Category: 2021

Haunted

Oh Marie,
All your favorite flowers already came too…
Then drifted back to sleep…
It’s just like this weather,
She drinks her coffee black,
Puts it right in the fridge and calls it iced…
She wields her pistols and knives…
I never said I was ready,
I’m not ready,
And I
try to retreat from society,
Just to hide away,
Watch the moon behind this mountain…
You know how human we are…
She says she has her issues too
And god knows,
Mine are coming due…
I never said I was better….
Look at all of this weather…
The way that we are…
She says
To come back down…
Be honest with myself…
And
We all have our issues…
God knows mine are coming due…
All the flowers already came too…
Then drifted back to sleep…
She drinks her coffee black,
Puts it right in the fridge and calls it iced…
All we have is time
All of mine was loving and living
And everyone is leaving
I went back home
Looked over that field
That basement
That land
Where poverty left it’s mark
Where I said
Never again
Never again
Never again
never said I’m ready
You only get the chances you take
There is no security
Only opportunity
All we have is time
New mountains
New stars
Ready
Ready
Ready
Put the old ways to rest
Bury the dead
The old vices
Face the ghost
Let these bones know
To let these things go
Build
-E
Regardingsamuel.com

Ache

But this body ,
Aches,
From all the lives it’s lived before,
This heart,
scarred from all the loves it’s loved before…
These hands,
Stained from all that they’ve held before…
——
Cut quick to the truth
Get it all out while I’m standing now…
Me and the you…
To young to know …
what the warning signs really meant…
to comprehend the true cost of things …
The true depth of pain…
——
These hands stained
From all the love I’ve held before…
This body aches from all the times I’ve fell before…
We are not perfect…
We are only human…
Clay and stardust sunset
High dives
That first breath when you’re out of water
That first light…
That moment when you know…
——-

We are human
And not done yet
We are still working
We are still walking
We are still building these lives we live.
-E
Regardingsamuel.com

One

There was an America here, United and strong, curious about its neighbours and hopeful for its future. This was before fear and loathing, before anger and bitterness and conspiracy and chasing ghost and faceless enemies…

There was an America that was before the towers fell, it feels like a lifetime ago, and it feels like it is gone…

I was 11 years old…but even I saw the young man that was our president as he realized in real time …whatever his ideals had been for the future, they were changing…

There is a world before and a world after…and they are two very different things…

There was a loss here, that continued on…with the heroes fighting for their lives and their faces aged before their time…

We have a new moment in America….
In Alabama alone, we have lost over 12k in a pandemic that is ongoing…

It doesn’t feel so far away anymore…
It seems as though every day we lose something or someone once familiar, once close to our hearts…
And we have to find our footing so we can continue…

We have those brave heroes working and fighting everyday…

And like the heroes from 20 years ago…
These are putting their lives on the line…
they have faces, they have names, they have families…
And they will be changed…
And there will be a generation
Who grows up
Changed
From time
And there will be a generation after this …
Asking for the stories ….

There was an America here,
An Alabama,
And it feels like it has gone …
But we continue on…
It is here
Through us…

We maintain our place …
With dignity and humbleness
And courage for discipline and greatness
And refusing to give in to fear…
We continue
And we will tell the stories
And we will keep the courage
To build. To remember. To continue.
For all of us …
For all of our heroes…
We are one.
-E
Regardingsamuel.com

The details

This morning, I was not feeling it.
I was anxious, sore and tired.
I had 10 pallets to work and it was 3am
(That’s a relatively small truck for us too)
It was my sixth day in a row.
On top of that, we were short handed.
But my boss came in at 4am,
Just to help and give me some pointers on small adjustments I could make to be more efficient with my time…
You see,
Every minute counts and those add up.
And the truth is, it’s hard to see and hard to hear sometimes but it really is time management that either makes your day or breaks your day.
It’s usually not the big things killing us.
For example,
Small adjustments,
So easy I was almost mad that I overlooked it…but once I adjusted ….
I had 7 out of 10 pallets broke down and done by 6am.

You need other people to help you grow
You need that other perspective
You can’t win on your own….
You need smarter people in the room
You need to surround yourself with people who force you to grow and challenge yourself
You need people who tell you no…
You need people to help you level up.

That’s how you make it
That’s how you grow
That’s how you learn and how you help those around you grow
And achieve their goals.

-E
Regardingsamuel.com

Stewards

A Nurse cries while grocery shopping after her shift.
She was the 4th in one week I’ve seen crying…
——-
If I have a bad day, it’s minor in comparison.
It’s done with and I can begin again tomorrow…

If she has a bad day it’s because someone or several people died…
On top of being short staffed like everyone else in the world …
Her name tag asks the questions
“Is the customer happy?” Etc
Reducing her to a waitress.
Angry family …
Phone calls with questions,
And it’s everyday now.
——
I’m increasingly aware of all the things I just don’t know. I don’t have enough time to know. I search for stories and history, for a poem or character, it’s not the same as research for disease or pandemics.
That involves decades of calculus and maths, biology and chemistry and numerous other studies, verifying and peer review.
If I’m honest I don’t even properly know how to use google efficiently…
I would guess most of us are looking for confirmation bias not truth.
——-
My point being …
Are these not our people ?
Our people that we were so proud of for going to medical school.
Our people,
we flirted with while they were waiting tables.
Our people,
Staying up late writing paper after paper
And
Routinely taking 8 hr exams.
——-
To take responsibility,
For what we know,
And what we don’t know.
Yes,
We have the freedom to choose,
But when we choose, we’re also choosing the consequences….
——-
Ideas are powerful
Language is powerful
Art is powerful
Look at history ….
How powerful?
I found a college text book in a roadside dumpster,
Where we would get things growing up …shoes or books…
And it made me want to learn how to read.
I slept with that book every night until I learned…just so I could read the first page….
——-
I grew up
In a basement,
Unfinished,
Open drywall,
concrete floors.
Out in the middle of nowhere.
From there, we moved to
A house, with termites and bad plumbing.
Any anger or depression was believed to be a demon and we were routinely brought before our dad and prayed over and any perceived devils cast off.
The herbalist told me my crohns was parasites…I only needed a cleanse…
(Ideas are powerful)
But my therapist told me,
I get to decide.
I get to choose.
My doctor told me,
Medicine doesn’t have bias,
Medicine works on everyone.
Rich or poor,
Christian or atheist.
It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from…
And that’s why it’s important to have access…
——
Sometimes our minds, our ideas get in the way…
Sometimes, our fear gets in the way
And that’s where we must begin.
We have to let go.
We have to meet ourselves.
We have to take responsibility,
Stewardship.
We have the ability and the opportunity to do great things.
Noble things,
Humble things,
And we get to decide.
——
We …
We are complex
We are layered
We contradict ourselves
We have faith and we lose it
A hundred times a day
——-
These days
Are overwhelming.
Maybe we’ve never been here before.
Maybe it’s lasting longer than we first thought…
But we always get to decide.
Every day,
And even when we choose poorly,
We get to choose again tomorrow,
And we can do better.
We can be consistent.
We don’t have to be the best
Or have the answers.
Just take responsibility,
Stewardship,
Empathy,
Support,
Build,
Just be consistent…

-E

Regardingsamuel.com

These issues we face (letters from the mountain)

I’ve been thinking of all my problems again, I’m a wicked person.

My problems, they’re minuscule…

someone, somewhere, is waking up to very real problems like increased rent by the hundreds of dollars, with hardly any notice and they will desire as well as need to navigate them. Especially the mothers and the workers, They live on the budget and $40 will make them or break them.

Life is strange…

It seems, just as soon as we get a handle on it, it changes the pitch.

I hope you’re ok, I hope you’re doing well and staying healthy…

I’m healthy,

Humans are complicated and layered and I don’t know any other way to explain it. We contradict ourselves and we are duped into ghost stories and snake oil and we hold tightly to things that hurt us.

Remember to check your heart. Check your motives, listen to your voice…the one inside of you. Is it yours? Or is it echoing another’s?

Trust yourself

And be careful of rabbit holes

If you’re looking for dog bites you will surely find the harvest is plenty…

Check yourself

And do the best you can

To tell the truth.

The world isn’t as dark as you think it is…

It only feels this way…

There’s beauty in overcast skies and winter mornings.

There’s good things in the world,

To see, to see each other, to be known, if only to cry and understand each other.

There always the good.

-E