Ungrounded Again!

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It's hump day and I am working away on a huge project. Took a brief hiadias to let the thoughts collect and the resolutions settle in for the long haul. I don't make many resolutions cause I try to keep them all. Oh well... I was listening to a great Tom Petty song...There's just something about flying that is completely liberating. If you have ever or rember the first flight in a helecopter when you went over a ridge and your stomach drops because your mind is getting mixed messages from you eyes and your conscience....breathtaking when you should be falling, but your still flying.


My wifey got me flying lessons on my birthday and it took awhile for the right flying conditions but it finally happened. what a great present! I have always wanted to fly in everyway — to soar with the eagles and flirt with the birds. AMAZING! IT was sooo easy that I didn't believe I was in control til I shoved the wheel forward and we plunged downward. The instructor guides me through the headset on the mechanics and how to do certain flight patterns. It was natural. He answered every question except responding to my "so we could fly down there and chase cows..." no response. After repeating it twice, I decided my headset was temporarily malfunctioning.


Sweety snapped pics and video from the backseat of the small 4-seater. Occassional turbulance reminded us of the miracle/realism of flight. Its kinda like cars and plains have robbed us of the appreciation of distance that we now take for granted.Free Fallin'. After a few Miami Vice side glides, I flew to Lebanon and Hendersonville then back to Murfreesboro. Sweet! Thanks honey.

Now I am just remembering the crisp air, the freedom, the view and the tranquility. Ahhhhhh.....take it Tom....

Free fallin, now Im free fallin, now im
Free fallin, now Im free fallin, now im
I wanna glide down over mulholland
I wanna write her name in the sky
Gonna free fall out into nothin
Gonna leave this world for a while
And Im free, free fallin
Yeah Im free, free fallin ...more...

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Aside from that great present, I had a fantastic dinner with our great friend Tom and Cassandra. Its always a blast. I got a great Salvador Dali, one of my favorite artist coffee table picture book. Matching t-shirts for me and wifey (yes, we prefer to match....I know its kinda hokey; but such that it is). Thanks Tom. Reminds me of a funny non-blonde story. Anyway, some day when I doodle or sketch or even better, draw, I also got a great leather-bound sketch pad. What a great year!

...The Untouchable Tastic!..

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Well it's Wednesday and I am in my rare form — "energyfeeder" form; embracing the "untouchable tastic!" It's like an energy form all its own. It ebbs and swells and is surfable if you can stay with its viscious darting moves. It's a wild ride when you're tapped into the force of the universe. Typically, its very scary knowing you could lose yourself at any minute...like being swallowed by a tidal wave and being wiped out, burried under an unfathomable momentum. Maui is still fresh in my mind; the sound of the surf, the smell of the warm air and the relaxation of the bliss. I have been running full steam every since. The light remains only a dime-sized goal; never moving closer and sometimes blinking. I have re-started making a list of achieveables to guard my focus and energies. Making a reasonably short list of "to do's" helps increase the momentum necessary to be able to funnel and/or ride the energy of the cosmos. My head feels like a Broadway sign with all the old fashioned light bulbs going around the sign...everything is flashing, the hum of the electricity moving from filament to filament is deafening.


Its like watching every movie at once; like hearing a thousand conversations; but trying to listen to just one. That's where I am; not sure how but it happens occassionally; especially when I am on the downside of possible and under the weight of the unliftable. Something else is here with me; maybe within me. It's enuf to make you never want to be without the buzz of it and yet I often am. Arrgh...even now; with the distraction of having a walkman in one ear currently playing "Spirit in the Sky," I can hear the person across the room breathing and snorting, the spit leaking down the back of his throat like cooling lava from a volcano miles away. The lights overhead blink as the electricity nods at its passing opposites on neighboring wires, the cars outside pause at the red light as the gas flows through its veins like metal blood, even the bird taking off from the wire just out the window who chirps at being airborne; all in symphony with the roar of a huge transit bus driving through. Oh well....mmmmm....I like it, I like it all. As my fingers continue to race at emptying the fullness of my mind; I picture the condensation that occurs when cool air glazes a window and droplets form until they are so heavy, they begin to run — then the memory of watching rain on a windshield treated with RainX spread like terrified spiders across the windshield leaving it completely clear and dry. Its all so marvelous. Its all so mysterious. The gift of such little things that we may never understand and typically not even notice are continually given to us almost free of charge. I hope I get to keep this for the rest of my week. Life is most thrilling when we are off the security of the ground; suspended by Faith and Hope; defying the logic to look down; for looking down will steal any freedom from gravity and you will fall — some even sink. The eagle belongs in the sky; he's vulnerable on the ground.

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You Can't Make the Jump Til You Bump the Hump!

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It's Wednesday; the one they call "hump day." For me, it's that point that says "half way over." You can't get there without going past here. I suppose that's true of a lot of things about life. We always want to fast-forward to the part we anticipate to be more exciting or relaxing. Typically, if it is actually either of those, it goes way faster than the other long days before and you're back at jump.

All that aside or at least in stride; back to the title. I love watching the X-sports — yeah, the ones with the motorcycles doing 360's over eighty feet above the ground. Even as a kid, we would set up ramps consisting of a plank, a block and something in the way. There's something about barreling toward a ramp knowing how great its gonna be if everything goes well. We love to defy gravity. That's why we love Superman, Evil Knievel, drifting and "hey bubba watch this." I cant image what it feels like to ride a bull. I watch PB Riding too....eight seconds can be a lot longer than u think.

Anyway, the moral of the story is this: You can't make the jump, til you bump the hump. Part of the reason we experience tough moments in life is that it helps us make the jump. These "humps" or opportunities as some might try to make you believe make the tires of our lives disconnect from the norm and allow us through upset to leave the ground, to be free of our humdrum, to dislodge from our expected and mondane to become airborne, even weightless. It is at these times, somewhere between "oh yeah" and "oh no," we encounter our bump and are catapulted to a new destination, a new level of "us" that leaves us stronger, more alive or at least "unsame."

We seem to hate change the older we become. I am trying to train myself to pedal faster toward the new ramps. I know that will increase my hangtime in an attempt be more "unsame" evenmoreso.

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