Unmissed opportunities

God has offered me opportunities...

I spent a number of years homeless on the streets...then one day I asked God for help, in my own fashion, and God did. God speaks to me, not with words, with feelings and gentle intuitive nudges towards the opportunity that I need in order to line up more with his Grace and less with my selfish will. 

Today on my way into a neighboring town I drove past a man who looked to be carrying all of his worldly belongings... it's hot out. As I drove past the thought of stopping and offering him a ride came to me, I dismissed it with a number of excuses. That didn't feel good, it was a subtle and gentle feeling of disquiet but it was there. 

As I continued down the highway I told myself that I would offer the man a ride if he was still walking when I made my way back home.

While in that neighboring town I had an interaction with a store owner that pissed me off. In some way I feel that the man ripped me off. The how, why, and what of that situation aren't important, even though at the time I sure fucking felt like they were. Let's just say that I was fucking pissed. Getting back in my truck I decided that I was going to write a review letting others know that that particular person is greedy and stupid. I would have written it right then, but it was hot and the truck doesn't have AC so I decided to write it when I got home. 

Driving back down that same highway, stewing and planning my scathing review, I saw the man still trudging down the road carrying his life on his shoulders. This time I stopped, turned around, and pulled up next to him with an offer of a ride which he accepted.

While driving back to the town I had just left, making small talk with the man whose name is James, I decided that at the truck stop I was dropping him off at I was going to offer him something to eat and drink if he would accept it...I offered, he accepted.

We parted ways with a thank you from James, and a you're welcome God bless you from me.

I made my way home back down that very same highway. The feeling of disquiet was gone, I was no longer pissed off.

God offers me opportunities to be a better man, how I feel inside is dependent on wether I avail myself of those opportunities.

Wander © 26 

Musings at the McDonald's

 Just a touch

Remembering the bygone days

Of hydro tubes

Neon lights

Neon tights

Remembering the bygone days 

Reaganomics 

Tron a big hit in the arcade

For like a day

Vancouver Worlds Fair 

Aquanet big wave hair

Silly string at the roller skate ring

Always wondering

If everything's so bright

Why don't I fit in 

Trucker hats

Flat tops

Mullets

Business up front

Party in the back of the truck

On the way to the kegger

Our age of innocence 

Marinated in blue flavored 

MD 20/20

A puke fueled wonderland 

Wasn't it grand

Sometimes I wonder why 

I am the way I am

I guess it's cus

I got just a touch

Of the Tism

Wander © 26 

Tragedies don't just happen all of a sudden, sometimes they are incrementally implemented over a long period of time. I spent a lot of years homeless, hungry and tired, sober and loaded. During my time on the streets I wrote a lot, five or six books worth of material, only to have it stolen. 

When a person is on the streets the only way to keep what you have is to always be on guard, to be vigilant. But even under the best of circumstances vigilance only lasts so long. I had dreams to be published in a real way, through a brick and mortar publication. I realize now that the last time my writing was stolen broke my heart.

I had been writing every day for over a year, closer to a year and a half...I had been clean and sober for that entire time. I had also been off the streets, sleeping in a bed, eating and bathing every day...I was fucking clean and fucking alive and on fucking fire with my writing.

From my time on the streets I got in the habit of always having a backpack, with the basic shit I needed, as well as all the writing I was working on, handwritten in pen in notepads.

One night my girlfriend invited me to go to the beach to look at the glowing waves, it was fucking amazing! We parked at Buccaneer Park in Oceanside California. While watching the waves someone broke the windows out of her van and the only thing they stole was my backpack with all of my writing in it.

It fucking broke me. I haven't really recovered from it...

Gratitude

 Today I am going to sit in gratitude. 

All these aches

And pains

Are fundamentally a part of me

Soul deep

I've earned every single one 

Each one taken by itself 

Not heavy

But when stacked

Pain upon pain upon pain

The weight becomes great

Great enough to need to be counterbalanced 

By joy

Not grief

Wander ©26