and this may be a dream for some, but for me, it is nature, it is the experience of life... and as if on cue as the mail finishes downloading and I see that I have a new note here and I check my notes, one of the wonders of the world provides me with a quote that seems to be rolling right along with the apparently abstract collage of bits and pieces that make up this entry for at precisely this moment as I include the rhyme above, I read this:

"Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can." ~ The Dalai Lama ~

and that is the essense of the line in my longest standing personal introduction, part of the answer to the how old are you? questions that you can find if you care to look through my personal site and introductions, I am reborn each time I open my eyes...

I am lucky, blessed, or somehow smart enough to have a place in my mind that allows me to wipe clean everything that ever might have entered my mind and experience the moment of waking as a completely blank slate with the potential for anything... every day, as I wake up, I feel my heart and it's primary dream, to love and be loved, to leave this world a better place for my being here, and to play, to have fun, to enjoy every moment... I step out of bed (or out of the big green chair) with that moment of hope, that magical feeling that anything is possible, that everyone knows the pure desire to love and be loved and do good and enjoy life that I feel in my heart... I rise to the day (or evening or night) with the sparkle of that hope in my eyes and enter the world beyond my home ready to give it my all, to embrace it all, to experience it all, and to believe in alll the positive goodness that is in everything...

and it happens every time... each time I open my eyes...

and as I have said before, it may be all my illusion (or Richard Bach's, or Harry Chapin's, or someone else's), but I believe in it, my perspective, my illusion, the feelings of my waking moment, with every cell in this body, with ever bit of energy I am...

and then life happens...

or maybe it's my nightmare... hope?... but life throws a curve... people happen... I look out from my wide open believing in love heart through hopeful eyes and see someone turn away, and another scowls, and another simply ignores my existence... and others follow suit... my smile waivers as my friendly hello is ignored or worse, is met with suspicious or unpleasant stabs from cold eyes and judgmental frowns... my hope gasps as a flood of negative energy pours into my wide open senses and I remember how much trouble trusting the human heart, how much pain believing in the goodness of people has gotten me into... and I remember the fear that it might happen again... and I remember the sudden awareness of the truth found in the following words:

Living an honest, nurturing, healthy, giving life in this world is swimming upstream, for this world flows with lies, neglect, abuse, and greed.

and the cynical voice in my head that laughs at me for believing, for trusting, for being so ignorant as to believe that innocence can survive intact and free in this world finds tangible physical evidence supporting the foolishness of trust, the folly of love, the stupidity of leaving one's self wide open for the anything that is possible...

"Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can." ~ The Dalai Lama ~

it becomes a question... how long can I maintain that waking feeling, that belief in goodness and hope... can I keep it throughout the day, for a few hours?... can I keep it past the morning?... how many scowls or frowns or negative smirks or casual disregards can I withstand before I withdraw and shut down and lost interest in life... is this how the zombie is formed?... is this how I become one of the walking dead, or at least mostly?...

I do not want to give up on love... sharing trust is still the most exciting feeling I know or can imagine... I do not want to give up on believing it is real, trust can happen, unconditional anything is possible in the goodness and harmless intent of the love in the human heart is going to happen and last in this life... I want to believe...

and each time I fall asleep I stop thinking, I do my best to leave the experiences of the day behind... I fall into sleep without much effort, another blessing I have been given, or have created in my mind... I sleep soundly and deeply (as I've said before, I can {and have}, when I want to, sleep through just about anything)... and after a few hours or a dozen, I wake and start again... I am reborn each time I open my eyes...

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)