“That is why I write – to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance.”
Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Recently, something caused a fundamental shift in my awareness of my conjured reality. I finally began acknowledging my time was short on this angry blue planet. In an online conversation with two treasured blogoteer friends on WordPress, I read of one’s family life just beginning in a bittersweet way. Marriage and the birth of a son were tempered by grave illness on the paternal and maternal sides of this talented new family. Another long-standing author friend commented, and we started a side conversation about longing, solitude, and remembrance, something the older generations add to their daily contemplations. I promised to blog more this year and to keep in touch.
Below is an early post some years ago when I was practicing my writing by pouring out the realization that my days of conquering campaigns were over, and I was left with an ever-failing mind and body. At the time, I had no idea just how much a human body could take when the pain became unbearable, but the mind stayed happy and carefree, fueled by endless memories of a fantastic past. I have completely reinvented myself since then, and despite the concerns of doctors and their dire warnings, I continue to hold onto desire, humor, and an iron will akin to an intransigent jackass who refuses to cry when pain leaves him blind and breathless.
Heroes of Annihilated Empires
He sat silently at the table, his coffee hot with that smoky bite he enjoyed. He looked up to collect his runaway thoughts, then continued to read his dog-eared copy of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. Around him, life moved near light speed with dozens of smartphones illuminating entranced faces. Facebook connected ten thousand souls to only ten distracted minds milling around in half-dazed skulls.
Next to him sat a woman. He knew she was someone else’s love. Her hair was shoulder length and well groomed with highlights of honey blond glimmering in the sunlight filtering through the glass front of the coffee shop. His unconscious gaze saw she was well dressed in a blue dress, white blouse, and clean shoes. She read Loving Thoughts by Helen Steiner Rice. Perhaps thirty years ago, he once read this book when his long-gone wife left it on the kitchen table. He refused to acknowledge he might have been in the prime of life when he sneaked that peek at what interested his wife, perhaps to understand her better.
Before he could catch himself, his voice jumped free from his lips and across the table it carried.
“Great story. I enjoyed it myself long ago.” His hands felt a tiny tremor. He feared the coldness that must surely come his way.
She smiled and noted he knew good books and had an old classic; she could tell. He was delighted to share his memories so intrinsically tied to the ancient text of Machiavelli. The woman sat and listened to every tale and, in a few words, encouraged him on.
The God of Social Media silenced all the patrons but couldn’t silence the old man and the woman with clean shoes. He poured out his memories to her like marbles on a floor, and he remembered more every time he picked one up. The man took her polite smile as interest in his life. He could see things she held close to her heart behind her eyes as she looked at him while he rambled on.
In a long-held gaze, too long to be polite, he apologized.
“I can see that you have many memories too.” He sensed he had hurt her with stories of his youth without a pause to hear her. “I’ve said such things, I shouldn’t have.”
“No, it’s okay. She replied. Please continue. There is no place I have to go just yet.” Her voice was soft and distant.
He felt a deep shame that all this time he talked; it was a selfish need to never be alone with his thoughts. After a pause to admire her youth and appearance, the fellow in the 1980s Nike jacket continued on about places that no longer existed in the way he remembered them.
Hyperion Sky 
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