I’m watching her go through this anxiety of being tested: I had exams nightmares for decades after the last one was completed. This can not be isolated to just us, can it?

I tell her how little really rides on the success or lack thereof in the whole scheme of things… relax! I’ll still love you.

I really don’t care about marks on tests. I think it’s probably more important to learn how to navigate the problems of humans and their peculiarities.

I don’t know if I have always processed this sense of right and wrong or if I had the guilt of the Baptists and Anglicans ringing in my ears telling me that anything I took pleasure in was wrong…

However, one thing is for certain that the feeling one gets when you are being conned or getting one put over on you was a sense that was always in its infancy.

I mean, I don’t know why, but somehow, I always had this gullibility of that if someone was smiling and talking, then I just believed them.

This was true until it wasn’t true. Then, I just didn’t believe anyone until proven differently. This is progress.

It’s 7a.m. on a Sunday in July 2023, and I wake up thinking about her because I’m impressed more than in love.

I should be worried and filled with dread. However, I am not. Does this mean I have faith? I don’t know. I do know I have met someone who has taken me out of me.

I will wait and not react. I will exercise patience. I have slept well, which is a good sign.

Things are out of my control. I am not powerless. It’s just in a holding pattern. Spending time with the kid, reading the Russians, introducing her to Sherlock and Cumberbatch.

She left yesterday, and she said she would return tomorrow. She said she lives in the present. She didn’t dwell in yesterday. I am trying not to worry about tomorrow’s.

It is a work in progress. The weather is good and warm here. The girl is sleeping and talking in her sleep. Calm short sentences. Working something out, too…

It’s been 6 years since I finished my short film The Meditation, and little about that went as planned. Of note: the world didn’t end then either.

Dennis Mantin

The strike has loomed and lingers.

My bank stacks are getting thin.

Although no one is pointing fingers.

The pile is deep that I’m stepping in.

There’s no panic yet in the briar.

No heads are in the sand.

Drastic measures might require.

Fresh cuts replaced with canned!

I’ve been living in my head.

Getting soft and fat and mean.

I rarely leave the house now.

Or the pages in between.

I have great imagination.

I don’t need your porn.

I remember skies and sunshine.

From as far back when I was born.

I’m not afraid of dying.

I just want this life to stay.

I have no idea what is coming…

So much loss has gone away.

I am nothing if not present.

And it’s always been that score.

Even when I couldn’t see.

When my back was at the door.

I hear distant sounding music.

Played by someone who was on tour.

Someone who can be that wise.

To know how and why and more.

In those times, I need to listen.

To those who came before.

Sometimes, I just need to be.

In the draft of troubadour.

She was an unusually beautiful woman, with long black straight hair and olive skin, somewhere between 30 and 40, with agitated and insistent eyes.

She said that she grew up on a farm in Vietnam and that she was the middle child of 5 and that they grew up poor and that she lives in the moment and not in the past.

I knew I had to have her. The feeling swept over me like a tsunami at a flood in some strange exotic locale where palm trees sway in the breeze. I am focused, and the world is on fire, everywhere except for me and mine.

UPDATE:

Wife

I looked at capability like it was something grand and free.

I was so deep in narcissistic, and then again, I was just 3.

Then, the teachers always wrote in the comments, report card.

He could do so much better, except he doesn’t try that hard.

Then, as I got older… They wrote down about bad attitude.

What were they expecting? Their judgments seemed quite crude.

It was like they were so offended that someone learned to laugh.

All in all, it’s not so bad to just just to choose a different path.

The excitement left the station.

On a train just after one.

We all had time to catch our breath.

At stars bright as the sun.

There were laughs and there was drama.

Like their world was all a stage.

The sunshine only shone for them.

With porcelain skin that doesn’t age.

No plans are made for certain.

But we are changing home address.

Right after we do the cleanup.

Of this God forsaken mess.

Do not wait up. Cause I’ll be late.

I trotted off. Thought it’ll be great.

I got drunk, and I got some stone.

Woke up weary and all alone.

She left a note, not coming back.

Went back to sleep. I guess that’s that.

There’s growing up or there’s going down.

The bottoms here. All over town.

There comes a day, and that day is here.

I’ve had my share, and I want to be clear.

Please don’t be mad. I’m full of fear.

If I don’t stop, then the end is near…

I’m waking up, and it’s not too late.

Faced some fears that change fate.

I’m not drunk, and I’m not alone.

And I got this place. I call home.