This week I’ve been with my Dad in Florida. His heart is failing. No, not the one that pumps blood through his physical form, the one that makes the gift of this life exhilarating. After each day of appointments, meds, finances, puking, legalities, and expressions of surrender as Dad approaches a slow, sad end, I’ve escaped to the streets. By any objective measure I’m obese, but cognitive dissonance spares me from seeing John Candy in the mirror. This week I was reminded of how much work I have to do. Prior to a run, I was so excited to don my genuine Roma AC futbol shirt purchased at the recent tilt versus Liverpool FC at Fenway, but tugging it on revealed something resembling a ground pork product crammed into a transparent casing. Yeah, gross. Still, I got out there, just not as a Jimmy Dean ad.

Music helps push one foot in front of the leaden other, and it’s amazing how heel strikes in sync with the music. With nothing but faint breathing competing with crashing sonic vibration, I get lost in the music, although the bouncing soft cauliflower in my head is always working. Always taking me places. Good and bad. I haven’t yet figured out how to unplug that particular computer. Woven between thoughts like crochet are drums, bass, keyboard, guitar piercings, and the words. With blood elevating the senses, and circumstances magnifying emotion, the poets words comfort. Today one song stopped me in my tracks. Fuck that it did, I just needed that cliché for effect. I kept plodding, and the words were so fucking great. One by one, they calmed and filled me with hope. With every step, more of my life left behind me, but I’m damned well going to try to make the most of them. My heart is wide open.

One by One
words by Woody Guthrie

One by one the teardrops fall as I write you
One by one my words come falling on the page
One by one my dreams are fading in the twilight
One by one my schemes are fading fast away

One by one the flowers fading in my garden
One by one the leaves are falling from the trees
One by one my hopes are vanished in the clouds clear
One by one like snowflakes melting in the breeze

One by one my hair is turning gray
One by one my dreams are fading fast away
One by one I read your letters over
One by one I lay them all away

One by one the days are slipping up behind you
One by one the sweetest days of life go by
One by one the moments stealing out behind you
One by one she’ll come and find not you or I

One by one I hear the soft words that you whispered
One by one I feel your kisses soft and sweet
One by one I hope you’ll say the words to marry
One by one to one by one forever be