Some thoughts on living in the South…

Red Neck Birthday Party

I had been invited to a birthday party by Jen’s sister and brother in law Amy and Dan. There would be drinks, barbecue, and a bouncy house for the kids. I never imagined that bouncy thing would become a sporting arena for eight drunk adults.

It was raining so the kids weren’t interested in a wet, not house, but obstacle course disguised as a castle.

I was the only non-Marine male at the party. After an hour or two of drinking Dan announced, “Obstacle course. Guys versus girls!” We all mumbled and filed outside in the drizzle and stood in front of the castle.

“Men,” he shouted, “we’ll even give them a head start. Come on, they’re women!” It was four on four.

We stood with our drinks about 30 feet from the inflated castle entrance. The motor pumped air to keep it inflated in the rain.

“Girls over there,” he barked and pointed. His wife Amy looked at him, squinted her eyes and said, “We are going to tear you boys up.” She is ex-navy.

The ladies lined up five feet from the opening and everybody nervously looked at each other while Dan continued talking smack.

They headed face to face. I was third in line.

Now, bouncy houses are rubber and supposed to remain dry. Add water and they are as slippery as shit but with obstacles, hurdles, and wet unstable floors.

Their oldest kid counted down on her cell phone clock.

“Okay, Go!”

Amy took off like a hurdler. She dove into the first room; then dove over the four foot high inflated rubber mound. Dan, got stuck, slipped, fell, stood up again, dove and slid down the inflated mound and back out of the castle because of the wet floor. He dove in again. She was already halfway through. It took him three tries of falling before he grabbed the side of the house pulled it and with sheer will got over the first mound. She killed him through it. The next couple was quicker, but the ladies were in the lead when it came to me. Watch out ladies! Maybe I had been in a bouncy house once in my life. Twenty years ago. Dry. Without drinking. Smaller. Without being 6’2” and 200lbs.

I looked at Jen. She smirked and took off like a gymnast bounding into the castle on a mission. I stepped in and fell. Got up and fell and rolled around and eventually got myself over then rolled around on the next wet floor on the other side of the mound while absorbing all of the water.

I finally came out dirty, soaked, and breathing hard.

“Did someone spray Doug with the hose?” Amy mocked.

My shirt and good pants clung to me with moisture.

Dan was also soaked. The rest of them were dry.

Suffice it to say, the gals, umm, won. Easily. In fact it wasn’t even a competition…for them.

Country Music, Boating and Beer

It was a beautiful day on Dan’s boat. The sun was shining as we began cruising along the Neuse River towards the Outer Banks. Dan had problems with the boat’s speakers though. Only the front speaker was playing and it was crackling badly.

The boat had been sitting outside uncovered for a year while he had been deployed overseas. The country music was playing softly on the lone working front speaker. I could barely hear it, which worked well for me. I was the only one on board who proudly didn’t listen to country. I thankfully thought my day with country music had come to an end as the speaker crackled some more.

“Moisture must’ve gotten in,” he said.

“What a shame,” I said under my breath. Jen looked at me and shook her head.

“You don’t get out of it that easily New York,” he said.

He then pulled the speaker cover off and got it wired right. It was just a loose wire.

“You can thank me later.”

He then cranked up that one speaker with contemporary country for all to enjoy. The boat load of kids and adults sang along. My ears cried for quiet. I was a northerner stuck in the south.

A few minutes later Dan cracked open the beer chest. Amy had bought him baby beer bottles of Corona – 7 ouncers.

“Minis, baby?”

“They were on sale.” She shouted from the front. “Sorry. But be happy I got you anything at all.”

He handed me one. We tried to open the mini baby Coronas. But with no bottle opener we looked around. There was no metal surface to smack it on. Keys wouldn’t work. Our manliness was not yet in question, but close. The ladies looked at us and shook their heads. Jen the mom, his sister-in-law, my lady, came over and saved us by opening the beers with a metal spoon she found in the cooler.

“Here you go boys.” She sweetly handed back the opened bottles.

“Saved by a woman!” Amy shouted over. Those two are always in competition.

Dan and I looked at each other and nodded. After Jen walked back to the front we mumbled when she was gone, “Thank God she was on the boat”.

Night Time Alligator Watching

Some good friends of ours, Cookie a Marine pilot and his wife Julie, wanted to take us out on their boat. To do what I was informed by Jen is called gator gigging. Apparently late at night you float quietly on a boat bringing flashlights along to get up close to shore and shine a light on resting alligators. This way you can get a foot or two away.

The idea did not exactly entice me. In all my life I never felt the need to get a foot or two away from an alligator. Or be on a boat where I can fall off a foot or two from an alligator’s mouth.

So we got to their house. Jen looked at me and spoke to them.

“You should’ve seen his face when I told him what we were doing tonight.”

“And silly me,” I said, “I thought we might do something crazy like dinner and a movie.” I was the odd man out.

But Cookie, the pilot, saved me. “Too bad it’s gonna rain. One thing I’m scared of is lightning.”

Jen looked at me. “I’m sure Doug is heartbroken.” I nodded.

The Official Drink of the South – Sweet Tea!    

They give sweet tea away with every purchase at fast food chains and at every store. It is the drink of the South it seems. Syrupy sweet to kill you kind of tea.

I explained to Jen that, “We have it in the North. It’s simply called sweetened tea.” She rolled her eyes at me.

“It’s not the same.”

“It’s tea with sugar. What could be different?”

“It’s not the same!”

Final Thoughts

Soon my family will be moving north. Me back home. They for the first time. I am heading home to my Mecca and holy land of New York.

We have cow tipping up there but no gator gigging. We have sweetened tea but not “sweet tea” said with a southern accent. We have drinking and bouncy houses, but not usually used as an adult Olympics. We have good people. They do here too.

One thing I did get from down here that I can’t get up north is moonshine. I drink it while I type this. It is smooth and comforting in its cough syrup like power. It heals my subdivision angst where everyone has perfectly trimmed lawns with edges running up to walkways and homes, except mine. Not that I am proud of that fact, but my rented lawn usually resembles an overgrown meadow.

I sit with the blinds open in this two story home on sub-division lane sipping apple cinnamon moonshine with lots of ice. The central AC is on while the heat and its accomplice, humidity, pour through the windows.

My days of living in North Carolina are coming to an end, but it hasn’t been without its interesting moments.

I will not say if I am naked writing this, but I am drinking moonshine. And it’s damn good.

I am in love with a woman. She understands me. She understands this journey of writing and unfolding as an individual. Because she understands me she encourages me. She is a light that together with my light is a powerful unity of seeing and helping each other move forward….On dark days I light her path and she lights mine.

Our goals are mutual and complimenting. We both seek freedom and success. But what is freedom and what is success? We hear the expression “freedom” thrown around by politicians like shit from a monkey. The freedom I am speaking of is in part, yes, freedom of speech and thought. It is also the freedom of action as well. It is the freedom to feel, know oneself and act in accordance. It is the freedom to dream, dare and think outside of accepted conventions and the paradigm of society that we have been led to believe is the only reality.

The freedom I speak of is the freedom to forge one’s own path. It is the freedom to be free and act within that paradigm. It is the freedom to know thy self which is the only true freedom.

When we are not free emotions and thoughts will hold us in place, unsure, and stuck. And if we are unable to live free and in accordance with those callings within then how will we ever be a success?

The success I have known has only occurred when fulfilling my abilities. My success can not be the same as the guy down the street because we have different potentials, and ultimately, desires. We Are Different People! So our success will differ as well.

There are some people who are greedy and would destroy the world for a buck. On paper they are “successes” but they may be miserable or bad in romantic relationships or a shitty friend or simply lost. And they may be successful in business and in their greed, but they are not successful human beings.

The definition of success is far broader than its thin label would imply.

There are many who are not wealthy but are shining successes.

At times over my forty years I have grappled with the chains of my mind and felt like a prisoner in my life wearing a straight jacket. I shook and yanked and tried to escape from it like Houdini, but the process of removing the straight jacket takes time. We can remove it, though. In fact we are the only ones who can.

It is the same process to find ones own freedom and ones success.

I am in love with a woman who wants me to be free as much as she wants freedom for herself. And in that love there is both freedom and success.

Physicists state that energy never dies nor is created yet only transforms. If that is fact then we are all part of the universal big bang from billions of years ago. We are aspects and elements and energy exploding and transferring, expanding and contracting from birth until death, when the energy transfers again.

Expanding is what makes a day clear and fulfilling. Contracting is what makes a day sad, murky and frustrating. It is the difference between being on the crest of an energy wave where we can see all possibility or at the bottom of the wave where we can only see walls of uncertainty and cannot figure how to get back out…..

The big bang within is the birth of thought and ideas pouring forth. It is the clarifying of our identities and intentions. Darkness and doubts are the black holes within us that attempt to draw all of our energies, weakening us.

There is a solar system that forms within each of us making us unique and individual. There are billions of solar systems with suns at the center. We all have a sun. It is the soul that all information and possibility rotate around and through, day after day, year after year. The sun within is that shining light upon our lives and days.

It is the big bang within. Some theologians, “spiritual” people, and philosophers, say we are spiritual beings in physical bodies. That makes sense to me. If not, my guess is we would simply be glazed over worker ants not knowing but what we see with our eyes.

Yet we burst and seek through the noise and distractions of materials and illusions, of pain and suffering, of shitty jobs, and governmental incompetence. We yearn for a better life no matter what is happening around us. However, on many days the black hole wins and no light escapes or penetrates it and we sink into depression.

If we need to get to California, well, getting stuck in Nebraska is not the answer. And so it is true with jobs, relationships, and stubbed toes. There are many pitfalls, sharks and assholes, and these distractions are the black holes in our lives. And they can suck up all of the energy in our worlds.

We shine for however long until we are extinguished in this life and the energy moves into other form. The body may die, but energy transforms and carries with it information that we carried forth through this life and so on. We are not born mere clean slates only to be crafted by environment alone.

There is an eternity wave that we ride. It does not start or end with us. Yet it bursts forth through us. Some may call it God or Universe and some may not refer to it at all. Yet it exists in our wisdom and our ignorance.

I must write. My friend must paint. My other friend must teach martial arts. Another friend teaches math. Another one is a psychologist.

A cheetah must run. Yet a cheetah never drives himself crazy trying to live the life of a squirrel. A cheetah is a cheetah because that is what he was born to be.

I write because that is what I must do. It is part of my survival, my instincts, and what defines me. I must embrace that path and light. I must share and sing the song that hums in my soul. For that song has always hummed in my soul since I first became aware of anything. The song I sing to you now is probably off key, but I must it sing nevertheless. What do you need to sing or do?

That light within is the same light that makes a star twinkle or creates that sparkle in your loved ones eyes.

It is that divine, universal spark that lights up the world and helps us see.

Sometimes we all wonder if we should do something new or try something big or different. Should we work on the car for the first time or write a book or change careers? People will notice though. What if we fail? People will certainly notice that. What if no one ever reads the piece? What if we can’t fix the car? What if we suck at our new careers? The concern is that we will be judged as failures and scrutinized for our decisions.

The problem is we don’t know if we will hit it big or just hit our heads against the wall or do more damage to the car than it had when we started. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe something else.

There are no guarantees of success. But if we don’t try the only guarantee is failure. It is that simple. If we don’t run the risk of failure we never allow the opportunity of success. And success must be the focus. Not the possible failure, but the achievement we long for. It is easy to give in to the seductions of pitfalls and doubts, but to feel and know in our lives what we have felt in our souls is where the meaning of life shows itself. It has awaited acknowledgment and been put off for long enough.

So I keep banging on the door. I keep reaching out and planting seeds. I keep kicking and screaming, loving, laughing, and trying, because it’s all that I have. It’s all that I can offer.

We are limited to the gifts any of us have received to live a life of purpose, the life that we crave.

My belief is as humans we are here to keep expanding, learning, growing in our awareness…moving forward. The world moves forward by the same rules, piece by piece, moment by moment, if it chooses to move forward at all. For we are the pieces that change the landscape of the puzzle even if no one else notices we are doing it. Even if no else agrees or thinks we can.

At the very least we have something that is ours and no one can take that away.

We pull for the underdog. At one time or another we have all faced great odds and hopefully have succeeded or would have liked to have succeeded in that moment.

No kid dreams of missing the shot at the buzzer or as a pitcher walking in the winning run to lose the game. No, it’s big. It’s always big, because we dream big. But do we live big? Can we? I guess there is only one way to find out by seeing if we can fix that car or write that book or change careers.

In everything we do there is a possibility of failure and a possibility of success, yet success must be the focus. It is why we started the undertaking in the first place. Even just putting one foot in front of the other is the same. But we’re confident in that involuntarily, unless perhaps someone is watching. Then we also may stumble.

We can hide behind the fears of failure and never do anything that is meaningful.

Many think I’m a fool for what I’m doing. Putting it all on the line. That I can’t or won’t or shouldn’t make it. Instead I should have a nice and neat “career”. But I never wanted to be an astronaut or accountant or physician. Nothing else than what I’m doing ever made sense. So I do what makes sense. Though it’s a little messy at times, it’s all that I have. And though it’s a hard life I can live with myself for doing what makes sense. That will never be a haunting regret.

If all we do is dream, well, the guarantee is life will only remain a dream, an unfulfilled one.

Once while sparring and in mid-hit a martial art instructor stopped his attack and informed me to “remain unmoving until the natural move occurs.” I was new to the martial arts and blocking too fast before he had committed fully to his attack. Because of this he was able to readjust himself. If I blocked high too fast he would drop his punch and hit me. If I blocked low too slow he would break my structure down and hit me. He would hit me every time until I started adjusting with this in mind.

Later that night while admiring my many bruises I realized he was teaching me about a lot more than the martial arts. That philosophy can and should be applied to everything we do.

It is easy to be hasty and rush into the future without paying attention to the now. We are often results driven yet we are not always process driven. The present is always changing, yet we hope the future will be stable. It won’t. Because of this desire we often overlook signs and indicators of problems in the present.

Many of us rush into getting married because it sounds good and we crave the security it implies. Or sometimes we take whatever job out of fear and desire even if it isn’t what we want.

If we do not wait for the natural move to occur, the right best move, then we may be rushing into a marriage or speeding up to a traffic light without paying attention to the events, information and people around us.

When we are patient, steadfast, and alert, we are able to see the woods for the trees and not just a place to hurry back from to our cars. The truth is, only awareness in the present can protect us if we are able to see clearly, and that affects the future.

However, things can and will always happen, but how they affect us and to what extent could be the difference. Sometimes we can avoid trouble altogether. It may be the difference between a tragic car accident or a fender bender or nothing but a honk and a middle finger.

There is always a desire is to protect and provide security for ourselves; yet block too soon or too late can result in physical damage or if rushed into a bad relationship, a few years later, emotional damage.

Even at our best and most focused in martial arts we may still be hit. Yet the impact endured will now be less.

It is the difference between trying to control and hurry into the future or standing in the now experiencing it fully, though frightening at times. We can then make the best decision for ourselves and possibly steer away from harm, by seeing that moment fully for what it is.

So we must remain unmoving mentally and physically until the natural move, direction, or choice, occurs.