errant
••••••••••••••
Early rise. Dreams Nap. Dreams. Nap. Worship. Strangely dour. Lack of sleep. Dinner with friends Bright and happy Sunset Screened ET Some of Moulin Rouge. Drifting. Breakfast with Shelby-the-boy Would like to draw tomorrow. And read
Jah’s plan is like a beautiful tapestry. And the tragedy of being human is that we only get to see it from the back. With all the ragged threads and the muddy colors. And we only get a hint at the true beauty that would be revealed if we could see the whole pattern on the other side…as God does.
There are some people who have sun inside them. It's hard to explain. Their presence just brightens, it's not about their beautiful smiles. They have an internal being that sheds light and feels like sun. It's a calm energy. Inner peace. But most importantly; it's not wanting anything back in return. It's sun.
I worked at a bookstore. Teenager came in daily. Read for hours. Never bought anything. Finally asked. “Looking for anything specific?” “Just reading. Can't afford books. Library's far. This is closer.” Let him stay. Read whatever. Whenever. Brought him snacks. Hot chocolate. Safe space. Learned his story. Foster kid. Seventh home. Books were his escape. His education. His hope.
Started giving him books. “Damaged copies. Can't sell them. You want?” He knew better. Took them anyway. Read everything. Three years of this. He aged out of foster care. Eighteen. Scared. Nowhere to go. Helped him apply to college. Scholarships. Got in. Full ride. English major. Graduated. He's a teacher now. High school English. Brings his whole class to the bookstore. Shows them where he spent his teenage years. “Bookstore worker gave me sanctuary. Knowledge.
Hope. Taught me one person caring changes trajectories.” He buys books for students. Who can't afford them. Pays it forward. Every kid in his class reads. Because someone let a foster kid read for free.
-Paula Simmons, bookstore clerk, Rhode
—A library saved my life. I'm fascinated that a bookstore did that for someone else. I doubt this is uncommon. Books are our peace, our salvation.
Dream 260907
River Boat Cruise. Of Death.
I run a business installing and checking data-sized surveillance systems.
They can detect when a person is going to die. They also detect intruders, and they record everything.
Part of my job is going around and auditing the people who are supposed to check the edges regularly.
My father is dying.
I meet a man who runs a river cruise powered by the near-death experience.
Sentiment and cortisol power his cruises. He simulates earthquakes, disasters, and adventure.
He has five or six half-million-gallon above-ground pools, with flat riverboats floating in them. He creates some kind of simulated disaster, and the whole family piles onto the boats.
Then they cruise incredibly slowly.
You can snack.
You can swim.
At the end of the last cruise, the old man we are monitoring dies.
It is the first time one of the people has actually died on the trip.
Andrew
Long conversation with a man always avoided.
A was a ghetto rat. I knew him as a small boy: sweet and quiet. A child of potential, like all children.
I moved away in 1996. When I’ returned twenty years later he was gone from everyone’s life.
I then lived here for a decade before Andrew reappeared in life.
By then, he was a scary looking man. Dark and reserved. I should have reached out. I should have tried to reconnect with that little boy.
But I knew he had a hand in my nephews erosion and collapse. I was bitter about it. The less i had to do with him, the better.
He would come and go. Not consistent. Months would go by, some times years. Every time he reappeared, he had another child. At last count he had 5-6 from 4 different women.
In one occasion, he brought the woman he was bedding down to our house of worship. She was a beautiful young woman. A complete mismatch to this man’s skeletal and scarred. Appearance.
She began to study the Bible and made progress. She took steps to turn her life around. To raise her and her step children to love and fear God.
He endorsed the effort at first but in sort Order gave up. She did not.
After 18’months, he convinced her to go out to that club on a Sat night. The place is called ‘haystack’. I’ve never been as they don’t serve my kind there. And it looks like the sort of spot the you could get tetanus waking through the
more stuff