Anybody want to explain this life thing to me?
Got out of work last night - escaped The Asylum - feeling positively ebullient. Two tough days, long days, left me feeling wiped.
However, it was fifty something degrees. The first spring day that felt like spring. Had my window down, the hair was getting gently ruffled. My body was responding like a resurrected corpse. Positively buzzing.
And I was heading into a day off. A day when I can actually be myself, without having to put on the costume.
Two minutes down the road I passed a funeral home that was operating on all cylinders. Parked cars jamming the narrow street, a crowd of people on the sidewalk. People hugging and crying.
The contrast was dramatic. On this beautiful day, a day offering hope and the prospect of easy living, on this day that had me so jazzed at temporary freedom, there was a group of family and friends mourning the death of a loved one.
Ultimately, it didn't ruin my mood. I have seen enough death in my life to understand its indiscriminate nature.
It did give me pause, however, it made me think for a few minutes as I cruised on back home.
You fight so hard as a human being just to experience brief moments of happiness. You got to take care of business all the way around, just to survive. Doing things you don't want to do, working jobs that disgust you and break your spirit.
Somehow you squeeze in a barbecue or a movie or a concert or a book or a quiet moment in the relative safety of your own home with a loved one, and these things remind you that you are human.
Sometimes these moments are precious enough that you can forget about your other life for a bit. The pretend one. The one that forces you to be an actor on a stage.
Even then, sometimes, life will reach out and slap you just to let you know who is in control.
Killing off a member of your family or a friend, forcing you to mourn when you should be celebrating.
I'm telling you, man, life is a weird little animal. I ain't no where close to who I thought I would be.
And time is running out.
But I have been lucky. I am OK. I have wasted a shit ton of time, but the clock is still ticking for a reasonably healthy, slowly weakening but ever determined semi-old man.
That sudden shift in mood, that eye-blink quick taste of reality, that gravity thing pulling my soaring spirit back down to earth - served to strengthen my commitment to digging the hell out of the warm weather.
In 17 days, my ass and that of my lovely wife will be seated in Fenway Park. Close to Pesky's pole, baby. At the end of May we will be in Boston digging on the deeply emotional, honestly expressive music of the very cool Ray LaMontagne.
BOOM.
That is two confirmed major events already.
Just a beginning. I will wrestle with my work schedule fearlessly, taking every opportunity to tip the tables in my favor. In favor of my real life.
The time in between the big stuff will be filled with the real stuff. Barbecues, free outdoor concerts, walks, peaceful contemplation in Carol's magic garden, my sons and their magnificent women, my brother.
And more and more and more.
I have talked this talk before, but this time it is Nowsville, baby. It was a painful and difficult winter for me health-wise, but I'm bouncing back. And my perspective was sharpened in the knowledge that a friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer. A very young dude, an intelligent, successful dude with an awesome sense of humor. A guy as likely to get cancer as I am to get the next contract to host the Tonight Show.
I am royally pissed off that he has to suffer like this. But I know he is the man to handle it and I keep him in my mind for vibe-like support.
My brain has been re-wired. Re-wired to grab me some joy and make it my own. To electro-shock my life into a level of happiness and sweet release never before experienced by any other man.
I got a lot to get done, a lot to flat out enjoy, before a crowd of family and friends is standing on a sidewalk in the hot sun, hugging and crying over whatever footprints I have left behind.
And I will do it.
Fucking count on it.
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