Looking back..

What follows is something I wrote less than a year ago. It's hard to place myself in that persons shoes...... how time does change us. But.... I understand what it means. Such feelings are only a rough night away.


I guess most people have one sometime. Just a John Lee Hooker kind of evening, blues all the way.

Every once in a while, no matter how good the individual moments are, there's a day when it all seems to fall apart in the end. What should be magical takes on shades of gray. Small problems swell, combine, join forces to overwhelm. All thats great and good together falls just short of salvation.

Sometimes, only a single voice has the power to put it all in perspective, and that voice isn't there. It's bound to happen.... even if only when the blue moon shines. Silence in the wilderness, leaving only echoes of peace, like the faded edge of a memory.

That's what the blues smells like... like woodsmoke in the wind, when you are cold and lost. You know there's a life giving fire someplace, but the shifting wind steals direction and hides the way. Someplace, a warming fire waits, but where? You can't fight the wind, just seek shelter away from it.

When the center shifts, and all is surreal, then is when alternate universes come home to roost. All the what ifs, long past. Each path not taken, re-emerges. The voyage missed, love passed by, and decision second guessed. All these and more come to haunt when the blues sink home, given a new lease on life.

When the sun falls and the only light breaking the cold dark is a flickering candle... that is when you realize how thin the thread is. What separates reality from dream and happiness from soul stealing ache. Just a wrong word, a phrase said in the wrong tone and the magic is undone. Doubts wait in the wings, nibbling on forgotten fears.

Some nights, sleep is not a friend. Not every dream is a good one. Nightmares are dreams too. When the line between reality and dream blurs, that is a not a good time to taunt the creatures that live past the edge. In the darkness behind closed eyelid, each doubt expands, growing claws and ragged fur. Fangs dripping with saliva made of liquid recrimination. When the only escape is flight towards wakefulness, why sleep at all?

No.. on such a night.... such a blues ridden night.... such a lonely night..... it's best to stay awake. Wait for the sunlight to bring a new day, new songs, new voices.

Drowsiness over morning coffee is a small price to pay for surviving a night of the blues.