We Are All Made of Stardust and Nachos

The universe is a place of the mundane and magical. We are able to embrace both

There are many days when I want to write or create and have no idea what to say. Whihc is weird, because my brain is never short of less than 1000 ideas at a time. It’s putting those ideas into words and into something meaningful that would make sense. It’s like my head is a swirling garble of words and ideas, and I’m standing off to the side like operating a claw machine trying to pull something out, and hopefully its a good one.

So, what am I talking about to day? Writing about saying nothing? No. A lot of times, in my committment to realness and rawness, I’ll just start writing without an idea or an outline and see what comes out. I’ve found my best writing comes out that way. I also found some good articles in the mundane. Everything doesn’t need a special trip or unique spiritual experience to be intersting to write about.

Today my wife, who is an attorney has court. I act as her driver because parking in our area is near impossible. I’m sitting in a grocery store parking lot right now with my laptop wedged up against the steering wheel. Sitting here is interesting because I can people watch. Though sometimes people watching is store security telling me to move. So far, not yet.

One thing I notice sitting here in San Antonio is how all the trees are still green. Growing up in Indiana we had a definite fall. Looking around in the parking lot, there are no leaves on the ground or much brown. It’s sunny, warm and everything is still green. Probably the biggest thing I miss about the midwest is the seasons. Here we have pretty much two seaons. Summer and cold/wet/.

One nice thing about writing in my car is playing my music. I have a metal mix playlist I use with mostly Ghost, The Pretty Reckles and some indie bands and a few others. I’m pretty eclectic in my music and like supporting indie artists as I’m an indie writer/artist myself.

Sitting here today, I was just inside the grocery store getting a sandwhich. I walk with a cane now, and its a nice cane. It’s made out of walnut wood with a skull topper. It’s pretty cool though sometimes not the most practical. I bought it as a Hallween prop about ten years ago, but now have to use it for real.

It would be more practical to have a can with a longer handle, versus a knob, but that’s an expense I don’t really have to have right now. This one works mostly ok. At first I was kind of embarassed to use it. I’m only 52 and feel younger, but I have tendonitis or arthritis in my left hip. So, I worried what people would think or say, but for the most part people are pretty cool about it.

I get a few looks because of the skull, but I try to present a whole ass vibe when I go out. Between my hat, all black and my skull cane, I either look like a jazz musician or an old occult magician. Either way, I’ll take it.

Also sitting here in the parking lot, its often like thunderdome for parking spaces. I think I just saw a near road rage incident in front of me. They were yelling at each other for a minute and then one person walked away.

As I was writing this, my wife was done with court. So I picked her up and we stopped and voted for midterm elections and headed home. I was happy to see it was a pretty good line to vote. Usually midterms are dead, but this one is really important and I hope people come out and vote these criminals out of office.

Now I’m sitting at home. I know this isn’t one of my sexier posts and it would probably be less disjointed if I didn’t have to stop and start it. Sometimes when I write a personal essay, I like it to just be about whats in front of me, and documenting my life. I think its good to stop and take notice of the things around us, and document them. While this is words and not photos, this essay is like a written snapshot of today.

Writing these essays makes me think of an English composition class I took in college. Our textbook was a book of essays by various writers. We had to read each one and then write a paper on our opinion of what was being said. I didn’t get any of it at the time, but I was good at doing the work part of it. But here I am on Substack with probably a book full of essays. Some deep and thoughtful, some just on what is happening in my life. Writing and art for me are both like meditation. Both are very intuitive. I rarely know what I’m going to say next. Things just come out.

It could be my subcioncious letting loose, or it could be something supernatural. Something spiritual has something to say and is using me to say it. Though I don’t always know what that message is, or what it means. I like to think its the latter. With as much awfulness and chaos in the world, I hope there is still magic and mystery. The world is a much more special place when you believe it to be a magical place and not just rocks, and bone and dirt.

After I left the Christian church I was an angry atheist for a good ten years or so. I didn’t belive in anything supernatural or magical and it made me rather miserable. The idea, that this is all their is, and there is nothing special about or behind any of us and when we die, this is just it, was rather an empty and sad feeling.

Now, Even though I believe in an afterlife and recincarnation, I still think its important to make the most of the life we have here and to care about our fellow people. I don’t now how, but I feel how we treated others will come in to play at tjhe end in some way. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, just a lot of questions.

Sometimes, that is all writing is doing is asking questions, trying to get people to think and feel something. Sometimes its just describing a tree or parking lot. I promised no fluff or sugarcoating here, so sometimes what you get are just my raw, base thoughts. I hope that’s a good thing.