Go In Peace

Interesting and Blessed are the best descriptions for the year we say goodbye to. The year included heartache, happiness, love lost and found. New lessons always to be learned as life continues to be full of surprises and dissapointments.                           

It has been a good year with life changes for the better. Funny not so funny how life challenges us constantly to keep ourselves together and strive constantly to improve ourselves in the slightest to the grandest way possible. 

To grow in peace with simple approaches to complicated things. I am happier when I take life one peaceful thought at a time, one moment and one day at a time. I am happy to realize it is better for me to not take things personally as people have their own internal challenges to deal with and navigate through life. Peace be with you now and into the future. ☮

Quid Pro Quo (This for that)

Funny how we wheel and deal with life, situations, with people, adversity, every triumph and

tragedy. It's not a heehehee kind of funny but a peculiar rational or irrational-type of funny. The moments we are fearless be it out of necessity or simply the requisite to get through the raging or quiet storm. When our only choice is to run, hide or fight for our lives with every breath and aching heart-beat, from the deep murky depths into the fiery places where we stow our courage, on the ready to mount-up. The times we feel scantily clad with bravery yet somehow muster-up the strength enough to come up for air out of darkness into the light. Blind faith in exchange for answered prayers, conquered challenges met by solid determination to come out of the wild weather,  braver, better, badder for the wear and tear. 

The peaks seem unsurmountable, plateaus level off accordingly. We are left exhausted, exhilarated, inspired and ready or not, again armed with the capacity to deal with life's speed bumps and road blocks. In a strange and wonderful way; resilience and collateral damage have an understanding, to use the apropriate arsenal which makes way for the right to bear such arms in the event of painful, rough, unfair, burdensome, raw, trails and tribulations. It's funny how the dreary, dreaded, scathing, grueling times seem to move in show motion yet we see ourselves through, we propel ourselves into a personal evolution at which point we humbly yield to ageless growing pains.

Watching life unfold as loved ones pass away, it squeezes out every drop of blood from your heart. You feel left out to dry as vultures circle over awaiting their dried-out feast. Death comes to the young and old, the living and nearly dead dying and those who have checked-out in various ways. Meanwhile, the daily grind, hurry-up, get it done, your busy, your tired, your burnt-out and over it demands your attention. Local, national and international affairs only serve to fill you with doubt and despair, the mess translates into stress. What can you do but pray, make a deal for inner peace between your head and your heart, quid pro quo. Maintaining positive perspective, hope, faith, compassion, kindness, each priceless quality and virtue, it's own answered prayer. The trade-off? Peace of mind, reprieve and damage control. 

BABY BOOMERS

Baby Boomers, gotta give 'um credit for hanging in there, through good times and dark times, since there is no choice in the matter, still, credit is due. Time is mostly being kind to aging Baby Boomers who are still active, some working some retired and some still not sure what they want to be when they grow up.

You know you are talking to a Baby Boomer when they start getting sentimental about pay phones, typewriters, encyclopedias, drive-in movies, innocent mischief, fun and games, playing for hours outside and favorite television variety shows like Jack Benny, Ed Sullivan on Sunday nights and Red Skelton. Music was and still is on the forefront and in the background. Music was and is a character in our lives. We could easily recall what we were doing and where we were based on top 40 popular hits being aired on the radio at a given time. The Beatles and Elvis, Jimmy Hendrix and Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Journey, The Dobbie Brothers, Michael Jackson & The Jackson Five jumped out of the boom box and jazzy hipsters like Ray Charles, Tony Benet and Quincy Jones, always seemed to be there.

Ideology and believing in the possibility of world peace was an important part of life and not just an illusion, although many soldiers who went to Vietnam would disagree. The man on the moon seemed about right and righteous and gave Americans something to be proud of and hopeful about. Politics appeared to be a bit more on the up and up and peoples votes counted. Government has always been a strange and curious animal with extra limbs and sharp teeth, a funny and furious freakish-looking creature, desperate for it's survival as the fittest, wealthiest most powerful predator in control of it's own territory.

To be a Baby Boomer or not to be, is out of the question since that is what those of us born during the era we came along in, are referred to. The establishment now is youthful a new livelier funky version of the generation that preceded us. Let us strut with confidence break rules bend the sh!t out of the norm and continue the struggle for equality and justice, peace and love. Let us grow older armed with spunky, youthful attitudes as we sometimes hobble along a bit more than we used to but not as much as the people we thought were so old and still around blessing us with their own brand of tried true and tested wisdom.