It is not Sunday morning. That’s right. It is now Monday afternoon. I strive for punctuality. My history has proven otherwise. No point getting all bent out of shape.

However, this does not mean that I wasted a Sunday morning. Far from the case.

Yesterday, your humble narrator found himself rising on the face of a mountain after a very short, few hours of sleep. Sweat and dirt gripped ferociously to half sun-reddened skin. Every muscle aching in varying degrees. From dancing. Lots and lots of dancing. Hours. Through heat and rain and early morning hours. I’m not normally much of the dancing type. Certainly not of any type of popular variety.

My goal was to be a dirty hippie. I succeeded. We succeeded.

Alas! Only for a weekend. A few days to escape a few chains and dabble in what some take as a full career of carefree.

And though I do not believe that would ever be the path for me, or for many, there is a grand value to a taste. We add pounds to our souls by strapping anxieties and apprehensions, day after day after day. Enough to pull anyone beneath the tide. Struggling with self-consciousness whilst attempting self-awareness. Forging identities of consumption disguised as some weak constitution of passion. Punching time cards and watching television. Death from forgetting to be alive.

So.

To let that go. To just be. To listen and hear and smell and see. To move. Free. Even in awkwardness. Even in timid courtship. In exhaustion. To hear something, made just before you. Void of edit or after fact alterations. They sweat. They bleed. They crowd surf. They chug beers. To watch musicians do what they do, is never short of profound. Different energies and styles, all the same. If they believe, then we believe. Even if the jam is not quite your scene. Because you cannot beat being in a room full of all sorts of folks, singing ‘Freedom’ at the top, bottom and middle of our collective lungs.

Or so says I.

But some results cannot be argued with. After a good cleaning and full round of sleep, the lightness was felt. Muscles that were rigid and tense have relaxed. The heart aches less. The smile comes easier. As does a song. I feel more motivated. Or at least pushed along by positivity as opposed to the perpetual fear of failure.

And perhaps, for this self, it may only have an effect in short periods. I am a soul that wanders. But I do not ever forget the path. The direction, though general, remains. Somewhere that needs getting to. And I aim to get to it. All while attempting to focus some sort of absent mind.

And perhaps for yourself, something else may work. Though music might be the most widely received, there are all sorts of things which a human can use to shut the gate to the world as is and glance around to some other side.

And there is a very definite thing to dancing. When done as most truly felt (which may very well be different for everyone). And having some folks to dance with is quite grand as well. And if you’re like me, there’s nothing quite like the free spirit pouring from the body of a young woman who seems damn near one with a tune. Fascinating creatures. Energetic. Elegant. Admirable.

Yet no matter how wonderful a moment may be, they all fade. They happen until they don’t. And all that can be held onto is the best recollection a mind can summon. Even if it has become more false than true to the actual occurrence.

Because a memory is a powerful thing. And though it is born from the past, its presence in the present is incited by the memory holder.

Go ahead. Pull a sense. Any sense.

Sound?

How about the way words fall together for one person can ring eerily close to those of someone from long ago? Or the song that played when horror struck? Or joy? Or confusion?

Smell?

Clean, dry air- like that which you would find on summer camping trips of the child you used to be. Or the stink of the city which you first lived on your own.

Sight?

The unlikely, but still occurring happenstance of the eyes and smile and hair and the rest, all placed on a face of someone else, who cannot seem to help but remind of one who was once younger, but now is older. Someone who made an impact but is unlikely to any other new ones.

I won’t keep going. I trust you understand.

And besides, you must strike while the memory is hot. Do not let it turn solid. Wield what you can with what you have. Fresh motivation is not always the easiest of emotions to come by, so be grateful to have it and if possible, pass it along. Life is not time for selfishness, even if self-realization is the goal. It is the right thing to do considering you are riding on a gusto given from somewhere else. Intentional or otherwise.

Be careful of making memory of what is not over though. It is not impossible to be consumed by the possibility of something happening, that you manage to miss it all together.

Though that is not the exclusive reason, I did not write all that much while I was away this weekend. Aside from a short poem, I managed only two lines. I do like them, however. Even if they mean nothing to anyone aside from myself, there is an aesthetic to them that I do not believe should be denied.

‘The everlasting cigarette. The faraway Yawn’

Nonsense, most likely. But a nonsense that I possess. A nonsense that can make clear that which should always be, but never is. It does not need to be broken down. It does not need to be analyzed. It only happened because I penned without considering. And I only penned without consideration because I was engulfed in having a grand ole time.

Because I was too busy listening.

Busy moving.

Busy feeling.