may your spirit
               find peace
   and your mind
receive the clarity due
with gentle thoughts
       guiding you
            through days
when clouds encroach
   on your sky
and trees cannot offer
      the comfort
                of a shadow
reach out for the light
   reach up
           and find
your own sunshine
        let it burn for all
   your hopes and with
all your strength
            and stillness
         om shanti

© 2016 j.g. lewis

I’ve not been sleeping well these past couple of years. I know I’m not the only one who has had a persistent plethora of pandemic concerns, but I’ve also been struggling with an issue that has dogged me even longer than that.

Fortunately, this “issue” has been “resolved” over the past few weeks, and I could literally feel the years of constant stress and aggravations dissolve. Still, I still wasn’t sleeping. Or rather, I was sleeping in fits and starts.

My favorite pillow, my old reliable, was once supremely comfortable. I’m not sure your favourite pillow starts out that way, yet over time you get used to where you lay your head each night, This particular pillow was the type you could lightly bunch up to read or watch television. I liked this pillow so much I ignored the other pillow on my side of the bed.

Times change, or pillows change, and (like each of us) they grow old.

So I bought a new pillow a few days ago after sensing the pain in my neck was more than continued mental strain. I have been restless too long. My neck was sore in the morning and the rest of my body was stiffer than it used to be.

I went to stores, studied the selection of pillows, and compared the models and with the same concentrated attention you would use to select a new pair of sneakers. I looked closely at the varying level of firmness, the materials used (debated natural over synthetic) and structure of the pillow.

I settled on “medium support” recommended for those who sleep on their backs or sleep on their sides. I do both, perhaps because I would often adjust myself in the middle of the night, continually trying to get comfortable. Realistically you would say I tossed and turned.

We are all looking for comfort, particularly at 3:13 a.m.

Saturday night I started my sleep on my back, drifting off after I began reading a book from a friend. I was still in that position when I woke up Sunday morning. Now, I may have adjusted myself in the night (I honestly don’t remember; it was that deep of a sleep) but I was on my back when I awoke. The next night was much the same. I woke calm and unconcerned. I felt comfortable, again, when I woke up on my back (again).

I believe I have found the comfort I was looking for. More so, I seemed to have found the comfort I needed (and deserve). I believe the new pillow is responsible.

I think we should all seek comfort in our lives and make the adjustments necessary to reach that goal.

You end your days on a pillow and begin them there as well. Shouldn’t the hours between be in your best interest? Your bed is the one spot where you spend a third of your life and you return to it daily. It’s only right that your bed remains comfortable in these days of disillusion and discomfort. When you are well rested, it should that make for betters days ahead.

Wednesday sits naked
         and ordinary
             waiting

between the bookends of restive Sunday
and social Saturday. The day is
       little more

than a cluster of hours or a stop on the
 treadmill. Indecisive and
     lonely

nobody chooses a Wednesday. Nothing
happens
           on a Wednesday

and it’s the same each week.

© j.g. lewis

Sept 11/01, a Tuesday. London Subway bombings: July 7/05, a Tuesday, also July 21/05,
and also a Tuesday. Assassinations: John Lennon on a Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. a 
Thursday, and John F. Kennedy a Friday. Kurt Cobain’s body was discovered on a
Wednesday, but he chose his way out three days earlier. Nothing happens on a 
Wednesday.

There are fewer concerts mid-week, and opening night is never a Wednesday. They 
never open the Olympics on a Wednesday. Nobody gets married on a Wednesday.

Yet, each week, I choose Wednesday.

When I launched Mythos & Marginalia.com more than seven years ago, Wednesdays were all I planned.I had other thoughts, daily, but Wednesday was the day. I made that commitment.

I wrote every damn day, so I began filling up more than Wednesdays. Mondays became young Fridays, and there was a lot more going on than I originally thought, so here we are.

This is Wednesday and there is a new design to the page; it’s another challenge I will slowly figure out, yet that’s the same for any other day. But today is Wednesday and there is more to read and more to see.

And I’m sure there will be something more tomorrow.

-j-

   we litigate our sorrows

   mediate happiness

   negotiate contentment

barter wisdom for unsuspecting logic

did we stop

looking

for the trust

for the certainty

in what we know

   what we carry

   veiled imperfections

   spiteful recollection

   accepted resentment

the perseverance of inadequacies

as we keep

close

to the truth

to the familiar

to what we know

   what we carry

   compromised ethics

   unwritten guarantees

   pathetic promises

admit what you have lived through

© 2019 j.g. lewis

Guns keep killing people.
I’m just putting that out there.
I am just stating the obvious.
It is simply a fact.
It’s a fact that will continue
to prove itself correct
each time
there is a shooting.
Guns kill people,
and they keep killing people.
It is a fact.
It is.
It is common knowledge.
A common occurrence;
too common an occurrence
if you ask me, but
you needn’t ask
because the facts
speak for themselves.
Guns.
Kill.
People.
They did yesterday, and
the day before, and
last weekend multiple times
in my city (more than most
weekends, more than many
cities, and a lot more times
this year). My city is really
not that different
from any other place where
there are guns and people.
Guns are everywhere.
People are everywhere.
Guns kill people.
They did yesterday in
a very noticeable way.
We will grieve the event
and question why. We will
ask questions of ourselves
and questions of our
politicians and each other.
Fact.
And we will hope, and
we will pray, but
guns
keep
killing people
anyway.
It is a fact.
It is far too obvious.
How can we change
the fact without
allowing emotions
to become involved.
Just the facts.
How do we deal with
a fact, and how can we
alter the fact that guns
kill people?
I’m just putting that out there.
Just the fact.

© 2018 j.g. lewis

I am numb. Like everyone else I was shock by the news of another school shooting. Again. It was 10 children, then 14, yesterday. This morning the headline I first read was “19 students and 1 teacher killed in Texas elementary school shooting.” I can’t write; what more can I say that hasn’t been said. It has been said again and again. I wrote this four years ago. It reads the same today as it did then. Nothing has changed. Guns kill people. It is a fact.

j.g.l.