a little…” he was shaking his head.  He waved the unlit cigarette at me as an explanation.  “Well, I can show you what I’ve got.  I might have something’ll fit.”

I glanced around the room, hooks holding leather helmets, wings, metal breastplates, bright uniforms on hangars, and capes everywhere.  I almost pointed to a shark fin cap.

He pawed around behind the counter and then brought out a cardboard box, flipped open the flaps and pulled out a costume with a bold “I” on the front.  My heart skipped a beat. 

“How about this?” he said.  “Ironic Man.”  He looked at me and smiled.  “Only problem with this superpower is your always explaining yourself, it’s kind of a pain.”  My shoulders drooped, hoping for invincibility.

He slid the box aside and pulled out a smaller box with bright orange gloves.  “This is pretty cool, these gloves give you the power to hold really hot objects in your hands.”

I pulled them on, felt no real difference in my powers.  “Aren’t these just potholders?”  I asked.  He shrugged.  I was growing impatient, wishing Apple had a superpower franchise.

“What are those boxes in that big pile?” I asked.  Dozens of identical boxes stood stacked nearly to the ceiling.

“Kinda forgot about those, not many people ask about those superpowers.”  He pulled a few boxes and held them up to the light to read the label.  “This one is ‘Patience’. I remember selling a lot of those, but not lately.  And this one,” he held up another larger box in his other hand, “this one is ‘Compassion’.  Not many orders for these either.  Comes with an Empathy Cape.”  He looked at me, his eyebrows up hopefully.

I waited, still hoping for something incendiary, or involving laser vision or blades that shot from my wrists, or time travel, or anything super-duper.

 “Well, now, here we go.  Here’s some that I think would work for you.”  he said.  “Odd, these always get returned by little kids, never really understood why.  Right about when they become teenagers and want X-ray vision.”  He chuckled.

He turned the small box around and showed it held a signet ring with the letter ‘A’ on it.

“What is it?” I asked, hoping for Astral Projection or something.

“I should warn you, this is a superpower many people cannot handle right at first.  It is hard, especially for guys your age.  You have to take it slow, give yourself some time to adjust.  I’m just letting you know, it changes things.”

I felt something run up my spine and tickle the hair on the back of my neck, and my heart rate climbed.  “What is it? What superpower does it have?” I almost whispered.

“Awe.”  he said, holding the ring out toward me.

Just holding it, I could feel my first reaction slip away, feel the cynical impulse ebb, the sarcastic thought disappear.  I slipped the ring on my finger and something tipped over in my head, and my vision blurred, and then became clear, almost painfully clear.

The room suddenly was brighter, the sound of the ceiling fan louder, the warmth more intense.  The man behind the counter seemed taller, I noticed him.  There was a look on his face that was not there before, a subtle look of wisdom.

I looked at my hands with wonder, the intricate lines, the incredible coordination of sinew, muscle, bone as they worked together flexing, the ring glinting in the light, a perfect fit on my finger.

Shadow and light stood out to astonish me, every texture, every mote of dust in the air, every cobweb was miraculous.  I stood in the middle of the shop looking around me in wonder, and I found I was holding my breath.

I moved toward the door and could not wait to see how it opened, and then felt the fresh crisp air rush in around me, the smell of the season, the feel of change in nature.  Sounds came pouring in to me, astonishing, I could almost see the waves in the air from a car honking its horn.

“Wow.” I said, my voice with a new timbre I had never felt. 

The man from the store was next to me his hand on my shoulder, his other hand holding out a pair of chrome plated goggles, tiny ‘A’ embossed on them.  “You may want these at first.” He said. “Blocks out a little of what you see.  It’s too amazing out there to take it all in at once.”  I took the goggles and let them dangle from my fingers.

I stepped out into the street and watched the world unfold in front of me, the incredible colors in the trees, the cotton sky, the complexity of the plants, the richness of the brick, the grain in every piece of wood.  Architecture stood out, the plan and order and creativity of someone expressed in the buildings around me. 

I walked for miles, astonished, my mouth open, unable to express myself at the wonder  around me, nature, things growing, evolving, passing on and becoming part of the next things.  People moving, interacting, expressing, each of them miraculous, almost impossible to believe.   I felt the gentle rush of the earth spinning beneath me, gravity holding me in perfect balance. 

“Wow.” I whispered. I blinked and the world rushed back at me, and I knew I would never want to go to sleep, never go inside, never leave this moment.  I felt the connection between things, the sense of it, the beauty in flaws, understood that I did not need to understand what laughter meant, the purpose of black holes and the origin of anything, only that it existed and it poured into me and around me and I could feel it lifting me.

I opened my arms wide, felt the air course by me, and I flew into creation.

Hope this finds you powerful,

David

12th Moanin' of Christmas

April 15, 2013

Greetings from your time,

“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential - for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.”  Soren Kierkegaard

He stands in front of the clock and touches the wood frame, his eyes wandering over the mahogany and glass and brass.  The numbers surrounding the face of the clock wait patiently for the hands to give them meaning.

He gently pulls the door open and reaches into the base of the clock and finds the key.  He carefully fits into the hole and raises his elbow slightly so he can turn the key.  Presses his lips together and twists, turning it steadily, the ratchet snicking behind the face of the clock, turning unseen cogs and wheels.  Winding until he feels the right tension, then moving to the next keyhole and winding again.

He sets the key back in its place and then touches the pendulum, edging it to one side, and takes a deep breath, holds it.  Waiting to begin, holding it still with two fingers against the cool metal.  Waiting, his hand steady, waiting.

Waiting until my eyes open and then neatly pulling his fingers away and allowing the pendulum to swing in its first arc, slicing through the small space inside the cabinet, making the first of countless trips marked by gentle ticks of the mechanism above.

And I come fully awake, aware that my time has begun. 

In every day there is this potential, wound up in the mainspring, put there for us to use.  Part of the mechanism of our day, that energy stored in the coiled metal, slowly released with each minute that passes.  Tick. Tick. Tick. The pendulum relentlessly wags in its course, filling the hour with what can be.

With each tick the potential is released, expended, offered into our day.  We are not always even aware of it, only noticing the passage of time.

The potential.   What we are capable of.  What we are destined for.  What we aspire to.  What we create.  What we risk.  What we give.  What we choose to do, or not do. 

                                                                       

Someone once said to me: “I am so busy mopping the floor I don’t have time to fix the broken spigot.”  And it seems too many days are spent just in that way.  Frantic in the busyness, nose to the grindstone, spinning plates and juggling chainsaws.  The work has to be done, the floor has to be mopped, but we are meant for more.  Not just what ‘is’ but what is possible.

Every day has in it the potential for greatness for you, which sounds so bold and big that maybe it intimidates you, as it does me. So we take the minutes and count them up until we have enough for hours and we turn them in at the end of the day.  But the potential will be there again tomorrow, wound up by an unseen hand twisting the key.   Our potential.   Some days we see it, some days our head is down and maybe we only catch a glimpse.  Some days we choose not to look for fear we will be challenged and fail.  But the potential remains.   

In this day, the clock is wound and the hands set to show you where you will begin, and the pendulum is released, swinging now, driving the potential to you.  Ticking off a question with each passing moment:

What will you do with it?

Hope this finds you claiming what can be,

David

Copyright © 2013 David Smith

Hospitals

December 10, 2018

Greetings from the observer,

I have been passing through places, an observer, for all of my life.  It has become part of who I am.  It’s not my only experience, but it is what I am given to do in between the others.

There is a family waiting room that never has a single person in it. It seems like it is always empty or overflowing with people.  It smells like food that was brought in to be eaten while people wait.  Pizza.  Fried chicken.  Chinese.  There is a TV on the wall that is always on. 

When that room is full there are people sitting on the window sills, or on the floor near the elevators.  It has a refugee feel to it, like desperate people waiting for someone to come save them.  When I walk by they look at me as if I have wandered into something private.

The patients, if they are able, peer out of their rooms when they hear my shoes on the tile.  Are you a doctor?  Are you my family?  Are you bringing me my juice?  I am almost always a disappointment.

I have been in hospitals more in the last five or six years than all of the decades before combined.  I have come to understand the culture of these places, the language, the limitations and the miracles.  Mostly I have learned about the people.  The saviors and the saved.

I am grateful for my status as an observer in this situation.  That is not to say that I wouldn’t rather be observing a trout leaping out of a mountain stream, or a sunset over the cliffs at Torre Pines.  But I realize I am lucky to be moving in and out of this world at will. 

I’m thankful that I am not the one being poked and scanned and alternately drained and filled with fluids.  I know how fortunate I am that it isn’t me that is being treated by doctors who are making educated guesses about life and death questions.  I am not being critical, I am in awe.

I have learned that medicine is a science, but it is an inexact one.  There will be collection of information, some examinations, search for evidence, recollection of other experience.  This is not to disparage, it is simply the truth.  I am not going to say ‘If they can put a man on the moon why can’t they cure diverticulitis?  Or kidney stones.  Or gout.  Or pain. Or dying.’

The body is so astounding in its complexity, miraculous in its simplest functions, that to approach it with a scalpel and some drugs and a CT scan, with the optimistic plan to heal it, is a brave endeavor.  It is an terrifying and wonderful dance to watch man tinker with what God created. 

If you talk about hospitals and doctors and health care, it is a rare occasion that this will lead to a positive theme.  The costs, the apathy, the poor diagnosis, the people who get sicker or die.

Everyone has a story.  Or they know someone who does.  I am not going to join those ranks here.

Things are not always pretty.  The rooms and halls are not filled with happy endings.  What is inspiring, what gives me enough optimism to be able to write this morning, is the battle is so fiercely fought.  In some ways it is a privilege to watch.

There is the smell of antiseptic and of burned coffee and soiled linens.  There are hushed voices, the sounds of machines huffing and beeping, alarms trying a quiet urgency.  There is light, a mixture of the harsh and necessary and the soft and considerate, but always light because the place never sleeps. 

All of this is just the stage for the real work of the place, which is where the healers put their hands on those waiting to be healed.  What I have seen is a tired and tireless group of determined, compassionate people, who pour themselves into the people they care for.  I know there is a price. 

The nurses and doctors and the rest of the staff move in and out of the rooms bringing pills and tests and pillows and tending to the wounds and beeping machines and hold the hands of those who are afraid.  They bring kindness, they bring hope.   Someone said once that angels roam the halls of hospitals and look in on the people we love when we can’t be there.  I think I have seen that too. 

I realize I am looking at things with a slightly rosier lens than some others may, particularly those who are suffering or struggling to care for someone who is.  I don’t want to minimize the realities of what happens in a hospital.  I have seen most of it, from birth to death and all the variations on those themes.  I know.

The struggle is what is inspiring, in some ways.  Malcolm Gladwell said that a lot what is beautiful in the world is a result of struggle.  What happens in hospitals, all of the time, is the ultimate struggle, and the product is near the apex of beauty.

People get sick, get hurt, they go to a hospital and get good care, and they get better.  Not without challenges, not without failures.  What I want to share is that in this place there are people who want the best for other people’s families, and they throw themselves into the fire to bring healing for people who don’t know their name.

I already know that I could not do what the doctors and nurses do.  Forget that I am probably untrainable in the complexities of medicine.  Forget that I am so squeamish that the smell of bandaids makes my knees weak, let alone looking at a wound, or imagining opening a body on purpose to solve a plumbing problem. 

Most importantly, I already know that I could not keep seeing suffering and pain as a constant state and go home and not be affected by it.  I could not care about people as these angels do, and feel their struggle, and be part of it and somehow remain separate from it.  Even writing this in the quiet of my den, I feel it.  The observer does not escape entirely unscathed.

Hope this finds you cared for,

David

The Messenger

December 3, 2018

Greetings from special delivery,

Yesterday morning I was out in the dark fogginess, cutting into the air a perfect outline of a long distance runner.  The shape may have stayed there until the sun came up, I don’t know.

I left home with no other intention than to run and think and talk through the images that had stayed with me in the last few days.  Naturally, along the way other things appeared, which is the beauty of the experience.

I was re-reading ‘Once a Runner’ earlier in the week and came across a passage I had forgotten.  It was not integral to the story, was buried in a scene with other purpose.  John Parker was describing the link between modern track and field and their ancient origins.

“The distance runners were serene messengers.  Gliding along wooded trails and mountain paths, their spiritual ancestors kept their own solitary counsel for long hours while carrying some message the import of which was only one corner of their considerable speculation.  They lived within themselves; long ago they did so, and they do today.”

What I felt on my run was not new, just a reminder.  It is a connection to every person who has ever pulled on sandals or Nikes and set off to cover ground with a purpose. The Aztecs, the Greeks, the plains Indians, all refer to the messengers who were sent into the dark mist or merciless sun to run to some unseen place to deliver news or information that was significant.

You may have felt something like this; sort of like holding up two mirrors to each other, this infinite image stretching out in both directions.  I can see into generations of humanity, thousands of years of experience handed off, relayed by one person to another until one morning I step out into a foggy Sunday morning and take my first step.  And whenever my last step happens, there will be another runner to take up where I left off.

The messenger did not always know what the message was, only their purpose, which was to make sure it was delivered at all costs.  In other times they could be compared to carrier pigeons or telegraphs or cell phones.  But not fairly.  There is no courage or heroism in a cell phone. 

But the thought came to me that the legacy of the first runners was more than what is written of Pheidippides. 

The messengers carried more than just the scroll, more than just the words they memorized to tell whomever waited at the end of the run.  They brought news.  They passed through other places, saw other people, and that became part of the shared experience. 

The messenger didn’t always know what the message was.  He knew what task was in front of him, to run from here to there, to stay out of danger, to keep himself healthy and at peace, and when the time came, to deliver his message.

I am a messenger.  I am not a prophet or a person of wisdom, although my experience here will contribute to what I bring.  I am just delivering what was given to me to share with whoever is intended to get the message.  In that process I will run, I will observe and create and share and love.  I will get lost and figure out how to go forward and I will run until all of what I am supposed to share has been delivered.

As a writer I know this mission intimately.  I am a messenger; I am compelled as your companion in this fraction of time, to share something valuable that was given to me.  I don’t always know what it is, or its purpose.  I simply know I carry it, and it is important, and I will honor my purpose. 

The other thing that came to me on my run yesterday is that we are all messengers.  Regardless of your legacy, your tradition, you are carrying the message; your message.  Trust the truth here, you are on your way to sharing something with someone. 

Not everyone takes this entirely literally, or seriously.  You got out of bed this morning with things to do, people to care for, places to go.  ‘Leave all of this abstract philosophical stuff to the daydreamers.’ might be your response, ‘I have work to do.’  I have seen you, and you are bringing a message.  Bring the one you are meant to, find who is waiting for it.  Don’t let the run distract you from your real purpose.

You may be bringing humor, or an experience that helps, or some small piece of wisdom that mattered to you. It may be your compassion, or your patience, or your example.  It may be your beliefs, your faith, your sense of hope or reason for encouragement.  You may be creating; writing, singing, dancing, some scroll of your best self to give to the person who is waiting for it. 

The messenger does not simply deliver the scroll and disappear into the dark mist.  The message is delivered, and in the process the person bringing the news, matters.  None of us are separate from the experience.  What I know is this; we were created for this purpose, and the closer we stay to it as we lope along from one place to the next, the richer our lives will be.

Hope this finds you lacing up to go,

David

Copyright © 2018 David Smith