The Art Of Catching Trains

As I raced wildly through the hurried crowd at the airport, all rushing to get to the gate where their flight would carry them to their next destination, I began to split my dimension and found myself being lifted from my own destination and into another reality that arranged a different view from above even though my feet continued to walk at a brisk pace.
I looked around at all the humans, all with a different agenda and all not aware of my emotions that were coming into full view as I made my way to the gate of my next space of time. I began to have so many feelings that were coming to me because of the things that I became aware of in the last few days. While going back to my considered home base is a happy thing it was also bittersweet with memories constantly hitting me up one side and down the other.
However on this visit it was not to be one of fun and party lights, no this visit was one of connection and redirection. Sometimes reality can hit you between the eyes and really send you into orbit, but for me it was a calm and peaceful awareness of future things that were yet to come, yet eagerly anticipated.
I embraced the person and my surroundings as if I had never left. I looked around and knew that things were a bit disheveled but still the surroundings felt wonderfully familiar and I instinctively knew that jumping the invisible hurdles would take patience, calmness and support to a friend who carries the same DNA of friendship that I have. I sat, at times, and scanned his aura for the correct way into the process of planning the new directions needed for a positive arrival to the next phase of life. I felt the days still ahead would have to lay down the next set of directions that would eventually lead him from the dark tunnel and out toward the light of a new happier tomorrow.
I often sat quietly and took everything in, silently researching the best way out of the dilemmas that plagued the atmosphere and at what swift pace could end the fears that danced around him. At times the tango dance of fear shrouded his demeanor in a split second.
I asked myself so many times what kind of approach would be the best. Eagerly I wanted the answer to this and many other questions and journaled my request to the universe in hopes of getting an immediate response so that I could move forward in the most gentle way.
Like most things that the universe delivers, the answers just show up in the most distinctive way and it will always be up to you to see the sign that is being given to you.
As we edged toward the starting gate and the boxes began to appear I had my universal answer delivered to me. The awareness completely surrounded me like a divine feeling when you know you are on the right track. To be exact "tracks" would be the necessary items needed to set his newest train on and learning to be the conductor toward his next chapter on the railway of life.
I stood silently there and gazed into a large box of miniature trains and realized at that moment that it resembled his life. All the trains were in plastic boxes all sealed up, unorganized, and not being used as they were meant to be. Those tiny train cars were not on any given track, yet they awaited the linking that would connect them and send them down the track to their destination not yet designated.

Intuitively I knew that I could help in linking his trains together. Support and confidence would help send him down the tracks to an unnamed destination and since he would be the conductor I would still be there at any stop along the way that needed assurance.
I realized that his love of trains was the symbolic propellent toward a new turn of events and the tracks would create the awareness and becoming the universal conductor he would arrive at his new destination and never look back.
It was at the moment of understanding the gift I had been given in having this friendship over the many years of life, that I realized in gazing into the box of train cars that there was truly was an art to catching a train. Innocently and without his own knowledge, he shared that special reality with me. Inside that big box of trains, all safely tucked away in their plastic boxes, laid a future and once they were all linked together, the destinations were limitless. I could feel the shedding of their plastic safe containment and sense the urgency of linking up to the reason for their creation and their desire to travel to destinations unknown.

I came away from my trip with a most distinct awareness. The love from friendship can be quite strong and yet quite fragile. Day after day I became privy to the feelings that had been dipped in depression and kept within a tortured soul. The conversations and emotions that were shared, slowly opened the door toward a hopeful light and a sense joy and direction began to form. It was then that I began to put the pieces together and could feel that I had done something good for a person who holds such a light in my heart.

It was through the tears and trepidations of my own anxiety that I came to realize that the true art of catching trains is seeing the perspective view from within your mind and having the drive and desire to catch the dream inside your heart and just conduct the ride on the train of destiny. For some of us, the art of anything can come naturally, and for others it takes a few times to put the image together. Yet when the image is clear and the horizon seeps in, the arrival at the next depot is exhilarating.

So in closing, the art of catching any train is arriving at the station on time and leaving your past behind you...........All Aboard!

THE VIEW FROM THE VIDEO

At the insistence of my inner yearning to do something with the countless number of video tapes that I possessed from years of documentations, I decided to take the time to have all of those tapes converted to digital DVD so that I would not lose whatever masterpiece existed in vivid VHS. After a couple of months of professional copying I had them all reproduced and feared no more about losing lost footage that held some visual proof of moments in my life.

It would seem that I held an impetuous need to watch them but as it would stand I put them safely away into a box for later viewing. It's an unfortunate thing that happens when you complete your deed and then you just have to find a suitable time to watch them. Unfortunately you seem to forget about them and once again they await their debut of viewing enjoyment. It would take almost three years before I retrieved those silver discs and decided that I would like to post some of my favorite moments on YouTube for all the world to see what a fun person I was and to see such crazy antics that I would perform. Much to my surprise I became transported to a visual life that once existed, only this time I was looking from the outside since I had stood inward during the filming of all the moments. While that all seems to be something that would be both enjoyable and fun, what transpired throughout those many hours of viewing pleasure catapulted me into the twilight zone from the past.

Hour by hour I saw all the people and things that once made up my life in those moments of time.

I wanted to feel the memory in a more mature sense but instead I found that I suddenly missed the person that was in the footage that played before my eyes.

Who was that person and where did he disappear to. There were present moments of delight and moments of sadness to see the living people who no longer grace this earthly life and there was a kind of joy that was almost unrecognizable as it emanated from the screen. My heart just continually melted as each disc held so many memories that it began to interfere with my present surroundings. Once again I relived what once was and found myself yearning to be a part of it all again. To say iwas enjoyable would be construed as partially true but I suddenly realized that I missed that person who existed inside those frames of days gone by.

Bit by bit I removed some of those pieces and put them into a folder for easy access to view at my leisure, however I am now left with the feeling that something is so missing within the confines that I call my present life. Perhaps it is my age that is yearning to be frivolous and without responsibility, yet I had responsibility then but somehow there seems to be a huge difference. I feel the burden of grappling for another chance to dream of something that will reinvent and revive my dwindling faith in myself. I have heard it called a middle aged metamorphosis and should not be taken lightly, but the pain inside my silent soul yearns to break free and find the road to my last chapter of  life experiences.

Day after day I try to follow the path to the power of positive thinking and I can hang on to that thread of hope for a while before it once again breaks and I search frantically for another shred to grasp on to to keep my head from going underwater.

When I finished the last of those images that flashed before my eyes I knew that I had opened up a wormhole to some dark center slide and I now have no idea where the hole will drop me. In all those images it seemed so light and breezy yet I am privy to know that it was not always that way. Same deck of cards being played but the present hands now plays the cards all so differently. A wise man once told me that when you turn your cards up one at a time and look at them all and acknowledge each face then you just keep reshuffling the deck and turning those same cards up and it will be up to you as to how you will play the game. You either repeat that same suit or you use strategy to win the new game in that moment of your life. I was never much on card playing and that damn deck still keeps showing up and from my recent viewings of life as it once was, I have once again reshuffled   the deck and now I must face another game of turning the cards over one at a time and reading the faces.

What is it about life choices that make or break a present situation? I still do not have the answer to that question I just know that I must find the answer about myself that will create another video that could be my Oscar winning performance(s). Until such time I will take certain parts from my past and cut and paste certain special parts so that in the final editing I will finally be even more proud of my time and
space in the present.

THE ROADS LESS TRAVELED

In a lunch conversation today the topics merged from one thing to another and then back again. Most things discussed had to do with the current happenings in our lives and how we managed to be where we are today, the now and the present. I kept remembering, as we all spoke, of all the things that I still have not done and how taking the risks and chances to do them all always has to do with stepping over the line and into the unfamiliar scary unknowns that changes bring about. In the confines of risk there always lurks the failure fork in the road that you start to walk down. Almost like having the devil and the angel sitting on you shoulders and each pulling you into different directions. Keeping the pace moving forward and feeling the intuition guiding you seems to stave off the fears that seems to crop up unexpectedly yet the silent insecurities linger just a breath away.
I would have thought that as we mature that the danger of risk should grow less and less but with the valuable amount of information that comes with maturity, it seems to get in the way of solid decision making and keeps you second guessing until you leap and move onward. How is it that we are present to live life when we are really not living it? So, if we are supposed to live life then why do we hesitate when opportunities form within our minds, and the dreams that seem so close by get lost in the shuffle of chaos that we seem to create so easily day to day. The roads less traveled are the roads that I want to continually walk down because there aren't too many people to distract me when going in my chosen direction. The disheveled gravel on the roads is very bumpy and rocky and even though there are pot holes in the road I know I will just step over them and continue to my point of destination. I want to take it to the limit and see just how far I can travel before the roads end.
I believe by taking a less traveled route I will always be able to see that clear day that really does go on forever just by knowing who I really am and where I want to be at any time, and at any place. Trite as it sounds there is no more need to make excuses for who I really am. I have finally learned it's never to late to move on!