Amusement Park

...And when you're really down and out
And you feel like there's no way out
Let go of your tears.
-Angel's Wings, Social Distortion

Dylan only wants to die sometimes.

There are times when he is happy, but he is able to draw so much happiness out of this life that he is bound to find the dark places too.

Dylan has discovered that this world we all live in is a world of opposites. Meaning, the happier he is able to make himself, the higher he is able to go, the bigger drop he has waiting or him.

I dare say that everyone understands the roller coasters of life. We know that passion works both ways, but what we don't understand, and what Dylan gets, is that passion should not be turned off. We know that when highs come to an end they can be dangerous, and when we reach that peak we shut down our passion and we fight gravity. We try to slow down and stay as high as possible.

Dylan doesn't.

What we forget is the lower you go, the more energy you have behind you to help you go higher than before. And so he doesn't fight his descent; he free falls. He descends so spectacularly that any recovery seems out of the question. He speeds toward that darkness, and when he gets there he loses himself as he continues toward the hard rock below.

His thoughts turn to despair, and still he doesn't attempt to pull up. He lets himself feel overwhelmed. What Dylan has learned is that the faster he reaches rock bottom, the sooner he can begin his long ascension, so he puts just as much passion into his sadness as he does his happiness.

At times he feels that death is an option. He says to himself, "Do I want to die?" When he continues to discover that the answer is, " No, I don't," he puts all his energy, all his passion, into being alive, and life is better than it ever was before because he knows he is exactly where he wants to be.

For Dylan, wanting to die sometimes is just part of life, and life should be embraced, not ignored. Feeling failure, fear, and despair just means he is trying.

After all, a level roller coaster would be boring as hell.

Mostly Cloudy

He couldn't think on cloudy days. His thoughts needed room and the clouds smothered them. They needed to at least reach the sky; he didn't know where the sky began, but he was sure it was somewhere above those clouds.

The man turned around, walked home, and thought small.

Three-Day Weekend

He looks. He notices how beautiful the rain is making everything. He listens. He wonders why the noise is so pretty. He sits. He is comfortably cold.

He notices through closed eyes it is getting brighter. He sees the sun. He hears doors open and close as people exit them. He sees children in boots and shorts jumping in puddles. He reminisces. He watches with sadness as the concrete goes dry. He observes that the drier the concrete, the louder the world. He hears the conversations of his neighbors as they invade where he has spent his morning. He asks himself if they wish they would’ve got their work done on Saturday so that they could enjoy the rain today. He thinks it makes them antsy because it is stalling their day. He has nowhere to be. He enjoys rain. He doesn’t know if that makes him happier than they are. He wonders if it makes him sadder. He hears the motor of a lawn trimmer as it slits the air with violent vulgarity. He thinks of ‘V’ words. He wants them (the people and their sonance, not ‘V’ words) to go away, and selfishly wishes for rain.

He sees it grow dark again. He smiles as doors open and close as people enter them. He stops hearing the offensive noises of the afternoon. He is able to listen again. He thinks he knows why it’s so pretty. He wonders what he would choose given one wish. He decides on a girl. He doesn’t know which one, cause there are a few. He falls asleep wishing he knew.

A Letter From a Work in Progress

It is no wonder why most songs, movies, and books are about love. You can be bitter about love when you are out of it, but when you are in it everyone knows there is nothing better. Sitting there in the dark with Kate I knew I loved her. I knew because I was happy. I think I was too young the last time I was happy to remember what it was like, but the feeling is now crisp and bright.

We spend most of our time hiding our weaknesses. We act brave when we’re afraid, we pick fights with people who scare us, we pretend the future isn’t there, we say we are “okay.” We perceive all this resistance we put up as strength. Then we take a wrong step somewhere and fall in love, and all the resistance is no longer needed. It’s scary because we feel weak; rather we realize we are weak. All this resistance we thought we were putting up was nothing more than hiding and we find that we haven’t grown strong at all.

Then the most dreaded word, after love, comes: Vulnerability. Before, we pretended that we were impenetrable. Nothing got in or out, but now we lower the bridge that we never told anyone existed, now there is a big gaping hole in the side of your stronghold, and we find out that we want nothing more than to tell every filthy secret about ourselves and every fear we have, in the name of love.

The third word comes: Happiness. Not so much dreaded as it is thought to be mystical—and uninteresting. Just like love, we tell ourselves we don’t want it because in the act of wanting we suggest we need something, and therein lies a weakness. So we say it doesn’t exist. We wanted to be interesting like Elliot Smith or Fitzgerald, so we drink too much and do too many drugs, and push loved ones out of our lives; anything to make ourselves feel more miserable each day. After we feel it, though, we know that being happy is much more interesting than being sad, and we realize we know more miserable people, and read more miserable authors, and listen to more miserable musicians, and less of the happy ones, not because the happy ones are so uninteresting, but because they are so rare.

And I know that in reading this letter you don’t find it as interesting or good as my other letters (as I still kinda feel that way myself), but I think that’s just because we have trained ourselves to look at these things with our head half cocked to the side, and with one hand in front of the face so as not to get a full effect, afraid of what it might do to us, and we miss what’s there.

So, like every other poor sap that has fallen in love, I have tried to explain it, and I think I did as good a job as anyone could do.

Cat

Mick sat on the covered porch at the side of his house with a book, a sandwich, and a glass. The book was Hemingway, the sandwich was turkey, and the glass was milk. On the opposite side of the driveway that ran past the side of his home the very old wood fence gave birth to a cat. It's fur matched the color of the dark worn wood. The cat noticed Mick and stopped to stare at him. He noticed that the man seemed to be as old as the fence he had just crawled under. Mick stared back. After a few moments Mick put down Hemingway and leaned forward, extended his arm and rubbed his thumb against his fingers while making swishing noises with his mouth to try and entice the cat to his side of the driveway. The cat startled at the movement and thought about retreating back through the fence, but stopped and looked again at the man.

Mick took a bit of meat from his sandwich and tossed it in the cat's direction, who didn't notice it until it hit the grass in front of him. He sniffed at it a few times and then ate it. The cat looked back at the old man and shamelessly asked for more. Mick got up and retrieved two more slices from the refrigerator and returned to the porch. He dangled a slice of turkey from his hand.

"Come on. Come eat." The cat slowly made it's way over to the old man and quickly ate the first slice without chewing, and then the second in the same way, and again asked for more.

"That's it, cat. I guess there is some milk here if you want it." He put the glass in front of the cat who looked inside and then immersed his head in to get what was left of the milk.

"Okay, cat. I am going inside now. Behave yourself."

###

Mick was standing over the kitchen sink looking out the window. His wife came in the side door. "There is a cat just sitting on the porch," she said

"He came to visit me when I was reading," Mick said.

"You didn't feed him did you?"

"No."

"Then we'd never get rid of it."

"We're out of turkey."