A SMILE AT LAST

     I don't know, I go on here (Facebook) for completely different reasons. The less interesting the better. Look, I have all sorts of friends on here that are doing all these amazing things but that's not what's interesting to me about it. I have a friend who's traveling around South America doing some sort of adventure travel work or something, I don't really know exactly. I know brewmasters, chefs, restaurateurs, architects, political activists, poets, musicians, actors, professors, comic book artists, climbers, painters, dancers, sculptors, models, comedians, photographers, writers, a couple glass blowers, a guy who's bicycling alone around the world, a magazine publisher/owner, a guy who makes the best goddamn bitters on the fucking planet. I know a guy with crazy eyebrows who studied film and was almost burned alive a couple years ago. Well, I guess he WAS burned alive but he was lucky enough to be standing near a pool. His hobby is collecting animal heads and boiling off the meat and hair. God knows what the hell he does with them. I know an engineer that works for the CIA who tells me things even I don't want to hear. I know a former Marine who fought in Fallujah and saw one of his buddies take a direct hit from an RPG. He said his legs kept running for some time without his torso. We're talking like 15 or 20 steps. Could you imagine? Just a pair of legs running across the sand! He's one of the sweetest souls I have ever known. He sends me private messages all the time about my boys and how amazing they are and he tells me he sees and understands my sadness and that it is beautiful and perfectly appropriate. I turned him onto Henry Miller and Bukowski and Celine. I told him the most important influence on my life other than Dylan was the movie, Crumb. He's now watched it almost as many times as I have. And he agrees, it is more Charles than Robert. He never stops thanking me. He's my biggest fan and I'm noticing more and more when I write, I'm writing for him. I knew a guy who was on the last days of his life but you would've absolutely never known it. He used to climb 5.13 (in the early 90s) and soloed big walls and he was always running those ultra marathons out in the desert. I know a guy who was driving to NY to open as a lead in his first play when he was hit head on and was literally ripped in half to where his spinal cord was exposed. Against all odds, he recovered and learned how to walk again and he went on to act and he took up drums and now owns a successful cookie company. I love all these goddamn people and I value their friendship. And is it just me, or does it not always seem that the funniest ones are those who've lost the most along the way?... It was just the other day I found myself really down and frightened for my family and so I went to go hike the mountain but there were so many people when I got there that I turned around and I found a big block of concrete on the side of the road and I just sat there, breathing, feeling the blood pump through my body. I tried hard to remember things, to gain some sort of foothold to continue on from. Finally, an image popped into my mind. I had just gotten back from Milan to find a big fat check from my agency and so I decided to take a break and fly home to Oklahoma. A few days into the trip, I borrowed my friend's car and drove out to Lubbock to see my sister and my mother. That first night, I heard a thumping sound and walked over to my mother's room and I could hear her crying and I knocked as I pushed open door and found her in her bathrobe, kicking the wall. "Mom, what's wrong? What's the matter?" She just kept kicking the wall. "Mom, what is it?"
     She finally looked at me and said: "You don't understand, Philby. Just leave me alone. It's just the way it is."
     I was watching some sort of strange little caterpillar type thing crawl near my shoe when another image appeared. It was from a time maybe a year or so after that first image: I had lost everything. I had quit modeling and had gained about 50 lbs. I had just gotten my first round of poems published. I was newly married (1st marriage) and I had gout and I had been tricked and failed and one drunken night I found myself walking along the West Side Highway as the cars raced by. I wanted to be back in Oklahoma. I wanted to climb again. I wanted to hang out with my best friend, Ron. But it was far too late for any of that. Trust me, it takes no time at all for everything to move on without you. I had nowhere to go. I didn't know how to do anything. I hadn't paid my taxes in years. Who the hell was I? Why was I walking along the West Side Highway in the middle of the night? Then all of a sudden, the whole thing just became hysterical to me. I started laughing and then I began singing the song, Oklahoma. "OOOOOOklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain..." I started skipping and I sang it louder and louder, flinging my arms out in front of me. I sang it over and over again, just that first line and the next bit about the waving wheat that sure smells sweet. It was all I could remember. The cars flew passed me, honking, and I knew at least I was a person who felt things and meant things and what the hell else was there to be?
     A few more images came to me while sitting on that block. But then I figured I needed to get back home. I had just turned the corner onto my street when I got the Facebook notification on my phone that so and so had shared a link with me. I hit the screen with my thumb. It was from something called the PurposeFairy. The article was called "15 Powerful Things Happy People Do Differently". A smile at last!