"As meaningful and fulfilling for as many people as possible..."

I've just moved my studio desk so it's centered with a window. I was a little askew, but not I'm right in the middle of the way I look out through the place where I work mostly. 

If I could, I would move the studio to the front room, where I could see people walk past all of the time. But that would distract me, I am easily distracted. Sometimes I need to just block out everything and get to work, which means shutting out the real world I can see and writing down the one inside of my mind. 

Is it all fiction? Are some fictions more concrete than others? How do we know what we know, and why do we make the decisions we make?

What if we woke up and began asking these questions? What if we decided to make a difference, subtracting out our own thoughts and concentrating on something abstract, something brutral, something concrete, something definite?

These are the first thoughts I write as I've moved my desk into the center of a window, looking to the east, helicopters falling from the sky again to the north, circular patterns of wonder to the south, and the west decidedly behind me. 

Let's go.  

The man who was not hit

The following is not a dream. This actually happened.

I was walking to my car tonight having locked up Decades Arcade. It was a busy night, lots of families, and I missed the one I used to have.

I'm close to my car. I notice a Prius or some kind of hybrid, with little noise, drives north on Carlton, but turns into the shopping center's northernmost entrance.

I think, oh, it's someone else looking to use the dumpster. So many people use the dumpster who have nothing to do with the shopping center. I love working there, and when the pandemic is over, I hope you come and talk to me at the arcade.

Anyway, tonight, this car doesn't stop at the dumpster like I expect. It just keeps on going, like it's doing a U-ey.

You-ey? Ewe-y? How do you spell that?

Anyway, the car rolls silently. I can't see the driver, but I'm not even looking because I notice there's a man walking south on Carlton. The car is on a direct collision course to hit him, and he can't hear any of it because the vehicle is silent. The driver has not stopped and appears to not have noticed the man.

I have just left Decades Arcade on a night when I was incredibly sad about missing my children. One day I'll write about that, but not now. It's too difficult. I'm questioning everything about my life, holiday-haze throwing doubt into my vision of what I want do for the time I have left.

"Hey! Stop! You're going to hit that guy!" I yell.

The man, who I believe was just getting off at Beer Run, turns around, sees the car, jumps back.

The driver thankfully hits the brakes. I don't know if he heard me, or saw the driver suddenly jump back, but catastrophe is averted. The vehicle was rolling at maybe 15 miles an hour, but we don't have to worry about any of that because there was no interaction between two bodies in motion.

The driver rolls down his window, apologizes profusely. And then hits the electric juice or however those things work.

The man and I stare at each other, and I don't think he speaks English because he doesn't seem to understand anything I say.

What if I hadn't been there? A third body in motion, heading back to my car on a night that wasn't a happy one at work.

I don't know. My job is not to speculate. It is to observe and notify others of my observations. The hope is that I will help people take actions to save other people.

Tonight at the right place at the right time, I may have helped save someone from getting injured in a vehicular collision due to total neglect.

In my dreams, I often take control and stop bad things from happening.

Isn't that what journalism is? I am no one special. Just a person who is always aware of what time it is, what's happening around me, and who I want to be. And fully aware that I am a human being who has made many mistakes. I hope not to make more, and hope others will adopt that mindset.

I want to improve. I want to get better. I want to live, to see a face that isn't there.

The man thanked me. I still don't know if me shouting had anything to do with it or not, but had he been hit, the night would have been very different. I would have been an eyewitness.

But I shouted.

The dream of reality

The barrier between being awake and being asleep is unmarked. At some point in early morning, I was aware of being in a hotel room near an amusement park with all of my family in rooms nearby. I could not fall asleep there, either. There were too many family members who were awake, coming and going.

In various rooms were my various children, their various parents and spouses, my siblings and their children. I could not wake up fully, and just wanted rest. I kept getting disturbed by their wakefulness and vivacity. Everyone was alive.

At one point, I gave up trying to sleep. I was unable to read the time on my phone. I went outside to get away from all the racket, and it was bright outside. I moved around the outside of the hotel, and went back into one next door that was more of a resort. There was an arcade, but I didn't recognize any of the games. I work at such a place, and I wanted to see what pinball games they might had.

There were none. I was excited to bring back my children later when it was daytime, except it was daytime, bright outside. I left the arcade, walked into this strange holographic theater that was showing a play with giant striped cats. I got my phone to take a picture of this for my daughter, and the time read 3 a.m. I was surprised! It was sunny outside and all of the strangers around me seemed to be awake.

I stopped a man walking past and tried to get his attention to ask him about the time. Maybe my phone was wrong.

I stopped more people. Or tried to. No one would interact me. I tried to touch someone and my hand passed right on through.

I realized I'd been dead for some time, and was a ghost, and nothing I did mattered. This was my fate, to haunt the world without being in it.

I woke up. Not into another dream, but into the early morning of my life. In the dark of my room, I could make out lines indicating writing, but they were too faint to read. And I was actually awake, acknowledging that I feel like a ghost every day, alone and doomed to being alone for the rest of my days. I am inconsequential now to so many I love, and that is my actual fate, to haunt the world without being fully in it.

I accept this reality and will strive to do the best I can within these parameters.

120 percent

Someone described my recent efforts as being at 120 percent, and he's not wrong. I've produced a ridiculous amount of content in the last five months. I've not taken a break.

This week, though. I have. I decided not to put out a Charlottesville Community Engagement newsletter this past Monday, but I posted the Week Ahead that morning instead. 

I didn't do one today because I wanted to clear the decks for a meeting for a new project. I don't do a lot of Zoom calls since leaving my last job, but I've done a lot this month. It's new work on top of what I'm already doing. The two fit together, though, in a way that brings together all of the work I've done my whole life. 

So I'm going to go easy the next two weeks, and only produce three newsletters a week. There's less material to draw from, but there will be enough. I'll take a little more downtime and continue to realize that I'm building something and I don't start from scratch each day. I make that mistake a lot. 

 

Decidely different

Venus is flickering, winking. Not supposed to do that. Only stars twinkle, I was told, but for some reason the planet is most certainly not staying in one solid state of vibrancy. Of course, the source of light is far away, regardless, and whatever powers this luminosity cares not one whit for my observation.

I look up again, outside of my studio window, and another cursory observation turns up no bright speck of light at all. It's vanished! Perhaps the light is closer, mobile? Perhaps there are creatures close by observing things?

Either way, the distant mote shall recede soon, blinding by the rays of the powerful mass of hot plasma that gives all of us life. My planet is an amazing place, and the more I think of it and not me, the more content I am with my existence. 

  

The replacement

I have opted to no longer post material to Facebook.

Over the next few months I will likely use this blog to backdate posts from that website. There is a lot of memory there, and I don't want them to own it. 

And yes, I am aware that this is also a faceless corporation that probably is making money off of me in ways I can't quite comprehend.

I joined that site 12 years ago, which is roughly when my life fell apart. Or, one chapter ended and then other passages happened. 

So, this is where I will opt to publicly shout at the universe for now. I've done it before.