It’s like the off-colour sweater and unworn shoes resting in your closet. At the time, whenever that was, they seemed perfect. You bought them on impulse, yes; but isn’t that when you make some of your best decisions?
   Not in this case. You’ve looked at them time and again, even slipped them on, on occasion, but they never made it much further than the mirror. Your head sunk in dismay.
   They were just there.
   You can’t wear them, nor can you seem to pack them up and give them away to the Goodwill. They belong to you, but you refuse to own them, like all that other ‘stuff’; the parking tickets jammed above your visor, or credit card statements and unopened emails . . . or unreturned phone calls. Ignored, but evermore on the mind.
   It’s not just the physical things — its, bits, and stuff strewn about our lives — that continue to cast a shadow across the here and now. Even the intangible becomes tactile.
   We all have thoughts that show up in the darker hours, over-amplified memories, or words stuck in the windpipe, along with the misguided metaphysical breath, shameful soul-talk, or full-throttle dreams of angst or anger.
   All your low-level attempts at stepping up to a higher ground, they build up over time.
   You like to think they are held at bay, but they surface, again, to remind you what was or shouldn’t have been.
   We become hypersensitive to our unlived dreams and time misspent, we continue to live there and continue to pay rent.
   Own it. Just fucking own it.
   As much as we can take pride in our accomplishments and things we’ve done well, we also need to recognize all the crappy stuff that splatters across our windshield. This is the mess that slows us down and reduces our vision.
   We don’t do something because something else was done (or not done) years ago. Persons not even there, or places lived only in our subconscious, keep holding us back.
   And we continue to find the stupidest reasons not to go there.
   It’s time to let all the stuff out. Make whatever attempt to say what needs to be said, give forgiveness or make amends. Speak now, off the cuff, or from the heart. Give voice to your doubts, your fears, or unreasonable reasons. Put them out there.
   Own it.
   To not open up the proverbial Pandora’s box, or to refuse to breathe the scent of time gone by, prevents us from being whom we should be, or from living in the now. It becomes part of an emotional deficit you cannot acknowledge. It belongs to you, and no one else, so you carry it through your private hell.
   Clear it out. Find value in what is there, they are reminders, but maintain them only as memory. The lessons learned or bridges burned are from another time.   The past has passed. What happened, what you had, made you what you are, but instead of allowing the baggage to weigh you down, use it to prop yourself up.  Look at how far you have come, instead of wishing you were back there.
   The misdeeds and temporary greed, the moonlight desires and liquid need.   Own it.
   Just fucking own it.
   Then move on.
   Our minds may have infinite capacity, but couldn’t we better function with a little more room to breathe?

© 2016 j.g. lewis

Rush hour streets are, again, thick with traffic. Sidewalks, at times, are bustling with shoppers and office workers as we slowly get back to some semblance of order.
   The pandemic is still not over, but we are returning to routines that have been removed from our lives for months.
   Some things are not coming back.
   The signs are everywhere.
   That restaurant you used to regularly frequent has its windows papered up. What used to be your regular morning Starbucks has closed; and another one down the block, and another.
   Space for Lease placards hang in windows at strip malls, at street level, or looming office towers. Once-busy retail strips, popular with the fashion-conscious, do not offer the selection of stores they used to.
   For a while we are going to have to get used to all this emptiness.
   It’s uncertain.
   We’ve probably guessed it would be something like this, for more than a year we’ve been hearing how business is struggling.
   We’ve all felt it.
   But now, as we are again out and about, there is less and less choice.
   It’s not just small independent stores; there are some national chains that have had their problems. Surely we will learn about more closures before we see any big grand openings.
   Truth is, nobody knows where this economy is headed.
   Politicians can gush and guess but that not the real truth. There have been economists that have tried to put a figure on the cost of COVID-19, and the answers might be as inflated as they are unbelievable.
   However, the costs will, likely, be higher.
   Many people no longer have the disposable income they used to have; some no longer have jobs.
   The economy is fragile.
   We, as humans, are fragile.
   The signs are everywhere.

No matter how quickly our technologies evolve, or how fast our processors process, we still rely on ancient methods to make our way through each day.

Just yesterday I wrote in my journal, printed out a card to a loved one, and tapped a text message to my daughter. I started a letter to a friend, composed a forceful email to a pharmaceutical company, and contributed to ongoing dialogue with a curious collection of sensitive souls.

I scribbled out a couple of lines to a poem, added onto the grocery list, jotted down an upcoming appointment in my agenda, and recorded a client concern warranting further investigation.

I wrote with a pencil in a notebook and used a pen on a preprinted form. I also employed a laptop, then a desktop computer, and made use of a few apps on my mobile device.

Through it all, my daily communication — regardless of the format, font or function — was done using the same standard 26 letters and 10 digits that have been used for centuries, along with a handful of punctuation marks for proper order.

In a society that wants to do everything differently than we have on the past, we are stuck on such a simple practice. My country is bilingual; both languages (English and French) use the same characters.

In my life as a writer I have used all the traditional hand-held writing instruments from crayon to fountain pen, and mechanical devices including typewriter, mainframe computer, tablets and my phone. But the alphabet has not changed in my lifetime, nor that of my father’s, or my father’s father.

The alphabet is old, its roots dating back to 2700 BC. Since the early days of hieroglyphics, we have used similar symbols to show love and anger, and to emphasize sadness or fear. Our wants, our struggles, and our fantasies are illustrated as they always have been.

The letters remain the same. A combination of curves and lines, an R is always an r, the S is the same, again and again, like an A is an a: upper case or lower. We have barely even altered how the letters are used. Today’s Apple keyboards are essentially laid out the same as the keys on yesteryear’s Underwood.

Even the meanings of words can change, but not how they are produced. Words keep the world moving, and learning; they maintain order or spell out anarchy. And we understand. At the turn of the millennium, the printing press was named the greatest invention of all time because of its ability to help spread the written word.

We use the written word more than we ever have. Yes, the format has changed (again) but it is still both our primary form of communication and the essential instrument in recording history.

Years ago, just as this whole digital thing was really catching on, as personal computer sales began to dramatically increase, there was talk about a paperless society. Oh how wrong they were. Newspaper and magazine sales (and production) have declined, but we still shuffle an awful lot of paper at the office. While we don’t mail letters like we used to, yet our email inboxes continue to fill up.

It’s only words.

We can boast about how society has changed or evolved (even improved), but the foundation of communication are the letters that grew from symbols once scratched out on the walls of caves.

How simple; how profound; how enduring.

@ 2017 j.g. lewis

Time-treasured romanticism
of a soft summer rain;
stories told
again and again.
Gentle pitter-patter
against window glass
like a teenaged lover. An invitation
to step outside
when no one knows
where will we go.
Through the city, we walk on water
across the cement. Mind the puddles.
Soaked to the skin,
our spirits not dampened.
Rain breaks the heat and
maybe even the humidity.
Whether it has,
weather it is,
for a time we forget where we are.
We remember
decades later.
On a night like this
with a rain like that.

© 2021 j.g. lewis

I write much like I talk.
   I use many words, but only enough to convey my thoughts on whatever subject intrigues me, amuses me, or angers me.
   Sometimes the topic is complex and requires a lot of words to explain a multiplicity of angles or reject widely accepted opposing viewpoints. It is not easy, but it is necessary.
   I write every day, some days more than others.
   Some days the words seem to write themselves and my perspective (or poem) is clear whether I’ve used many words, or just enough.
   It may take paragraphs or pages, or something can be said as explicitly or concisely as haiku.

It is what you write
that allows you to explain
what you have to say

   Maybe it is the mood of the moment, or perhaps the phase of the moon that allows me to be clearer some days than others in one way or another. Maybe my thought process has been unnecessarily interrupted, or what seemed important yesterday (or three hours ago) is not as immediate when the pencil hits the page.
   You know what I mean?
   Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
   Write it, then, so it is easily explained.

© 2021 j.g. lewis