There is a silence when I write. A silence in my mind. The kind of silence one finds in an empty room, but then the windows crack and the stories unfold and I am no longer in this silent room but in the place where all the people in all my life are present and I can marvel at the things I’ve done, the things I’ve seen, the people I love, and the man I have become. Revisiting these emotions is like seeing my grandmother. On her wrist she wears a charm bracelet. And each charm is a silver silhouette of each of her children, grandchildren and great grand children. She carries these people with her like I carry my stories. Hoping for a patient ear to listen, to be curious, to ask me how the sun looked on that morning in Taos when we set forth for points south. How Charlie wore his raggedy clothes and sipped from his jug of wine there by the highway in Spain, and what I was thinking when I left him asleep on the beach.

I left him sleeping on the beach

I feared I might never get away

It felt empty there, lonely,

So unsure of the company I was keeping

The weight of my backpack

The stumble of my shoes on sand

The concern he’d awake and see me escape

These troubles followed my back to the road

Miles away my mind saw him dead

The alcohol having pickled his mind

To be the last to see his smile,

Hear his breath, shake his hand

Was I just another in the succession

Of those who have left him alone

Feeling unwanted, unloved, unconcerned

Such thoughts tugged at my heart

The shell I collected while in his company

Was worn and faded by the sun and the sea

Just as life had worn off the luster of his soul

A luster I could no longer see.

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[Ccarolr]

"I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." K. Vonnegut