What Are We Going to Do with this One Crazy and Beautiful Life

The Universe truly is endless. I can get a glimpse of it when I'm sitting outside, looking up into the dark sky.

And I guess we rarely see that.

I think we only look at what's in front of us. It's what we call being shallow. What's not shallow is deep, and it means we look beyond the surface.

There must be more than what's in front of us.

I've done martial arts for years. I started back in the early 1980s, because I got jumped by three teenage boys, in the street. They flicked their cigarettes at my face, pelted me with those burning embers, laughing and pointing. Then one of them punched me in the jaw, I hit a wall of a building and dropped to the ground. They ran.

I continued home, saw them in the alley. One pointed and laughed. I pulled out a rock in sock, which I used to carry. Rough neighborhood. One of them threatened to stab me.Mechanic at garage yelled, the boys ran off.

It was an incident. I imagine it's still embedded in my brain, giving me problems. But all I can say is that it was an incident.

My mother enrolled me in a Karate class at the local community center. Cheap lessons for an impoverished neighborhood. Fact is, Dad wasn't there to teach me how to box. I guess that's what Dad's are for. One wonders what happens to kids. What will happen to the kids I see around the neighborhood these days? I don't know. Probably won't be good. Probably be brutalized on the street, at home, at school; grow up to be stuck in a stressful job that might or might not pay the bills, brutalized by co-workers and bosses.

Like me.

What will we do with this one crazy and beautiful life?

I went to college too. Got a degree, a Bachelor degree, in Political Science.

I worked taking care of disabled people, and teaching the developmentally disabled.

I learned it's a heavy load. I learned it doesn't pay enough to make ends meet. I learned the boss doesn't value a worker's time, energy and work. I learned my so-called peers are competitive, brutal, coercive. And they probably are only half-conscious of it.

I learned a lot.

But there must be more than this.

What will we do with this one crazy and beautiful life?

I fell in love. It's endless, you walk on air, there's no other feeling like it.

And you lose hope.

You dream too much, and your dreams are dashed.

What did you expect?

Your family is cruel, pigeon-hole you, push you around, dominate you, abuse you.

When I was six-years old, my half brother, who is twenty years older than me, used to tie me up with rope and pour water on my face, and leave me in the yard to struggle.

He was crazy, still is.

I reminded him that he abused me, and then he threatened to kick my ass for saying it.

Too bad he's not capable.

But what will we do with this one crazy and beautiful life?

There must be more than this.

Is there?

I kept doing Karate, because I didn't know what else to do. No one had an answer.

What will we do with this one crazy and beautiful life?

I kept working, because I didn't know what else to do.

What will we do with this one crazy and beautiful life?

I kept falling in love, because I didn't know what else to do.

What will we do with this one crazy and beautiful life?

I still love my girlfriend. I've known her for so long. She knows me well.

What will we do with this one crazy and beautiful life?

That is the one question that I would ask us all.

My Mother is Dying

I guess it struck me kind of hard when I noticed it. She began having hallucinations, scary ones, like about people trying to kill her; and she sees children that aren't there, thinks she's riding on the bus when she's sitting on the couch or walking up the hall.

She asks me the same question a dozen times within 15 minutes. She can't figure out days and times, and she will lie on the couch all day sometimes, in and out of sleep. When she's awake, she's agitated, anxious, afraid.

She's 84 years old, and she's dying.

Not today, not tomorrow, but she is deteriorating.

I've already lost her. She isn't there anymore.

And I hate it.