I'm visiting my family in Vegas this week. I always love coming home to my parents place... my mom is an impeccable housekeeper, she cooks amazing meals, breakfast to dinner and now days, we get along soooo much better then past years.
My father is always working on an exciting project, this time it happens to be his memoirs. He shared with me the first few chapters, it brought me to tears, happy ones, I can't wait to read it in its entirety. I'm spoiled and will gain 5 lbs while I'm here.
I sleep in my old room that is now under redesign, I don't recognize it as mine... I've been rummaging through my stuff packed away in the closest and drawers... the things one finds.
I went through my old photography stuff, images that I want so much to burn but am told, "don't you dare". Among my stuff, I found a picture my alternative photography teacher, Mr. Gomez, took of me a few years ago. I'd been hiding it away, tucked away with a number of other memories... I think I've been hiding away with them.
Recently, I've been finding myself wishing I had no possesions, wishing I had nothing holding me or reminding me of things long forgotten. I want to live off the things that stir within me now, the sounds around me, words spoken, a pretty color, music playing, limbs moving to the music, I want nothing and yet everything I suppose.
An elderly man at work in his garden with denim overalls and hands resting upon his shovel, he is taking a break, admiring his progress. He turns to me and says hello, he then cautions me to watch my speed as he gestures to the speed limit sign of 25mph... I walking, assure him I will. He has kind eyes and a gentle way about him. As I continue on my way, I notice he then continues conversing with, most likely, the love of his life, she standing on the upstairs balcony looking over their backyard and upon this kind man and his garden. They together, in the early afternoon sun, he her Romeo and she his Juliet.
I soon come upon a small home with a small porch. A young girl, a teenager, sways on the patio bench swing. She looks peaceful, with dark hair and fair skin, her eyes drawn down and hands caressing her belly, she is somewhere far away that I cannot see. I think to myself, this is a precious moment, she facing a new chapter in her life and the life of this small child, safe in her belly. I wonder if worry or uncertainty runs through her mind and I want to tell her all is beautiful, all is well and she especially. I stroll on with her memory, vivid and sweet.
Soon enough, a big yellow school bus goes zooming pass me, down the long stretch of homes lining the old paved road. It is the last day of school and the beginning of summer. I begin to notice the crowd of young kids, on street corners, crossing at street lights, embracing their new long anticipated freedom. Their excitement is obvious and contagious, to be young again. Seeing them causes me to recall the moments of my youth when the world and it's possibilities were endless. I can so easily taste of their excitement.
Across the street I see a young girl and boy, hand in hand, in love, I'm sure with thoughts of splendor and kisses. Young love, special in it's own right. Love without much thought and experience, naive and temperamental but oh so wonderful in a young persons heart and stomach, it'll never be like this again. She likes his taste in music and he likes how she does her hair, they're inseparable, trying to figure this strange world they walk in together. They'll probably break up in the next few months if not weeks but they'll remember each other an entire lifetime, with sweetness and an enduring innocence. Before expectations, judgements and monumental decisions, two young persons embrace each other for what they swear could be forever.
Coming up on Wendy's, with splattered frosty's melting on hot pavement and kids uproars of laughter and dyed hair of wild colors, they fill their bellies. The lyrics 'Schools Out for Summer, Schools Out Forever' rambles on in my mind. With 2010 yearbooks in hand and signed t-shirts on their backs, this scene has graced these same streets many summers before them and will for many summers after but to them, they're the first, they're the center, center of the universe. They wave to random passing cars with a brave giddiness, their way of perhaps connecting to a bigger unknown and yet to be explored part of the world. Soon enough, they'll be jaded by their world but for now, their spirits roam freely and bring with them, my memories of my time at the center of the universe. Inside, I thank them.
I walk, I drive, I cry, I laugh, I sing, I eat, I run, I pray, I sleep, I dream, I see, I amidst a great big world and in these small moments am laced and forever intertwined with those who I unanimously walk along side. They share with me their heartbreaks and joys, their monumental moments and moments of quiet. Their memory is impressed in my mind and are now apart of me.
This thing we call life is truly perfect in all things, particularly in those things that are seemingly imperfect. During the course of my journey I am approaching, going through or passing the moments someone once walked and as I do, I share in it with those whom I quietly walk beside. I am more alike than different with my strangers, we secretly know one another.
(age 10) - don't push Jere down the stairs on his Ninja Turtles bean-bag chair, he'll never forgive you.
(age 15) - be warned when you watch Romeo and Juliet for the first time, love will be unobtainable in your eyes hence forth and needn't be tragic to be real.
visit your Grandmother before you leave for Germany, you won't see her again before she passes away.
pay no mind to the people who comment on your day dreaming and quiet nature, this behaviour will be a great source of inspiration for you.
(age 16) - don't make your mom cry... ever, you'll feel terrible about it for years to come.
don't be discouraged your first day of soccer try-outs, return the next day and give it your all, you love how you feel when you're on the soccer field.
don't come home from school and cry in the bathroom everyday, you're beautiful.
(age 17) - don't kiss Christopher on his 18th birthday, will lead to over 10 years of great confusion.
(age 19) - don't move to Las Vegas, will be 8 years of heartache and unbearable heat.
(age 23) - be a better example for your younger brother Jere, you'll feel guilty for his mistakes in the future.
(age 24) - don't leave the ky jelly on the kitchen table, will lead to extreme embarrassment.
(age 26) - don't eat at the asian fusion restaurant in London with Toni, you'll get the worst food poisoning ever.
(age 27) - after your break-up, don't move back to America immediatley but instead, move to the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, write your children's book and make a life for yourself in Paris.
"James Ruffer, father and fighter pilot of the Vietnam War"
me: Why did you decide to join the service?
James Ruffer: We had a war, Vietnam. I had been in college when the war started, the fighting started and I was patriotic and wanted to help the cause. I believed that if we didn’t stop communism in Vietnam and south East Asia that it’d spread to the Philippines and other places in that area just like we had the problem in Eastern Europe and with North Vietnam invading South Vietnam, so on. Pretty much believed that communism was out to do just what it said it was going to do and that was “bury us” and so that’s why I signed up.
me: Can you tell me a brief timeline of your years in the military?
James Ruffer: Well, I was born in the military. My dad was in the military, we were in a war when I was born. I lived through the rest of the Second World War and then the Korean War and then the Vietnam War started and so I joined up in 66’ and except for medical school I was back in the service again by 79’ and stayed in until I retired in 95’. So it’s like a 30 year period of military service with the exception of medical school but I don’t think I ever really left the military at any time in my life. I was fighting the Japanese and the Germans as a little boy and the North Koreans and there’s always a great alarm in America. There’s always great alarm, concern for the world and for the sake of freedom.
me: What was one experience you remember from war?
James Ruffer: Well, I remember leaving my wife and three little girls. I was looking forward to going over, flying Marine Corps fighter bombers, supporting the troops, close air support and interdiction and whatever else we were asked to do. So training was exciting and we were all military men and there was no conflict of interest, we were simply all in it together.
Didn’t really know much about… didn’t pay to much attention to what was going on in society, so I missed that era of the hippies and the anti-war on college campuses but when I left in August of 69’ my best friend had just preceded me over and he was an Aviator also and before I even left he had been killed. And so when I left my wife and 3 little girls I was aware of the fact that some people weren’t going to come home, you know. And that was, that was tugging on me pretty heavily in kind of a hidden part of my awareness or in my heart, maybe in the pit of my stomach sort of a, kind of a sadness that this could be it.
On the other hand I was motivated to go and do what I was trained to do. I wanted to be a veteran of combat too, that was something I think that meant a lot to all of us was to have actually been there and done it. We were willing to take the chance that we would not come back just so that we could get into it, not to mention the patriotic and the fact that the cause was a just American cause and so that was my first sad or hard experience was leaving my family and all the time it took me to get from home to Vietnam it weighed heavy on me, you know, but I was going to miss them and possibly wouldn’t be able to get back to see them and loosing my good friend, my best friend also, you know.
Once I started flying missions, it was exciting and there wasn’t a lot of fear. It was being part of the team and doing my job and doing it as well as I could seemed to take the place of outright fear or endless worries about what if, what if.
I had a sad experience flying a mission out of, as we said, out of country in I think Laos one day, dropping on a bridge and I missed the bridge. The air craft controller who was an individual up there in another aircraft spotting the target and I had just done it poorly, even to my own standards and to his. I could tell he was frustrated with me because he was risking his life to try to get me to do something important in terms of the mission and it really hurt a lot. I realized that he was performing the same mission that my best friend had been performing when he died. I related the two that, you know, Ronald "Ron" Hamilton had died doing this kind of mission, could it have been because of somebody working with him that had done a poor job like I had just done. That he had risked himself for nothing so, that has always bothered me, it uh, it wasn’t uh near death experience, it wasn’t being, you know, blown up, it was just disappointing myself and somebody else in a situation where lives were at risk, sort of like I didn’t show up, you know, or I didn’t show up ready to fight and so that was, sadness.
I've recently discovered a treasure of an artist, an artist who I dare say, is one of the great artists of our time, an artist creating works that are meaningful and powerful, I'm not even quite sure what kind of art she creates... like it's technical name but maybe it's very well because it's certainly heart felt. Her name, Miranda July.
I happened upon her project titled, "Learning to Love You More" in which she had an open invite to any and all people that wished to contribute to her creative assigments. Over the course of 9 years, thousands of entries were submitted from people across the globe and from all walks of life.
I think the beauty of her project "Learning to Love You More" not only helps one to discover something special and hidden within oneself but sharing and discovering the world with others, there lay the treasure. Viewing over the submitted assignments I can't tell you how often I ended in tears, not sad tears but happy ones, feeling the world growing smaller and feeling not so much of a stranger but as a kindred friend to many... realizing how similar our hearts beat.
I was somewhat disheartened when I realized the project had run it's course and was no longer accepting entries but then decided, why not accomplish all 70 assignments regardless... a personal journey of some kind. Brilliant!
And so I begin this journey, selecting assignments to explore, experience and hopefully grow from. I encourage anybody reading this entry to do the same, I'd love to share assigment entries with you.
Her website is www.mirandajuly.com, a password is needed but rest assure, the secret already exists within.
Stand upright! Speak thy thoughts! Declare the truth thou hast, that all may share! Be bold! Proclaim it everywhere! They only live who dare. - Lewis Morris
There is need of kinder treatment to be given by us all, There is need that we remember when someone may err and fall, That within the hidden motive lies the ill or lies good. We would treat each other better if we only understood.
If we knew the cares of others - knew the trails and knew the strain, Under which they may be living - knew their losses and bitter pain, We would show a better spirit; I am sure that each one could. We would always speak more kindly if we only understood. - Anonymous
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. - Shakespeare
Whenever you cultivate a thought, Remember it will trace, With certain touch in pictured form, A story on your face.
Whenever you dwell upon a thought, Remember it will roll, Into your being and become, A fiber of your soul.
Whenever you send out a thought, Remember it will be,
A force throughout the universe, For all eternity.
- Anonymous
A man loses contact with reality if he is not surrounded by his books. - Francois Mitterrand
What is Water?
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?" - David Foster Wallace
Even after all this time, The Sun never says to the Earth, "You owe me." Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky. - Hafez
Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. - Viktor Frankl
