I can feel them as clearly as if I'm looking at this picture of a wheat field. The lines of memory and experience stretching back through time to my own earliest beginnings. Growing, all the time.

Each year, there are added to their number, experiences, places, events, thoughts and people. It grows larger and larger as I age. Have you seen it? Do you notice your own? I often get the overwhelming sense that there's more in my past than there is in my future. I've never felt that way before. I can't imagine what it's like for the elderly. So much life in the past, and so few years left. Like rushing toward an unseen waterfall. It can be heard, the speed of the water can be felt, but it's distance is still indiscernible.

When I go over the falls, will the river of my life disappear?

My oldest son and I were leaving our local Papa Murphy's take-n-bake pizza place the other night, bearing foodstuffs for the rest of our ailing family, when he and I stumbled into the following conversation:

Hey dad! Garfield would really like that place, it says they have lasagna!

Yeah. Garfield really digs lasagna doesn't he?

Uh huh.

Thinking this is the right time to introduce the concept of trying new foods, I decide to brooch the subject...

Say. Since Garfield likes lasagna so much, maybe you should check it out too! I mean, it's kinda like pizza with noodles instead of bread!

But I don't like noodles dad.

Noodles are alot like bread son. They're really just filler with very little taste.

This is a lie, but only a small one. What I'm really saying is that their taste is mild...ok?

Besides, I continued, how do you know whether you like lasagna or not if you've never tried it?

And, in his best "duh" sounding voice, my son quite comfortably replied:

Because Garfield brought me some once.

Huh? Garfield brought you some?

Yeah. He brought me some and I tried it, and I decided that I didn't like it.

Oh. How often does Garfield visit you bearing food items?

Oh, every now and then.

Foiled again! This time, by an imaginary friend. Blast!

Seven. Seven medicines. That's how many different prescriptions I am currently on. They medicate, de-inflaminate, un-constrictinate, de-hypertensinate, and un-cholestoralinate this body that I've ruined over years of misuse.

Pneumonia is the latest bug. Anti-biotics and an inhalable steroid.

I hope to be back down to three medicines by the time spring finally comes around.

How are you?

Instead of take the previous post down because people might misinterpret it, I'll just say the following:

Please do not read too much into these words, not too much. It's just me being weird. Also, I think I might have a fever.

Nite, nite all.

Zipping through traffic, guitar rhythm grinding, bass line pounding, through speeds faster than possible to accurately manage, through tunnels and valleys of rock, toward darkened hills covered in cloud.

Those are not clouds. Those are the tell-tale signs of dragons. There, dragons roam through open valleys and broad meadows, they hide under tall pines and shimmering aspens. This is not a freeway, but a river of ice, over which my metallic steed carries me, long hair and coat whipping in the unending current of air, to certain doom.

Why long hair and a long coat? Because why not? That's why.

Sword in hand, I arrive to a scene of desolation, darkness, mist and shadow. Living dead walk to and fro around the castle gates, trying, trying to escape, trying to find life again. But the dragon is powerful. My body aches. My body rebels against the acid rain, the vile air, and the gloaming. I am nearly beaten.

I will not win this fight, I know it now. But I will leave a mark. A long deep scar will be my epitaph on the dragon. It will know I was here. It will know I was alive.

As I walk out and feel the bitter cold, I remember that I've done this before. On so many days I've walked out, started the car, scraped the ice, and driven away in the half-light of a northern winter morning.

Are you there with me? Are you there in the seat beside me as I drive the back streets to get to the freeway? Are you there as I sing the music, and look around at the world around me, and talk to it quietly?

We face the world alone so many times. As children we are driven away to face classes full of other children who've been told to do the same. We are trained to be independent, alone, self-reliant...to face it all by ourselves, in our own way

Do you know me? Do you know me as I careen down the freeway beside you at seventy miles an hour or more? I see that you are alone in your car as well. What are you thinking? Do you know that you are alone like me? Do you realize that you've been trained to be independent? Are you handling the responsibilities as tenuously as me?

I park the car close to the same spot I always do when I drive by myself to work, turning the wheels to the curb because it's an incline. This car will likely be covered in a fresh layer of new snow when I come out in the half light of a northern winter evening to leave. Do you see me as I walk alone over ice and snow from my car to my office? Do you know me? Do you care? Who's thinking of me right now, looking for me to show up, waiting for me?

We've been trained for this, but it's still foreign to us. We've been told that this is the best way, but it still feels wrong. We've been indoctrinated to believe that separation, independence, and self-reliance is right, that anything else is weakness, is unacceptable. We lay in hospital beds alone. We wait in doctors offices alone. We sit in our cubicles alone. We chat to one another across vast distances, alone.

I wonder if my rope's still hanging from the tree
By the standing pool where you drank me
And filled me full of thirsty love
And the memory of water?

I remember the feeling of the sun, on my face, and the wind in the cotton wood tree, alone. That's what I remember the most, being alone. We had land, and everyone else was older. Much older.

The ancient rock under my feet, lost in my thoughts, in my daydream life. I remember running through the dry, dusty land that we had, from gully to gully, Buster panting at my side, my light brown bowl cut hair sweeping my face.

I wonder if a king still fishes there
His back towards the burned-out air
His laughing catches singing loud
The memory of water

The stock tank was the color of dark chocolate. It was a soup of mucky, thick, water. I remember standing on the man made dike and looking down at the water, imagining monsters, and seeing snakes. I remember the time my grandfather and I tried to catch a jar full of minnows in that tank, and all we got was a jar full of Cottonmouth Water Moccasin, its angry eyes looking out from behind the cursive text of the mason jar with indignity.

I remember the sword battles I had there, beside that inland sea. I was a king, alone, fighting against invisible foes.

Your taste is blood and ecstasy
But I must drink you all alone
You're freckled like a speckled egg
A dove, but this bird has flown
O stay with me sweet memory
O stay with me

So many things that only I remember. The long, silent drives between our home and the city, alone, in the back seat. The long summer days by the creek breaking open cattails and watching the cotton float away on the breeze, alone. Finding animal skulls on our land, and imagining the monsters and devils that lurked just beyond my own vision. I was alone a lot, but it was the good kind of alone, the kind that kindles the imagination like dry leaves in a fire.

I wonder if my rope's still hanging from the tree
By the standing pool where you drank me
As pain flows through me like champagne
Of the memory of water

A long time has passed, it seems, since I wandered here, in my memory, in the landscape of my childhood. I wonder what my children will remember of their childhood surroundings. City streets, small backyards, sidewalks. All the things that are mostly absent from my own childhood memories.

lyrics: Marillion - This Strange Engine - Memory of Water

I hear a lot of talk out there about how people hate Valentines Day. It's probably justified, given the way St. Valentine's Day has morphed into St. Hallmark's, FTD's and cheap heart-shaped boxed candy day over the past hundred years or so. I hold them no ill who loathe this holiday. I myself am not a fan of the marketing of this particular holiday either, which I think is the focus of much of everyone's dislike. As one blogger who I can't recall recently put it, it's something to occupy our minds. At it's simplest, this is true. Take all the hatred in the world, the death, the dying, the killing and the suffering, and humans still have loved ones.

I believe that with anything, there are other aspects that are worth exploring than those explored by marketing executives and sappy Hallmark slogans, even on Valentines Day. Marketing and business aside, there is love. Cynicism and skepticism in check, we humans still experience love. We love passionately, we love deeply, and we love freely with each other and those around us...or at least, we should.

My wife loves to celebrate holidays with our little ones. She doesn't do up the house in garish red hearts or cheap silver heart shaped glitter. There are no paper wall hangings of Cupid, no heart shaped red cake, nothing of the sort. She just tells them about it, what it's for, the history of it, and we get little cards for their friends. We buy one bag of candy and indulge in a nice dinner with each other, and tell each other how much we love one another. We do similar things on the other holidays that many people dislike such as Halloween and Thanksgiving. We do our best to not get caught up in the fake, and stick with the real.

Maybe people misunderstand love (I'm convinced that this might be true for most things.). Maybe for most people, love, and Valentines Day is for sex. Sex is not love, but love can be part of sex. It's easy to have sex without love, but sex with love is real, and better.

This Valentines Day I wish everyone love. Love yourselves, love your loved ones, love your wives, husbands and partners. Love one another.

I remember him lying in bed and moaning in pain. I remember my mother singing joy comes in the morning by his bedside. It was 1976, I think, and I was about six years old, but I don't remember clearly.

At the top of the stairs, above the dark chasm of the downstairs mysteries, I remember standing. The wood paneling of the dirty clothes hamper at my back, and utter silence, except for my sudden scream. Maybe I knew nobody was down there. I remember feeling like I was shrinking, like I was falling. Like I was suddenly the smallest thing in the world. I remember uncontrollable tears until someone found me, probably my oldest sister, but I don't remember clearly.

At church, I remember anger. I remember being hateful and violent. I remember hiding behind the tiny puppet show stand until someone, I think my older brother, came and got me. I remember riding back and forth with only my two sisters, and brother, in our station wagon, across the vacant grey fields of north Texas, listening to them talk about things I didn't understand.

These memories come hard for me. They're behind doors, under tables, hidden in closets and behind curtains. They are the shadows in a room lit only by candles. They rush away when I try to see them more clearly, and sink into the cracks. These are my lost years. These were the years I almost became fatherless, from what they tell me.

I remember standing in the doorway of a hospital room. Tubes, beeps, and a broken body lying there. I remember not being able to look at him fully in the face. Being afraid. I remember that. There is a blur of people coming and going in my mind. People who came through, talked, patted me on the head, and left. I didn't understand. Why couldn't he come home? Why couldn't she come home? I suppose my oldest sister, at 19 maybe, took over surrogate mothering during this dark time, but I don't remember clearly.

Maybe this time in my life is why I'm different. A little "off" some might say. Maybe it's what makes me who I am. I don't know, however, because I don't remember those years clearly. It's been hard to even write this, because the content is so vague. But he survived, came home, and my memories regain their strength starting in 1980. My lost years are still hidden. I wonder what's in there? After thirty years, I still don't know, and it's nobody's fault. There's nobody to blame. I just don't want it to happen again.

"Son, I'm going to have something done to me on Monday."

"What?"

"Well, it's kinda hard to explain."

"Will you be ok?"

"I think so. How old are you now son?"

"I'm six dad."

What is it that makes humanity climb mountains, go faster, higher, farther? Seek knowledge deeper, greater, and better?

Is it the same thing that makes humanity hate, kill, and disenfranchise? Is it the same thing that makes humanity turn a deaf ear when people are suffering, starving and dying?

Why is it that some people help others, give of their time and efforts? Why is it that some people write great and meaningful words, advance the causes of this world and make grand changes?

Is it the same reason some people become blind when passing a homeless person on the street? Is it the same reason some people want nothing for anyone but themselves, and their own, and want to do nothing but take from others?

Someday in the future, perhaps the aliens will explain this to us. Maybe they'll explain the dual nature of humanity. Maybe they'll explain why humanity, with so much hope, so much potential, and so much goodness, can harbor so much hatred, anger, and division.

I hope I'm dead before this happens. Because, most likely, after the aliens explain this to us, they'll then explain why they need to eat us.

Sorry.

I am alive, but I am only one. One of many on this planet. I was floating and staring upwards at what would have become my home again, had something not changed. I was alone. Humanity's unwanted child. Stare into my eyes and see your own fear, and question my future. I am the human face of poverty, of hopelessness.

But someone found me because I cried out. I wasn't ready for my watery and silent dissapearance. I cried out to God and humanity, and someone heard. I was innocence cast away, unwanted. Now I am hope kindled, if only for a little while. Can you hear my brothers and sisters crying out even still?

Look into my eyes if you dare.