A message in a bottle.

Was reading recently about a man who found a message in a bottle that swept up on the shores while he was walking the beach.  At first glance he thought to himself at the odds.  After inspecting the bottle and having “experts” verify the bottle it seemed that the journey of those words was near its end.  

What the experts realized was that around the late 1800’s or early 1900’s someone at sea decided to write a message and placed it inside the bottle and sent it on its way.  Upon learning that the words bottled up inside this bottle had been lost at sea he decided not to open the bottle and read the message.  

All my instincts would have agreed with this man.  Without the voice behind the words, did they still have a meaning?  Matter of fact this man either died lost at sea or through the grace of God, in time.  I find the notion of inking my soul in words, sometimes so personal that they only find the repetitive voice of a conversation for two by one.  My message in a bottle is when I reach inside to lock it away.

Such a romantic expression of faith in life.  To believe in someone, somebody, so much, that which one uses to protect our inner being is exposed to letters placed in front of one another to form words that cohesively enunciate the raw emotion inside.  

Most treasured stories about finding a message in a bottle are about a lost man at sea sending his one love reason to smile.  Reason to understand the bloated heart within him, letting her realize that in his final moments it was she that filled his soul.  A fairy tale.  Well let me tell you, fairy tales are bullshit!

Sure there is drive to find perfection in our lives.  Some go to great length to find love, to scale the alters of life and find the end of the road.  This past weekend I spent some time, actually fuck it, some painful time realizing the weakness that is within all men.  There was a time when boys idolized their fathers and would sneak in to the closet and put on their boots and walk around the house trying to be them.  Then we turned 13 and the eyes within witnessed the scar that will never heal.

We make a conscious effort to be different.  To not be the wrong that we experienced.  King Lear was not a fool because he wore his heart on his sleeve.  He delved into his inner being and within his own insecurities craved to quash them.  This my friends drove him to madness as it will anyone who fears loneliness.

After reading a little bit about the man who found the bottle it was apparent that he was walking with a memory full of gardens bursting with thought.  His demons, not his instincts prevented him from opening and reading the message.  In retrospect, the reason I agree with him keeping that souls words a secret are very apparent to me.  Its so much easier to bottle up your emotions and not let the world see what is insanely apparent in your heart.  

Instead of finishing this off with what my interpretation of those words bottled up would be, I give you my message in a bottle.

“Don’t think me unkind words are hard to find.  They’re only cheques I’ve left unsigned, from the banks of chaos in my mind.”  If Sting could pen such eloquence with the blood of his heart then far be it for me to sign my name on the dotted line.  Somehow in the silence of time the pieces that I found on the floor were stitched together again to find a semblance.  Now that the waves of emotion crash on the sides of my life its simple for me to say that when the day becomes night, never in the wildest of thoughts did I ever believe that the words of love would ever escape me again.  Its good to feel.  Its incredible to hurt.  Its incredible to love.  My madness is the absence.  May these words find you while my heart still beats.

Me.

And when that man who is walking the sands to find his own reason finds my bottle of Jack Daniels with this message, feel free to throw it back in the water.  Because much like the man who’s boots I walked around the house believing I was him would say, “Pa que quieres una botella seca!”  I am not my father.  I understand that now.  I’m not even sure who I am sometimes, no mystery.  While the sea might have carved out the crevices of my being, its the soul who wants to protect me that should open my message in a bottle.

what if?

what if?

what if life found us on the opposite side?

would you run and hide?

would you see it inside of you to scream?

what if?

what if I told you?

would you stop?

would you listen to my soul?

what if?

what if life never had a sunrise?

would you kiss the sky?

would you sit and wait for it?

what if?

what if the rain drops created a puddle?

would you dip your thoughts in them?

would you realize the shadows of the day?

if forever was bloated with splinters.

bursting, living, bleeding, would you scream?

what if?

what if my hands were sweaty?

would you?

would you sit and hold my hand?

would you?

would you hold on till the sun set?

what if?  

A map of the heart.

You can raise a glass of wine to the light to determine its flaws.  You can open a gallon of milk that has been sitting in your refrigerator for God knows how long and smell it to see if its viable.  You can touch your face and feel the edges of the day.  You can see the smoke that escapes your lungs in the morning sun light that sneaks into your dark office and see it fade away.  In these moments of quiet solitude and discovery its easy to see where the heart that one owns is.

It use to be that a man would stop at the local gas station and buy a map to find his way.  He could dissect a map much like a surgeon and find his way to a man’s inner demons.  Carefully and methodical the man would open this map and find the city of destination.  He would simply write a straight line within his thoughts and be on his way.  

Along the way he would not forget where he was coming from, indeed he would not.  What a man would choose is simple, to find reason.  Drive with the quiet of a road underneath his soul, dreaming, realizing that his life would eventually find its destination.  Never bothering to understand the voices that kept him company.

People always stare and find flaws in another’s life.  Where there is a way we find reason to peel layers, never understanding the angst that it creates.  Rationalizing a reason can deliver an empty glass of pain.  Solitude does have a lover.  

Sadly life has found its way into the scars of a well traveled map.  Inappropriate, unbelievable, but yet burnt to a core are the words that fill a memory that stands alone in this room.  To spend a life defending the soul that is within would be wasted in words that spill out of this heart.  

Sure the shirt is wrinkled today.  Even the pants with creases do not understand the heat of an iron find themselves with a fool inside of them.  How do you protect the heart?  You lie!  You tell them the untruth of what your memory remembers.  It’s crazy that the directions to a man’s heart is so simple.  Yet its easier to complicate them with innuendos that are followed by actions.  “I don’t feel no hurt at all, unless you count when teardrops fall.”  

One day they will realize the sunshine and the rain that falls on this trip to madness.  I want!  I need!  Its easy to get lost on this road to nowhere.  It is a struggle to survive,  especially when you feel lucky to be alive.  To live and not feel for so long makes the color of your skin blend with the walls.  Being a father, requires blood to be pumping through your veins.  The skin has to be of a dead animal so as not to bleed.  I find reason in their eyes.  Giving your soul to someone to protect, requires you to understand the sun and the moon.

At nights when I attempt to close my heart and rest for the night, its the memory of insignificance that haunts my dreams.  How easy would it be to believe again.  To be the one!   To dissect the words, the letters. phrases, to just laugh at yourself because the woman you love, makes the silence deafening.  Like a child taking his first step he will fall, he will crawl but he will eventually learn to run and one day he will learn to fly. 

During that drive, when you realize that your lost.  You attempt to sort out your dreams, while watching life through the rearview mirror.  Not sure and confident that the directions to your heart are not on the wrinkled map laying in the back seat.  I will crawl, I will walk, I will run, I will brush away the scrapes on my knees.  This time when I fall, at least I know that my sleeve were rolled up.  

Maybe its just easier to listen to the words than to define them.  The fork in the road doesn’t belong to me.  Just maybe, it was loud and clear but I was too lost with what you never really said.  Why not just say no.  Why not just ask for directions.  

The clouds that guide this road of solitude once in a while smile at me.  I asked for the rain and he gave it to me.  It’s easier when it rains, so much easier to blend the tears with the rain drops.   Quickly before someone asks, “Are you lost?”   No!  I know where I’m came from.  I know where I’m going.  I don’t know how to get there but, fuck it at least the road is embracing me.  And if I ever get there, maybe I can kiss a girl!  Just maybe.

Chasing the sunset

How many times do you wake up in the middle of the night and wonder where your at?  Of course since these are my words most of you would assume that alcohol found its way into my bloodstream.  While the river may flow with some Cabernet Sauvignon, these days its probably a monster Syrah.  With that established, I think its time to establish that waking up in the middle of the night is the norm for me.  

At one point in my life this usually meant waking up in a new town, a new hotel, an old room, sometimes I could see the light from the street lamp coming through the windows and at times the room was dark enough to hide from the world.  These days I don’t care to hide.  I don’t care to walk the streets with a crutch, the terms of my days are based on the scars of the heart.  For some reason they just aren’t negotiable.

A couple of nights ago stayed up watching the web-cast fiasco in Austin about the abortion bill.  While my political stance for the most part is neutral, this one goosed me to a point of a radiation burst from the sun.  Why?  Was the first question, why is this even a vote?  Who?  This was the second question, who do these people think they are to challenge a law that is of the land?  Maybe I am naive, but what I am not is tired of the sunrise.  

My two cents, first an open comment to who this applies, “Sorry I don’t remember inviting you into my house.  Certainly don’t remember inviting you into the bedroom.”  Second, “If you cheat, doctor, steal, you go to jail!  So why are the parties that doctored a PUBLIC record not going to jail?”  Maybe if I had a wood nickel this would mean something.  Quick some one give me three more pennies so I can make change.

Part Deux of web-casting.  Lost a dear friend and watching friends reminisce about yesterday evoked tears of joy and sorrow.  A great glass of wine to toast a life.  A moment to remind the soul of screaming at the TV because God only knows the ‘retarded growth’ of the Cowboys on that day was just a small wonder in this life.  Time did fade away but Mr. Mark Garza your memory will always shine like a beacon that will die. 

Had a conversation where my silence was required.  Great job because with the twist and turns of fate you are one.  One who can make this soul realize that life is grander than the picture.  Not knowing whats on the other side of a dark corridor can scare you straight.  Chasing the sun from sun up to sun down might leave you breathless.  It will also teach you to open your heart and fly.

A simple phone call to hear your voice.  Someone sitting having a glass of wine and you realize the absence.  Can you scream?  Can you scream in absentia?  Why scream when you can stare?  The sunset will always remind you that you have seen it before.  “Don’t be afraid of your sunset!”  I won’t.

Today my heart hurts.  Today I don’t think I can reach my sunset.  But I can scream at my sunrise.  Today I hope the rain drops come.  Its easier to hide the tears.  In the middle of the night when I wake up, I don’t have to search my heart because you found me. 

Of course I can always close the blinds.  Nah.  To easy, would rather sit and take some time off from that emotion and watch the sunset.  When the dust settles and the river water meets the ocean remember that the mind is only expensive if you let it get away from you.  So sit back hold my hand and live!

For the record, the only great thing this week was, meanwhile back at the farm, our Supreme Court actually got something right for the first time.  Power to the people!  Once in a while when you look over the horizon you do get to see the sunset.  When your heart drives up to a movie theater and you see someone walking and you want to scream to the world, “Yes!  She is with me!”  or “Yes!  He is with me!”  you can, everyday you can....

Written with a heavy heart and with the hope of life.  

Quien eres tu?

A long time ago I showed up at my grandparents house full of angst, pissed off at the world.  Hated the month of February like a person on the edge needs a cyanide pill.  At the time in less than two years I had lost my best friend to suicide and grandfather and cousin.  Life was just that, a moment, an hour, a minute, a second, it was just there.  The emotions of the day were bottled up inside to a point of anger and hatred.  

I walked in to the kitchen like I always had and there like Walter Matthau was my grandfather sitting in his chair that to this very day I refuse to sit in.  It has an owner.  My grandmother cooking him something and the charming and loving way in which they got along.  

She looked at me and immediately stated that obvious that I had lost quite a bit of weight and proceeded to make more food.  For his part my grandfather saw through me.  He read the anger in my eyes.  Here was a man that I cherished and idolized.  He was not my grandfather by blood, no matter a fact he was my step grandfather that was, is, will always be my grandfather.

His question was to the point.  “Que molesta tienes?”  It was simple, my anger of losing, my anger of not having the answer for my questions.  “When I die and go to heaven God and I need to have a serious conversation.  He has a lot of answers he needs to give me.  I have questions that need answers.”  The look on his face I will never forget.  Disgust!  Disbelief!  Without him saying it but his eyes burned a hole in my soul that day.

“Quien piensas que eres.  A Dios no se le pregunta cosas!  Eres una cinverguensa!”  He stood up and walked towards me and the only time that he ever sat in another chair happened at that moment.  He sat next to me, placed his hand on my leg and what he said next weights heavy inside of me.  He was and is MY Grandfather.

Since then my days have been a roller coaster of Life!   To fight for what is right for friends for strangers is imbedded inside of me.  Once I sat on a kitchen stool and listened to people whom I called friends to completely and recklessly call someone the most racist comments one could think.  No, I didn’t speak up.  I didn’t defend him.  I walked away with a candle of thought knowing the failure inside of me.

These changes, the plague that gestated inside of me boiled.  Memories of that moment etched in a soul that could not walk away from itself.  Yes at times I want to scream at the top of my lungs.  I want to be alone when this happens, that conversation for two with an empty cup of tea lingers.  As long as I don’t start answering my own questions my feeling is that crazy has not overcome me.  

A dear friend of mine passed last week.  Mark Garza was, is, will always be a man who walks a path of righteousness that no one will ever.  He much like my grandfather found life on his terms.  Losing a friend at such a young age is no different than losing  Baby Ruben before he could ever understand life.  I will hold that candle for them, I will let the candle wax burn my fingers, I will let it breath life.  

Mark sent me a message where he read something I wrote and explained to me that righteous was something that was inside of me.  That he was very proud of my writing.  The last time I saw him in New York was for lunch, during it he went further to tell me how proud of me he was.  I am heart broken with his passing.  

Then the words of another friend who lost his father ache inside of me.  And all I know how to say is that I am here for him.  I don’t have words that will make things better.  I don’t have the happy pill or the happy wine that will ease the pain.  

“El dia que tu sigas, la vida sigue.  Esperando razon, esperando porque, Mijo, no lo esperes.  Vive con el sueno de la sonrisa.  Vive porque todavia no sigues tu.  Llora si te duele el corazon.  Dios, el es el que cuida tu corazon cuando piensas que ya no puedes.”  

To my friends who have lost love ones.  My grandfather was a great man.  A man amongst kings.  A man who was righteous without ever realizing it.  When the day comes that God decides its my time, I won’t ask questions, instead I will search for this man who made the feelings inside of me live.  

For my Grandfather Manuel Benavidez who loved his family more than words can ever describe.  Gracias Abuelo.

Ricky

simply put...

Mark Antony new what he was doing.  Richard Burton in his dying quest new what he was doing.  Lancelot new that he was doomed.  Napoleon was way out of his league with Josephine.  We all know that Pierre no matter how intelligent and scholarly he was Marie Curie was just that much more outstanding.  Everyone always remembers the first kiss but honestly how many of you remember that second kiss?  That girl who just rocked your socks who made your hands sweaty.  Who made your heart skip a beat.  The one who didn’t steal your breath away but rather the one that held it for you while you realized that you were fucked.

Okay so maybe this is written from a guys point of view but trust me when I tell you it is written more from observation than anything else.  Take for instance tonight, in the great city of Bordeaux at midnight, a nameless woman walked in with a man whose name is Akin.  Nice guy, friendly, oblivious to the world.  Eyes only for his Cleopatra.  Within them you could sense fear, loss, hate, horror.  Is that love? I found myself asking that question.

Here was a guy who could very easily wipe the floor with most of the people that looked at him wrong much less his Cleopatra.  What was bothering me?  Maybe that this was not a carefree woman.  This was a woman, not happy.  A woman who thought she was better than my new friend Akin.  She paraded around like Elizabeth trying to reach the inner rage of a man content in love.  Why?  For what reason would someone break a glass half full?

Life is ideal, while my heart is full it is blistered with reason.  Yet, here in this city of life, this city of love, in life the romance of the day is not built on the scars of the heart.  Instead is is built on the ideal belief that one half does not make a whole.  

“A man should say to his soul every morning God has given thee twenty four treasures.  Take heed lest thou lose anyone of them for thou will not be able to endure the regret that will follow such loss.”  James Dean

So maybe in the cold of the night while two people cuddle in a room the romance doesn’t have to come by reason.  It should not take the warmth of a soul to teach us what is grand.  What is beautiful.  Love can be etched by the simplicity of a child riding his bicycle while his Grandfather watches protectively.  It can be desired through a picture of time.  Not a perfect picture because Prince once said, “The beautiful ones always break the picture.”  

Have been in Europe for over a week now and realize much.  Michigan will never win a National Title while I am out of the Country.  Sorry guys, they are O for 2 now.  However a Father hugging his son has no limits of time.  What my heart has learned is there is a beauty that requires a heart to be stolen.  A river will alway bleed to an ocean of thought but the thought will never find a river of tears.  Stolen moments have a reason.

As this glorious night comes to a close, this town whose lights create the shadow of adoration, remember to steal the heart, steal the moments, mark the moments.  Sure take a picture but memory is served best.  Memory will tell you those who stole your heart and what you learned from them.  It will also tell you that when that little girl tells you, “Daddy when are you coming home?”  Your heart breaks open with reason.

I wonder why life’s love stories have to be tragic?  Rain of Gold was a reason for a child to remember his fathers last breath.  It was his heart breaking reading the words of a great love story.  We live on the autonomy of time and that a great love story doesn’t exist.  It does be witness to it!  Find your treasures, fill your cup of coffee, read the note of love.  Don’t sweat the small stuff, dance as if no one’s watching, Love as if its all you know, and dream as if you’ll live forever, Live as if you’ll die today.  Prophetic words by James Dean but he had a point.  

Love won’t tell you.  Your heart won’t either.  It won’t make the world go round.  Your mind will keep you sane but always allow your self to believe.  

Sometimes the rivers do flow and you don’t have to be blind to see...inspired by the words of my daughters Sophia and Sicilia, “I love you Daddy...Me too Daddy” 

Not ready to exit just yet...

Walking down the corridor of thought realized that time has always been on my side.  Time sometimes is all we need, to find a reason.  “I have been searching the edge of sanity to find myself.”  No such luck.  Sanity begins in the reflection of the mirror, there is nothing wrong with living.  Life is meant to have scratches, bruises, maybe a little bit of blood, it is meant to have scars.  What we learn from them truly defines who we are.

I can’t recall the last time a pillow looked so inviting.  It was there just screaming my name, it was an invitation to dreaming.  The TV blaring, my dreams were running towards me.  Music serenading my indulgence while the horizon changed  from my dreams to morning coffee of thoughts.

I wanted to fantasize about tomorrow!  Tomorrow couldn’t get here fast enough.  The sands of the hour glass showing the seconds of time, I can see the other side, just not ready to exit yet.  I know where my heart is...

Suddenly the alarm is whaling, screaming, and my thoughts come rushing to me.  People are talking around me and it seems they are oblivious.  My head is spinning and desperately search the room wondering where I am.  Coffee where are you?

There in the corner of the room sitting idle is a shadow of yesterday trying to escape the demons that hold us captured.  We argue with ourselves as to why?  Its amazing that people lecture about when you get to the gates of St. Peters you will know about your soul.  While its a laughable comment, seriously, what’d you do?  Die and come back to tell us there are these pearly gates waiting for my soul?  

Not at all if my soul could escape from me, it would have bought a ticket to ride a long time ago.  Instead of waiting for some magical pearly gates make peace with yourself.  Find a reason to let your pride runaway from you and stare at the reflection in the mirror, what do you see?  

A man, confounded to a world that has taught him to survive.  To care for the wounds, to understand the bruises, to live through the scratches, and to walk through this ordinary world with a lit bit of blood finding a reason to exist in his own skin.  We learn to survive not because of fight but because of reason.

So why not pack your bags?  Why not catch a ride to the end of your mind?  Life, it ticks away, second by second, and all we can do is see it for what it is.  Meanwhile the world decides to psycho analyze the moment, I will be at the edge of insanity with a cup of coffee, a cigar, a good book understanding that life has not left my soul yet.  

I spent the last year trying to understand people.  Trying to understand what makes people act holy.  Bible thumping is overrated if you do not believe in it.  Why should I punish my heart for believing?  I won’t say goodbye to those who seem fit to be self righteous, smile at them and scream without raising your voice.  Life is truly funny.  

If the price of my smile was living; then this time my friends my world will be one.  Sure the sands of the hour glass continues pebble by pebble, but let me tell you so does my soul....one second at a time.