Tarmac Meditations

Tarmac Meditations #69: Broke the String

February 5, 2012 By Michael Lebowitz 3 Comments

Woke up this morning, more like came to, long night in the jungles of my memories…How did Dylan know what he knew when he was 21 or 22? “I ain’t sayin you treated me unkind…you sorta wasted my precious time, don’t ya think twice, it’s all right” My precious time…wow and I ain’t no 22 year old neither…gonna run after a meeting, gonna write the day away, gonna remember that some things never change and some things do and with Mr. Dylan once again, it ain’t dark yet, but it’s gettin there. I told her that the string was near to broken. She asked me what that meant. Before my heart broke in too many pieces for me to speak i said goodbye and good luck. Sometimes—Oh hell, sometimes it just be that way and there isn’t a damn thing left to do but gather up the broken strings, tie ’em in a bundle, roll your collar up, slam your hands deep into your jeans and face into the wind for as long as it takes to remember that what was…was and that if it was a true thing – and I know this one to be just that – it will last forever ‘Cause these things abide as will I when it is time to light out again and look all around. Peace is where you find it, I’m gonna starting lookin’ in to my heart and let the rest take care of itself.

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Tarmac Meditations-New Years Part 2

January 29, 2012 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

‎”I hear America singing…” Walt Whitman. Equally, ” I hear you singin’ in the wires…” Jimmy Webb.
I love the color of the fog this morning, the temperature of the light transforms morning in the valley into a sacred moment, a pause at the end of something. Up here in the land of ancient trees and dreams to last a lifetime we celebrate winter where we find it, in bare branches and surprising blue skies, in pearling fog and quiet, sunlit, wet, electric, mornings after the heavy rains and howling winds.Inside it all, a belief in the good times to come. Got some miles this morning, came home to a sharp right in the wire haiku outside the house. All the best of everything to all of you for 2012-it is time, past time, to let the good times roll.

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©Michael Lebowitz

Tarmac Meditations: Comin’ 2012

January 22, 2012 By Michael Lebowitz 2 Comments

New Years 2012: shot a race by the midnight riverside, went home to sleep for a few hours, dreamt some dreams, more nightmarish than serene. Went back to the riverside, shot another race and caught some dreams, came home to rest, and found, sadly, that when some things begin, some things end…t’was ever thus. Let the days rollout from here, with friendship, hope, dreams, hard work, serenity, accomplishment, failure, love, birth and death all in their proper place, though, as ever, not always on my timetable, and not ever really in my control. Keep the faith, the rest will take of itself. We are fairly begun.

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©Michael Lebowitz

Email Inspiration

December 18, 2011 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

An e-mail from Life As A Human sparks author Michael Lebowitz to create a story allowing him to cleverly avoid doing other work for which he is actually paid.

I met her on December 20.

We had coffee by the light of an oil lamp we thought would last for only an hour or two. For the love of Judah it lasted 8 days. By the next day, December 21, we were hard at our new life as crack cocaine addicts searching all day long for a score. As it was the Winter Solstice we only had five hours of daylight. Bummer! Finally, though, we found some and stayed happy right through the full moon three days later when we realized we were literally howling and stark raving crazy. Diana, as she called herself, thought it time to go back to the forest to lop down a princely Doug Fir. She decorated it with candles, popcorn, tinsel and Hershey’s Kisses in time for Christmas when all the stores were closed except for the 7-11’s.

By Monday the lamp was burning low, Gordie Lightfoot was singing, the snow was gently falling and a parade of albino reindeer pranced by to the beat of a Scots bagpipe band and high school football teams carrying signs demanding an end to AIDS in Africa, the making up of ridiculous holidays by all nations, faiths, creeds, colours, political persuasions, sexual gender choices and commercial enterprises as well as the end of all final exams and spelling tests. The demonstration caused quite some concern under the Burrard Street bridge where all the good city burghers gather after Christmas to open their presents leading to the traditional commonwealth twelve hour boxing melee, which in turn caused a cessation of all hostilities among the nations, many recoveries of lost dreams, several unexplained jumps in the birthrate nine months later, the miracle of transubstantiation and the remarkable transformation of Diana and I into people with good credit ratings and too many gifts to count.

A Goddam Christmas miracle, Carole, is what I say. Diana just says shut the door behind you when you go out to get the oil.

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Lunch Break

November 26, 2011 By Michael Lebowitz 1 Comment

Michael Lebowitz writes about love, memory and another day when things felt easier.

The college was empty that late summer, the heat hard and bright, dust in the air like mist under a brittle cerulean sky.

There she was, walking toward me. I handed her her lunch and we sat down on a bench. After a few minutes we got up, walked over to the path back to the library. Not a sound in the heat, nor a whisper of a breeze. She put the lunch remains in the nearby trash and turned toward me. For no reason at all we began to dance to a tune only we heard, to a song written long before her mother was born someone once said. The dust swirled from under our feet, we turned and turned again.We knew when the dance was over, we laughed, we kissed a moment and went back to the day’s work. It stayed like that between us for a while and then drifted away. Sometimes to remember it makes me smile, other times, today, it seems so very long ago, as if it had happened to somebody else.

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