Let My Spirit Speak

Last night I went to a birthday party at Indian Shores. The hosts were friends I’d made in junior high school. The honoree was my ex. I rode over with our surviving son. Other guests were a black Irish firebrand with a big mouth, an artist who grew up down the street from me with the gentle spirit of a songbird, and a stunning fashion model of a certain age from a Mafia family.

We grunted and grinned over real Italian spaghetti made by a real Italian, garlic bread made by the atheist bigmouth, an artistic salad made by the artist, the incredible chocolate cake made by the hostess, vanilla ice cream made by the host, and flan made by the white-haired beauty from Mars.

I enjoyed the company, for the affection, and for the conversations about our families and their dysfunctions, corporal punishment, making art, calculus, quantum paradoxes... and the usual books, movies, TV, recipes, and children.

Why are there always friends who bring you down? How do they do it? And why? Sometimes their motive is altruistic. They just want to help ... your health and your nicotine addiction, your baked beans with crisper bacon, your dog with a diet.

More than once I’ve considered taking one in particular off my list. But 45 years prevents it, when that one introduced me to Joplin, Hendrix, Morrison and dope smoking and has had me screaming with laughter many happy times.

Sadly, the years have brought the dreaded constipation. Talk with my son and the artist was about the necessity, and difficulty, of freeing one’s self from inhibition so as to embrace intuition. To shock or evoke disagreement is inevitable when trying to make a cosmic connection to a clear inner voice, and feeling a thought or act of the moment break free.

Inhibiters need not be avoided entirely ... only the toxic few. But to be a member of the inner circle, please do not judge, correct, advise, or suggest a change of course when one is flying in the zone where neither right nor wrong disturbs the currents.