after all has been said
there remains far more to know

space
filled with
merely breath

a void

vacancy requires attention

it can hurt
it can heal

there is nothing more to say

silence
is a battle

it can become comfort

a path forward
will move in either direction

what guides you
what haunts you
shimmering light or silken shadows

do you hear the unspoken

forgiveness

do you care to know details
after all has been said

 

 

© 2019 j.g. lewis

Love is more
than an emotion, greater
than a virtue. In fact, love encompasses all virtues,
                                                              and then more.

Whether romantic, affectionate, or familial,
love is a state of mind, shared in kind, and available,
should you choose to accept.

                            Love takes courage.
Love requires pride, and friendship.

Its truthfulness is not always clear, but
it cannot be deceitful.
                                         That is not love.

Not even close.

Love defies definition, resists calculation;
how much, how little, how strong, how
short-lived is the love you hold, or have?

                                                Or have had?

It is not ‘till death do you part,
not always, not surely, not really.

Love’s magnificence is never clear;
it can blind, it can grieve,
given in quantities often larger than it is received.

This is what makes it love.

You cannot keep track of the moments
where love shows its presence, but
you can savour each drop which passes to your being.

You can choose to love, or
you can be indifferent, but where love resides,
                                   there is not room for hate.

Love one another; begin there.

Everything else will fall into place.

This is love.
That is grace.

© 2019 j.g.lewis

“Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is
someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak
until there is someone there who can understand what we are
saying, in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.”
                                                                  -Alain De Botton

Undetermined hesitancy,
well past procrastination, yet far less than wasting time.
Waiting is less a function and more of a state.
It is not stillness; for that to occur the mind must settle, not
impervious, but free to allow thoughts in. And out.
Then become silence.
We, then, are waiting, knowing time will tick on anyway.
If we can stop even for a moment, to simply breathe,
we can find perspective.
It is searching for something meaningful
from something meaningless.
We seek further meaning,
knowing our lives are deeper than our pockets.
We understand there is greater nutrition in a shared meal,
that Friday will arrive each week, and a bicycle and a car
each have a purpose.
We wait; believing home has nothing to do with boundaries.
For our past to catch up with our ever-present worry, for
today to be the gift we were told it would be,
the future must unfold as it should.
In searching for this equilibrium,
have we become stuck in the balance?
Our mind is occupied.
Waiting.
We know there are people, who miss us as we miss them,
and we wait in one space thinking that one person may find us.
Waiting may be a reminder
they are not coming.
As we wait, we attempt to determine if
our response is an action, or a reaction.
We know inaction.

 

© 2019 j.g. lewis

 

Gratitude flows two ways. It must.

For gratitude to be gratitude, it has to be given, as it is accepted; free of conditions; without demand; without expectations.

As an exchange, there needs be, at its most crucial point, equality. Both the giver and the receiver should, even if only for a moment, bask in the state of grace allowed, and furthered by, the humane act of giving.

Gratitude is ‘you are welcome’ as much as it is ‘thank you’.

Sadly, and often, in this give-and-take society, there is an imbalance of power. The provision of aid or assistance is viewed as strength, with the acceptance, or receiver, as weak. Charity — a worthy and necessary act  — is boastfully promoted and endorsed. The ‘look at me’ or ‘look at us’ attitude removes the true shine from an otherwise generous act as it makes the giver more important than the need.

It’s pretty ugly out there. We, as humans, have continued to allow this to happen. Captains of industry, politicians, plumbers, and the powers that preach have continually deceived us. We have almost become pre-conditioned to accepting this conditioned eye-for-an-eye type of attitude of gratitude.

It should not be more difficult to understand, as it is to accept, gratitude.

We need to help each other, more. The spirit of giving should be fostered among us, but we end up asking too many questions. Even if just by questioning where any form of gratitude flows, we are suspicious. We look for ulterior motives and hidden reasons.

How do we get past the doubt, or the disingenuous, to not only show our thankfulness, but share the act and purpose bestowed upon us?

We, perhaps, need to be more thankful of what we’ve got and more gratified in how we share our place and purpose.

Indeed, as with the adage ‘the hand that gives is the hand that gathers meaning’, it must be more than exhibiting kindness towards others as a means of benefiting the self. We need to recognize the profound connection of the hand that gives and the hand that receives.

The benefits are shared, are equal, and are needed. There is a deeper meaning in not only accepting selflessly, but in giving graciously.

© 2019 j.g. lewis

Music, like nothing else, marks our time on this earth, and recorded music brings it all right back. Each of us has our own soundtrack to our own story, and my playlist continues to evolve.

When I moved out east a few years back, I brought with me all that I could; clothing, art, computer and camera equipment, and those things that brought me comfort, including my stereo.

I was limited to what would fit in the car, and part of preparing for the trip was paring down a substantial music collection.

My Mac was stuffed with music, and compact discs are more easily transported, but the thousands of records I had accumulated over the decades presented a major problem. I spent months deciding on the right albums, limiting myself to two boxes (of course I brought more). I passed on the remainder of the collection to my daughter (also, an avid vinyl collector).

When I arrived at my destination, the first thing I did was set up the stereo system; somehow it made things feel a bit more like home. Everything sounded familiar. Music has always been that thing that seems to keep me connected to time and place.

I remember.

I remember I was scared, literally, the first time I heard Led Zeppelin in the very early ‘70s. I have particularly vivid thoughts of a hot June afternoon set to a Yo-Yo Ma CD. When I listen to any Rush album, I recall being in an arena crowd of about 200 people in 1976, and also seeing the same band playing to tens of thousands of fans three decades later.

There are memories of drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain, listening to Elton John’s Captain Fantastic on 8-track, sitting in a friend’s car at 2:30 a.m. ‘Sweet freedom whispered in my ear’. I was 15, at Clear Lake, and, yes, it was well past curfew and I should have been home in bed but right then, nothing else mattered but the music and the company we kept.

Music does that; it seals in time, where we were and whom we were with. It documents a certain place, like nothing else.

Music is the best.

My musical interests, and my collection, are vast and deep, from pop to punk, jazz, folk, classical and classic rock. It spans decades. I still go back to the early stuff. Even now, when I spend a Saturday cruising Toronto’s wealth of wonderful record shops, I’m always searching for an elusive album, or one I may have left behind.

That’s not to say I only listen to the past. There is always amazing new music, as there always has been, no matter what year (anybody who hasn’t listened to Craig Finn’s recent I Need A New War, should).

I got to thinking about not only how much of my time has been spent listening to music, but how many albums I have heard. Playing recorded music, like no other pastime, can be done while you are doing something else. I play music when I cook, or clean. There’s usually music playing when I write, or drive, or play Scrabble, or . . . whatever.

I decided, at the beginning of this year, that I would keep track of how many albums I listen to in a year. I add to the list each time I hear a complete album, writing down the artist and title. I even write down the albums I listen to again, and again, each time. There are several albums I seem to play with some frequency, depending on the mood or the moment (including the aforementioned Craig Finn record).

So far, this year, including the disc I am playing right now, I have listened to 442 albums. I have no idea if this is an average amount of listening, but I do know I have plenty of albums I still need to get around to.

What I have found myself doing is listening, and appreciating, the music a little more deeply than I have been for a while. True to this use-what-you-already-have attitude I have taken on over the past while, I am digging deep into the boxes of albums I brought with me. These are the records I took the time to select and haul halfway across this country, so they must be important.

I listen to them and realize they are. Still. Now. Evermore.

Music is the best.