*The Dreaded Curse of The Sighing People

Lately, there's been so much going on, going wrong, demanding me to suck it up and just be strong inside my orbit that it would be so easy to fling these great chunks of rage and hurl these bruise-colored blues soundly into the faces of people who are clearly unworthy of receiving them.

*Breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeathe! Just Breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeathe, Lin!*

The truth is:

I don’t wanna become one of THEM… one of those people… one of those people who sigh. Those Sighing People I call them… those people who speak in only blue tones, who brood and cry in terminally sighing moans. Those people who sing only sad and melancholy songs… those people who exist in sobbing fits of solitude, whose only trick, kick or tic is a permanent facial grimace.




I don’t wanna become one of them. God, please don’t allow me to become one of those crying, hand-fixed-to-the-forehead, overly dramtic, habitually Sighing People!


I don’t wanna be one of those people who feel alone, even in crowded rooms; nor a friendless soul who’ll only move to those slow sad drums of their own. I know some people don’t trust in different drummers for fear those drummers will fuck with the funk of their beat.




But I don’t wanna become one of them.


I don’t wanna be one of people who drown in a pain… so deep… even strains of Coltrane (or Manilow) can’t release them from their Indigo Trains of Thought. I don’t need the tremulous coo of some woozy crooner to renew, redo, re-blue my Blues, when they’ve already been blown Blue enough.


I just don’t wanna become one of them.


I don’t wanna be breast-fed by Nina Simone, or mislead by Lady Day. I don’t wanna believe Joni Mitchell ever lied… even if that “Furry” cat really did 'play The Blues…' And though I love the Jazz and Blues idoms, I don’t want my Life to be a indigo-colored song that slides terminally from the reed of a dejected and sad-azz saxophone.





See, I don’t wanna be nor ever become one of Those People… those people who only speak and whine and brood and cry interminably. Don’t wanna be a member of that mind-numbing Cult of Terminally Sighing People…

So maybe today, maybe tonight, maybe if I try… I won’t be.




Instead, from the Beastly Jaws of Human Suffering, I'ma be the one who snatches the living HELL outta JOY!





One.

*repost

About Grace: For Those Who THINK They’ve Cheated Me

For all of its luster, confusion, its pain and terrible beauty, LIFE is and will always be a continuing course in adult education. Each day, we become either new students or learned professors. Each day we endure some grand test of our emotions and our spirits where, in the end, we receive either a passing or a failing grade.

Today, after a recent 14 day fast, I can truthfully state that my spirit has become a lighter thing. I am now left unburdened by the minutia of daily occurrences, such as stress, worry, disappointment, and even that ole rabid dog, called heartbreak. It doesn’t mean that those things have not visited me, or that they won’t visit again. Only now, accompanying those tests will be a certain clarity I didn’t possess before. It’s allowed a radiant calmness to pervade me. I know now, that no matter what positive energy I project into my living, problems and difficulties will occur. People with ungodly agendas will manifest for the sole purpose of wrecking havoc in my path. I did not invite them nor single-handedly create them, and I am not meant to conquer them all alone. I am more aware than ever before that a Presence far Larger than myself sees all, knows all, and will handle all in due time.

It’s so freeing to toss away those concerns and troubles that had imprisoned me, held me hostage, and endowed me with such psychic pain, anger and thoughts of revenge.

I will no longer allow negative people and their negative acts define me, and more specifically, my reactions to them.

I will NOT allow the ugliness of others to infect nor infest my spirit with some mutually repulsive disorder.

Most importantly, I’ve learned that what truly defines me, and what ultimately defines us all, is the ability to reveal the true Loveliness within our Souls. I’ve learned that what gives us our most Supreme Gravity in this life is Faith, Forgiveness and Reverence. What I strive to contain within myself is a profound and unwavering sense of Grace. What we must all strive to contain within ourselves is GRACE.

Life’s adversities are truly our Greatest Teachers. In all the years of matriculated studies, whether we're the class valedictorian, the class clown, or the class flunk, the class whatever, the one that matters most is the class we hold within; the class of Humanity, Love, and Honesty. This is the one class that teaches us the MOST mighty and needed lesson of all which is: to become Vessels of Honor and Compassion.

We are all born with Grace, with the glow of God-Light to sustain us. Once we allow it to diminish, no amount of money can purchase it, and no amount of success or pretense can ever achieve it again.

I truly hope those who’ve purposely, maliciously, and with much forethought, lied, maligned, cheated, embezzled, and waged weapons against me will realize, remember, and retain this Sacred Truth:

To Lose Grace Is To Lose The Core Light Of One’s Being, And The Quintessential Ingredient Of One’s Humanity.

Realizing this, KNOWING this to be True, I will strive to impart some semblance of GRACE in every encounter, and in every single relationship I’ve made and ever will make.

In the end, on our last day, this and only this will comprise our True Measure.


Snatch JOY!

One.

L.M. Ross