One Step At A Time

One Step At A Time by Queen Marie of Romania, 1926

Once I had a very dear friend who gave me wise advice. When things piled upon me and I had moments of doubt and discouragement, he always used to say: "One step at a time, my Queen - no man can take more than one step at a time."

If in our hours of distress we keep this thought before us it soothes things marvelously. Never matter how complicated our business seems at the moment one can always take a single step. It is the thought of the duties en masse that appall one! But, take the first step, and the next is easier, and the next, and so on until the thing is cleared up and out of the way.

We walk the apparently endless road - one step at a time. We build the great house - one brick upon another. We break the bundle of sticks - one by one.

Once I myself was facing what seemed an insurmountable difficulty - one of those destructive, life-sapping, courage-killing troubles. Each breath I drew was suffocating as I stood with clenched hands, wondering where was the way out...then came the kind old voice whispering, "One step at a time, my Queen, no man can do more." And I hung on and put out my foot and took my one step, blindly, gropingly, with gritted teeth and ears shut to all discouraging voices. Despair melted and courage came, I went on, desperately, knowing I alone could carry my own cross - step by step, slowly, till I found firmer ground. I never gave up and won through. During my struggle my sky seemed very dark - no sun, no stars, but something kept me pushing on, one step by one step, uphill in a lightless night. But it was so worthwhile. I reached the top and I saw the light.

It is the will to succeed and the beating of problems, one by one, that finally get you there.

I Shall Not Pass This Way Again

"I expect to pass through life but once.
If therefore, there be any kindness I can show,
or any good thing I can do to any fellow being,
let me do it now,
and not defer or neglect it,
as I shall not pass this way again."

~William Penn

Farewell, Farewell

"...she said to him before he went: 'This is our last parting, Estel, my son. I am aged by care, even as one of the lesser Men; and now it draws near I cannot face the darkness of our time that gathers upon Middle-earth. I shall leave soon.'

Aragorn tried to comfort her, saying: 'Yet there may be a light beyond the darkness; and if so, I would have you see it and be glad.'

But she answered only with this linnod:


'Onen i-Estel Edain, ú-chebin estel amin.'

"and Aragorn went away heavy of heart. Gilraen died before the next spring."

Dear Gentle Readers,

My mother, one of my best friends and silent reader of my works, passed away recently. It was unexpected and I never imagined I'd be where I am now, dealing with the cruel realities of Death.

I didn't know what to say about it here. My heart was broken. I went back and read what I wrote on my Limbo post. About wanting to give it all up. Stop writing, stop blogging, delete this blog and become a "What ever happened to...?"

Then I found this email from my Mom tonight about my Limbo post. Telling me what I needed to hear, what I already knew...

"Dear [TS], I read your latest entry on 1000 Sons and I'm at a loss for words. I hope you don't decide to just give it up.

I was going to write a comment on your blog, but I didn't really want to send all this out to the world. I so love to read what you write, whether it's fiction or real life.

And I'm so sorry things are in such a mess right now. It's such a cliche, I know, but hang in there. I know I'm not the only one who enjoys your writings. As someone who has had some experience with sucky situations, it can and usually does get better. Think of some of the times that you felt like it was just hopeless and things couldn't get worse, and how things got better and changed. (I was tempted to say "and things couldn't get worse, and then they did".....cause I could hear it going through your mind. We really are such smart asses. aren't we?)

But seriously, I would hate to see you give this up. Hell, remember when you were #1 on google search for the dog story? That doesn't happen to people who write crappy. And remember what we always say.....choose happiness. And God says (or maybe it was some biblical figure) "This too shall pass." It really is true.

Anyway, know that I will always love you and no matter what you decide, I will always support you in your decisions. Maybe this means that you're looking to open another door......OK, I know, enough with the cliches.....but there has to be some truth in them, or they wouldn't still be hanging around for me to use. So let me know what you decide.....ILYHAND.......I love you always.....and miss you muchly. Love, Mom"

Thanks Mom, for giving me some perspective.

I wont give up. I'll keep going.

"One Step at a Time" like you always said.

I'm sorry I didn't update my blog when you could have read it.

I love you always, and miss you muchly too.

ILYHAND.

"Farewell, farewell to you who would hear
You lonely travellers all
The cold north wind will blow again
The winding road does call..."

Limbo

Well.

I don't know what to say.

And that's the problem.

I was quite sad to realize I hadn't posted a new post on my blog in months.

To be honest, gentle reader, I've been very depressed lately. For reasons outside my control, my home life has become a grey, shadowy, dull existence. My house is like living on the Solaris space station, a giant empty dead place. And quite frankly that kills the creativity. I haven't felt like writing or doing anything creative for months. In the past, no matter how bad things got, that was my one joy. I could make something wonderful, even if no one else saw it, and take pleasure in that. Like hiding a precious gem in a gulag. But now even that is gone. The ember died in my pocket and I have no way to relight it.

I created this blog as an outlet for my writing a couple years ago. Mainly in the beginning it was a place to hide, to get away from 'real life' and a hateful relationship and be creative. I was also going through some serious grief issues at the time, dealing with the passing of someone very dear to me. I had no outlet for this in RL, so I put it out on the Internet. It's amazing how powerful anonymity is. I could share so much with absolute strangers that I couldn't with people around me.

So I'm not really sure where I'm going to go from here. I might reorganize this site or I might start something new. Part of me also wants to just hang it up. To give up on being Thousand Sons completely and stop blogging and writing all together. I really just don't know.

Who knows? Maybe something wonderful will happen soon. Maybe the creative logjam will break and I'll feel silly for even writing this.

But knowing how life usually goes for me, I'm not counting on it.

We'll have to see...

Matisyahu at Marymoor

Greetings programs!

This is Thousand Sons coming to you with his post concert review of the Matisyahu show!

The trip to the concert was, shall we say, unpleasant. The show was out in Redmond, yes that Redmond. The world headquarters of Microsoft. So I got caught in awful MS traffic, it took me 45 minutes to go barely a mile to the exit! Damn you Bill! Why dont we have flying cars yet?! We're experiencing quite a lovely indian summer up here, so the weather was quite warm. My poor little car was starting to boil itself alive in traffic, so I used an old trick I learned years ago: Roll down all the windows and turn on the heat! The temperature gauge went down a whole quarter notch, but now I was boiling alive. It was like the Sahara in my car! How long, o lord, how long must I wander through this desert? Thru the heatwaves shimmering on my dashboard I saw an SUV ahead of me with a 'Free Palestine' license plate holder. Right below a 'Harvard' sticker. Meh. Thats just super.

Finally I broke out of gridlock and sailed to the park. Marymoor Park is a beautiful patch of land out on the Eastside. I hadnt been there since the WOMAD festival years ago, and was looking forward to going there again.

I have to apologize to my readers that I wasnt able to get any pictures from the show. They weren't allowing any cameras in the venue. :( I got some dodgy cell phone pics, that I may or may not publish later, depending on quality.

The venue is an open air ampitheater in the park. The opening band was the The Polyphonic Spree, an odd band. There were like 20 people on stage, like some high school marching band on acid! The music was very upbeat, poppy, and strangely infectious. Some one said they were reminded of Electric Light Orchestra. I had to agree. Their cover of Nirvana's 'Lithium' blew me away. I'll have to check them out later, because I really dug their music.

When Matisyahu took the stage, the sun had gone down and there was a beautiful night sky. He opened with a very upbeat song that got people moving. Unlike some performers I've seen, you can tell he really feels the music he's singing. He took time out in the middle of the concert and spoke about God. How God created the universe, and how God created us in order to better understand Himself. Of course, he said it better than I can. ;-) I cant think of a better place to hear this, surrounded by God's natural beauty, beneath the moon and stars. He's a very energetic fellow. Not just dancing, which he did a lot of, but I mean his personal energy. That energy filled the crowd too, I've never been at a show with such a positive feeling. There was a hasid in the crowd, who could have been Matisyahu's twin, who got up on stage during the encore and danced. "Theres something you dont see everyday!" I thought. I half hoped he would stage dive, but he just politely hopped off the stage when he was done. Awwww.

I felt really good when I left the show. In fact, you could say I felt uplifted. Thats the magic of Matisyahu's music. It lifts you up...and keeps you there.

"Shake off the dust...arise!"

Our Inward Thoughts

"Our inward thoughts, do they ever show outwardly?
There may be a great fire in our soul
and passers-by see only
a little bit of smoke
coming through the chimney,
and pass on their way."

-Vincent Van Gogh

Mission Statement

In other completely unrelated news, I'm on Day 4 of zero cigarettes, cold turkey. I was up to about 1/2 pack a day, truly unheard of for me. I already feel a difference. I'm sleeping better and have more energy, but I would gleefully extract someones soul from its fleshy confines if I thought it contained naught but a nanogram of sweet, sweet nicotine.

I had a definining realization the other day. I am a stubborn old Taurus, I dont like it when other people try to control me. I get very angry when people try to screw with my life, change me, or tell me what to do. I realized I need to apply that to other things too. I define who I am and what I do. Not food, not cigarettes, not women, not sugar, nor any of the other bad influences in my life. I will not allow them to control me and my life anymore.

I'm taking charge, so heaven help the world at large!