Category: 2021

The courage to continue

President Kennedy was living daily with so much pain, from his Addison’s disease and colitis, along with back pain from a deteriorating spine and back surgery, that it took over 12 medications and seven injections a day along with a back brace, just to keep him going …

He couldn’t even bend over to put his shoes on…

The fact that he even got out of bed was a miracle …

I often find my self thinking about how he projected youth and vitality and strength and change…

This ability to challenge people to be better…

He refused to wear an overcoat on his Inauguration Day

Needing to project youth and strength…

He understood probably better than any of us the power of images and what they do

And the power of

Media ….

This was before an assassination

And before America lost touch with itself

And lost faith in itself

We know how the story ends

We know all the things that he started

However he is forever fixed in our minds as he worked so hard to be fixed …

Young and filled with hope.

Change is something uncomfortable

Courage, Virtue and faith is something vital to our existence …

As Joan Didion said the center is not holding…

It seems we’ve lost ourselves

And our faith

We don’t trust even our own instinct

From my side of the mountain

After struggling with Crohn’s

Divorce

Moving and changing careers

Getting sober…

I can only say

I’m writing this on the side of new beginnings

And the shadows we fight against

Just within ourselves

The urge to run

To just forget about the cost

To just forget about the thing

To cop out…

The ability to rebuild yourself

To trust yourself

To reach for change

To stay true to your convictions

Is courageous in and of itself

But it is a future worth fighting for

Worth staying for

Worth getting up in the morning for …

So keep your hope

And build

Brick by brick

And line by line

Create a future

And a home

You would like your children to come home to…

Because it’s worth the fight

Even if you hide your shadows and your struggles

Your pain…

You can still build …

It is the courage to continue in the face of everything ….that counts…

The Devils square

They said the devil broke loose
John was on his trail
Elijah too
But it took one bounty hunter from way down south …
He said it took more than being baptised in the water
You had to be born in the fire
Walking out of the ashes across that mountain….
Drink that moonshine
Walk that line …
Understand
All that glitters ain’t gold
Beauty queens all get old
And 99 problems son …
Well, you know…
Hell hounds won’t go past the mouths of these caves
There’s 15 and 22 just over the way
You can come inside if you dare
But there’s no living creatures inside of here
There’s no fairy tale no make believe
Just the deaths of you and me
Just the demons you carry inside
Just the chaos inside of your own mind
The darkness behind your eyes ….
Just around midnight
The devil appears
But the hounds and the good book too
The fires from the mountains
And the bounty too
They gunned him down at the crossroads
Now you only hear him
Now and again
Running his cards at the table
Drinking his rounds
But it was an old time religion
A different breed
A southern son and a full moon…

-E
Regardingsamuel.com

Manic Hearts

You can take the fields of gold and silver,

Blue skies too,

We started out so young and full of potential,

Now we are broken and bruised,

You can take your hard earned pay checks

Your twisted words to save the deep end of the wound,

But this won’t save you from the rafters

Of the manic heart

The soaked lightning fuel to fire

From the anxiety in a room

The deal makers

And the users

The madmen make deals with death

Hoping for more time

Building cities on a stack of cards …

We buy a new car today knowing we will be told it’s used in 12 months

We have 52 weeks of fashion

Compelling us our scarf isn’t good enough

And we must be bored in silence

Go go go out and find something new

How do you protect the manic heart from the beating of the storm

He said he used to have hobbies

Now he didn’t know himself anymore

She said she used to be beautiful

But that was before the light left the room

Admiration is not a human need

How do we fight against the children screaming to be the next

Influencer online

Idle chatt

No prayers offered to gods

Just mice swiping for the next big hit

I feel myself

In her arms

And with her asleep on my chest

I feel

A little less alone in the dark

All the light is building from a candle

On the table

And it keeps us warm through the night ….

One candle can fight off the coldness from a storm …

Open arms that calm

The mind that races in the rafters of the manic heart …

– E

Weather (Mother Earth)

The earth
Doesn’t stay in any one season all year
It changes
It rests
It is hot and cold
And it is still whole
It is still complete and it is still its very own…
You can change,
You can rest,
You are still free and you are still you…
I don’t know what hurt did to you…
I don’t know those rooms
I don’t know who told you you were crazy
Or that love was supposed to hurt
I don’t know those parts of the frame we all try to hide…
I know this …
We are still here…
Yes we were hurt
But we are still trying and that says more about our humanity than any hurt …that we still try…
It’s ok to not be ok…
It’s ok to rest and to be overwhelmed …
To ask for help
To go to therapy
To take medication
To seek solitude
To start again …
This is your first time here…
You’re still new
You’re still you
This is our lives …
Job scraped his own boils with broken pottery trying to find a moment just a moment of comfort …
Samson begged the lord for a moment just a moment of strength again…
Christ wept and sweated blood …
You don’t have to be perfect
You don’t have to be anything at all
You can change
You can stay the same
You can be anything you want
You are you
And you matter
You
Right now
As you are
Not some future version of you
But you
Right here
This is us
Living
We are still living and loving
And this is our power
This is your power
Nothing would be the same without you…

-E
regardingsamuel.com

Love on the line

When the stars come out tonight
No one is gonna deny the moon her right to shine …
No one is gonna love her in private
She’s gonna sit up there in the heavens
Chandelier in the night
Burning with all her might
——
Rather be a warrior in a garden
Than a garden in a war
High patience to the throttle
You’ve got the cards but you’ve got to play them just right
——
You want to get it fast
I’d rather make it last
That kind of love takes seasons
That kind of love takes time
——
We drink a little bit of the mountain
Give it back with our blood in the soil
We all had to struggle
But someday
We have to take inventory of how we spend our days
——
I know you’re used to
Good ole boys
Kicking down your door
With high velocity love
Drinking by 9
Punching holes in your heart around midnight
Numbing their minds on smoke and whiskey
And blaming your car alarm heart
For the way they choose to live their lives
—-
and I know we all could have been the dead beats and the losers
Standing on the side lines
But
——
When the stars come out tonight
No one is gonna deny the moon her right to shine …
No one is gonna love her in private
She’s gonna sit up there in the heavens
Chandelier in the night
Burning with all her might

-E
Regardingsamuel.com

Light

I don’t think any of us knows where it comes from, not really. You can set yourself up to be ready for it but you can’t always make it happen.
Nora Ephron said writers are cannibals.
We eat our own.
I’ve always said we were vampires.
Dottie Rambo believed in keeping notebooks near her and being ready always.
It just comes to you, the writing, and you turn it over and see how many lines you can get from a single ray of light.
You try to make it as clear as possible,
So the reader sees what you see, hears what you hear, feels what you feel.
You try to understand it.
What it is to be alive…
To be living…

-E
Regardingsamuel.com

Autumn

When you’re young
You believe you can be everything to everyone
But it’s hard enough to be something to just one …
It takes all of us
We all need each other
——
In terms of art
Drink the shot of bourbon
Leave your mark
Drive the open roads in the place you grew up in
Let the soil take root
And give you your soul back
——
In terms of the heart
I can offer you my hand
These arms to hold you
To walk with you
And I can
Do my best to love you
——
She counted my whiskey bottles
15 empty and 3 full
“Are you an alcoholic?”
“Nah, functioning, functioning”
“I have alcoholic friends I don’t need another one …”
I thought about it for a few days
She never said another word
But I poured it all down the drain
I had a good job
My money was finally right
Everything has to have balance
Moderation
It’s easy to lose your lane
Get a chip on your shoulder
Think you know
——
I prayed while looking over my bluff
Hoping I somehow make this place softer for someone
If even just myself
The leaves are changing again
Like our hearts
Like our minds
Like our bodies
Softer
Softer
Softer

-E
Regardingsamuel.com

Living

I’ve lived just long enough
To know
There is so much
I don’t know,
I’m my own worst critic.
——
There was a community excited
For a new grocery store
Because now they can get new apartments
And new businesses
won’t have to walk as far
Or drive as far
So they have, suddenly, on the horizon
More time and better opportunities in five years than someone minutes or hours away…
This is perspective…
Competition isn’t a bad thing …
Think of your customers, your employees as people,
families you’ve personally impacted in some way….
I’ve been humbled and honored by understanding
By
living and losing and winning.
——
I know we can hurt deeply,
we can change in an instant,
For better or worse –
We are not saints
Or even fallen angels
We are creations
We are weather and seasons
We can become what we dream of or what we hate …
I’ve returned to this southern soil
And I’ve prayed
For it to do what it must
To root the soul
In this heart of flesh…
To ease these bones that shake …
How we treat those around us,
How we grow…
We are restless,
Inside these minds like magnets
Inside cages…

—-

I knew a girl,
She refused to let Love die, she boxed her lover with gloves and a mouth piece
And demanded the truth
Always the truth…
anything less
Anything trivial was left in the dust ….
——-
I’ve lived just long enough …
To know…
They will tell you
You have endless opportunity
For lovers and careers and cities and dreams …
Well,
You do,
But there is a thing called time
And it is always running
It is always clearing the house
while you sleep …
And they will tell you it is an illusion
But when it’s gone it’s gone …
I used to beg for things and people to see me or let me love them…
I don’t do that anymore
If they can’t be here
I thank them
I just let things go
I have to keep moving forward…
If you find one who sees you, pushes you and makes you better,
If they care for you and demand the truth from you…
If you can nurture eachother
And shelter eachother
If you can love deeply
And know how much is on the line…
Really…really on the line ….
To love deeply
To hurt deeply
To pay attention ….
——
I want to
love in a way that you understand
To listen
To build
To protect
To shelter
To not see just potential or an idea
But to really see you
Really be here with you
I want to love you better
——-
I want to live better
I want to
Not take this lightly
We are here
We are here
And this is our responsibility
To ourselves
We are here
And we are living
And we have lived just long enough
To know
we can change in an instant,
For better or worse
But I will love you
Better
I will protect you
Better
I will shelter
And I will keep
And I will
Hold deeply
And love in a way you can understand
So you know….

We are here
We are here
And we are living

-E
Regardingsamuel.com

Caves

Photo by Ethan Bethune

Maybe our Hearts
are like caves
With burdens of their own
Unique
Beneath the earths crust
And tho
Sometimes they give in
Like Samson pushing the pillars down
they still hold, where it matters most…
And
Our hearts like caves
Still have rooms
To discover
Still have new ways
Waiting to be mapped
You are still you
You are still new
You are still undiscovered
Even after all this time
-E
Regardingsamuel.com