“In your own private place of dreams…”
We have, in all of us.
wonderful.
Bits and pieces, of perfect.
We have, in all of us,
goodness.
Bits and pieces, of peace.
We have, in all of us,
meaning.
Bits and pieces, of hope.
We are all made of wonderful, of goodness, of meaning, and it is our job, destiny maybe, to put into the world, the physical world, the spiritual world, tiny bits of ourselves.
Tiny bits of goodness.
Tiny bits of meaning.
Tiny bits of wonderful.
And when the day comes that all of us do that, each and every one of us puts in their tiny bit, when that day comes, we will have created,
paradise.
As it is meant to be.
“…I hope you'll find a place where it seems…”
We have it in us, to leave this place, better than how we found it. It is, what I believe the universe is waiting for us to do. Watching us, having handed us a blank canvas, but leaving the brush strokes up to us.
It gives us the sunrise.
It gives us the sunset.
Our bits of wonderful, is what we do in-between. Our individual immortality is found in the love we leave behind. Our bodies are not meant to last forever, love though, transcends time.
Transcends us.
My gram has been gone for decades, but there is never a day in my life that I don’t feel her love in my heart.
Bits of wonderful, from Tess.
“…the road is always straight and true…”
Where comes your bits of wonderful.
Where stays your bits of wonderful.
Goodness doesn’t need to take much from each of us, but for greatness to come of it, goodness has to come from all of us.
Recently, one of you, a friend of Bassresource, did a little bit of wonderful.
Mike Siebert.
Now, while I am very happy for what Mike is doing, making jigs that will benefit Tackle The Storm Foundation, and the kids there-of, there is no way I smoked enough weirdness in the ‘60’s where I believe his hand tied jigs are going to lead to world peace, I do believe this, Mike, has the stuff of bits of wonderful.
Seventy-five cents from every jig this dude sells, goes to Tackle The Storm Foundation, every TEN jigs sold…TEN, just ten of the things, will put a rod and reel into the hands of a child…the empty hands of a child.
A child who has lost everything to a storm.
A child who may not now believe in goodness.
Nor wonderful.
Or even worse, question, meaning.
I talked to Mike, thanked him for what he is doing, asked him this, “Dude, how long does it take you to make 10 jigs.”
“Not long db, few minutes maybe.”
A few minutes, pretty much the definition of bits of wonderful.
Goodness, in moments, string those moments together, and you get, greatness.
“…wherever you walk is bright for you…”
This year, I was treated for Prostate Cancer.
In a few days I will find out if the treatment worked.
Pretty soon, maybe a couple of weeks, I will once again have surgery, this time for a tumor in my brain.
Without the surgery, I will go blind.
The tumor sits on and is entangled with my optic nerve.
But it is not the blindness I fear as much as the insight that I appreciate. In this last year, this last month, these every days, I have been given a glorious view,
into us.
I have been allowed to see, what it is we can do, when we let goodness happen.
I have been able to watch as the canvas, gets painted.
I have glimpsed your brush strokes.
“…I hope you'll remember these times we share…”
For most of my life I have been blind,
to the goodness of others.
I have chased the wretched.
I have reported on their carnage.
I have smelled them, and their crimes.
I have seen rivers of tears, lakes of blood.
I have been spit at, stabbed, shot at and beaten the hell up.
In just one year I covered the mayhem of 187 dead bodies.
But it only took one body, one tiny little body, to turn me into a shell of a human being.
I never knew her name.
I never knew her face.
I was told she was only about a week old.
The cop who told me the story, puked twice while doing so. Chunks of cheeseburgers landed on my shoes. We both sat on the concrete steps of a front porch, he prayed with tears in his eyes.
I looked to the sky, with contempt through my tears. Hatred maybe.
Hatred for anyone, for everyone, every human being, or supreme being, that would let someone put a young baby in a microwave oven for 45 seconds on high.
Tell me not of grief, it has been all over my shoes. Trust me, no shower is long enough to wash the stink off.
No confessional, big enough to hold my fury.
Bits of wonderful, not my freakin’ beat.
It was on those concrete steps where being a spiritual being, left me, left me for good.
Or so I thought.
“…hope you'll find some comfort there…”
And then, a moment or two before being fired for not giving a crap anymore, a moment or two before I just became a shell of a human being, and thankful for that, came a second chance.
From you.
I was sent Inside the Outside, cover the stuff of the outdoors. Now I’m not going to say that I walked outside, saw an Eagle riding the thermals and had a come to Jesus moment..
Didn’t happen, not going to trivialize it, what I did find out there was what was inside, you.
The great outdoors has nothing to do with what happens to you outside there, it has everything to do with what happens inside of you while you are out there.
It’s about the discovery, of yourself.
And what you are made of.
And what ALL OF THIS IS MADE OF.
In its purist state, out there where the air is cold, the water is cool, the sky is blue, the smell of pine, the symphony of a brook, where the animals talk and the people are silent…out there, where there is as it was meant to be…out there showed me, what I lost, what I had lost sight of,
bits of wonderful.
“…in the meantime lose your cares…”
A few weeks ago a doctor asked me if I could still write, if I couldn’t see. I just shrugged my shoulders, knowing it really wasn’t a question, but a warning.
I don’t for a minute think I will lose my sight because of the upcoming surgery. Without it, yes, with it, not much chance.
But if I did, on this holiday of coming to thankful, this Thanksgiving, I will give thanks for the past five years I’ve had writing about the outdoors, and you.
I will give thanks for what I was allowed to see, for what you showed me, for what you gave back to me.
Allowing me to once again see,
goodness.
And not horror.
Allowing me to once again see,
meaning.
And not meaningless.
Allowing me to once again see,
bits of wonderful,
and know that even with my eyes closed,
wonderful,
happens.
“…you can go anywhere, close your eyes and it will take you there.”
Dreamland
Bruce Hornsby
Happy Thanksgiving.
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