Make It Easier

 

Learn to improvise and a thousand other important things suddenly become much easier to learn.

-- doug smith

Picture This: A Walk In The Park

 "It's not a walk in the park," goes the expression, except that this was. This was an epic walk in the park because of when we did it and where we were in our relationship, a relationship that wound up tighter than it had ever before (because this was a second time around) and then unwound in front of us only to weave itself into a cozy, loving, shared understanding.

I don't understand it. But there you have it, it seems to be a shared understanding.

We don't say everything that's on our minds these days, but those days, in that walk around Allaire State park, we said everything. We said it with our voices. We said it with our smiles. We said it with our bodies. We talked it all thru and it felt exactly right.

What do you do with perfection when the threads come loose? What do you do with the magic when the trick is discovered? What do you do with the walls that rebuild and double?

"Would you change anything about this?"

"No. Because then it wouldn't be this, and this is nice."

"Do you regret anything about the big changes we made?"

"What good do regrets do?"

"Exactly."

I'd drink to that, but my liver seems to object. Just one more aging crumbling falling leaf in a beautiful forest.

Cheers.

-- doug smith

Written using the prompt Picture This: 

1. Select a random picture

2. Write nonstop for five minutes only and then stop.

Scene Prompt: Versa Vice

Scene Prompt:

Six adults must fit into a car better suited for fewer, smaller people. Your mission: sell the car to the world's most reluctant world leader.

Some Place I Used to Live

 

In the end we left because the bathroom was about to collapse into the garage. That wouldn't be good, and it wasn't my garage. It was the neighbor's garage and one day he showed me how the ceiling of his garage showed clear signs of imminently falling on his car, his bike, or his head. He was concerned.

Other than that, we liked the apartment on Wedgewood, even though it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Even though the steps up to the second floor were rickety. Even though the kitchen appliances were right out of the 1980's and small. It was our place and that mattered.

We weren't exactly chased out of the previous place -- a beautiful and spacious home in Gunbarrel. But we had to do something. In the end, after living thru the whole move, I know that I should have talked about it more. There were options to discuss. Maybe it wasn't necessary for both of us to move. Maybe I could have subsidized the rent for a while (afterall, I did pay double rent for about six months to ease my guilt about leaving, guilt that should have told me I shouldn't be going, but I did...)

My office was set up in the back of the living room. I had my books, a desk, and my laptop. It got me started (again) in my business of delivering training and eventually I was able to leave my job at the grocery store.

It was some place that I used to live, when I lived thru the second biggest change of my life.

-- doug smith

Picture This:

1. Find a random picture

2. Write without stopping for five minutes only.

Shortcut to Drama

Here's your shortcut to instant drama:

Always say exactly the wrong thing and be easily offended.

Yeah, that should work every time. And even when it doesn't: drama.

-- doug smith

 

another unbroken line

 the unbroken line steers

thru you unaffected unphased

sense of purpose

                           denied

on purpose

                  over and over

again: you dream of something

meaningful, light not (yet) focused

covering you which is to say

       uncovering you

layer after layer

          the sounds like velcro

          unclothing disrobing

          revealing

hey is that you? is that the you

you wanted to reveal?

                                     or,

does that you, catch you, as

     much by surprise as

the rest of us?

douglas brent smith

An Actual Toilet On A Throne

 

Sure it's important. You do want to be comfortable. Maybe  you like to have a bit of status afforded to you in those highly meaningful moments.

"Don't you mean hours?"

"Well, maybe minutes, not necessarily hours..."

"But they do all add up."

"Yes. But I have another concern."

"What's that?"

"Bumping my head. That doesn't look like a lot of clearance. I wouldn't want to be deeply involved in reading a big article in the NY Times only to rise suddenly and crash into the ceiling."

"It's never fun to crash into the ceiling."

And that was only one shortcoming. We did consider renting that place. There were so many wonderful artistic touches. Rooms that seemed to be sculpted into the floor plan. A balcony with a view of much of the house. A rear deck with exotic tiles. Shelves like artwork. 

But as we decided we realized it was an old place and we are not master carpenters. We're not even submitter carpenter repair people. We'd just break the place more.

But hey, how about that throne?

Picture This

1. Find a random picture.

2. Write for exactly five minutes.