Measure for measure

The strength of a mountain is not measured by how long it stood, but what it stood against. The strength of a fire is not measured by its size, but how brightly it burns.

Burn with me.

Seeing the end from the beginning

I've told you so many times, I can see the future. Do you know what it is like to stand in the crossroads and know that if I say or do something, that it will ripple and change everything?

I have looked into blue eyes and known that one kiss would unmake the future: children would never be born, lives would be shattered, I know how ends before it begins.

Today I am working without a map. There is a future I can't see.

It's beautiful and exciting.

The Crossroads

It is a very curious thing to stand at the crossroads and watch people come and go. To wonder if you are standing still. Like a guide in the forest or those poor bastards at the information counter who have to tell people where to go to find the next information booth. It's like following breadcrumbs.

This has been the week of leavetaking. Three have made an exit, one of them I will see again. She found her way. The other two... well, they had to make way for what was next, I suppose.

It gets lonely here sometimes.

But most of the time, it feels amazing.

There is one fire that burns in all of us. We are connected, those of us who dance within the flame.

We burn

Burn with me

The Yeager Road Diaries: The Actress and the Cowboy

This is how stories begin and end, with a smile, with tears, and with the truth.

Once upon a time there was a young actress in Hollywood California. She was the star of live theater and made two appearances in film. The film roles were small and focused on her spectacular bosom. Years went by and the actress travelled the world, alone, and in the company of others. Her life was an adventure, but she never knew it. What she believed was that she was the luckiest person alive, what she didn't know was that she had yet to meet the luckiest person alive. Over those years, her fortunes rose and fell. She was engaged a half-dozen times and dated movie stars and directors. She was a small fish in a very big pond.

There was a man in this story, there always is. The man was rich and powerful and had known her all her life. Off and on through the years, she would drift back and forth into his life and he into hers. He's not the hero of the story, because it's not his story, it's hers.

There came a time when things got bad for the actress, her debts racked up, she got in trouble with the law (nothing major, but big enough), and she ran away from her life. She went to Italy to find the answers and for a while, she was happy.

The truth of life is that you can only run away for so long and the past will catch you. You can fight the current, but the stream will carry you where you are meant to be. For a short season, she escaped her fate and then the current turned and she ended up in Marietta, Georgia.

Time and life and a bad turn in Italy took her money. The airlines lost her belongings. All she possessed in the world were a few bags of clothes. When the universe wants to get your attention, it takes away everything you hold dear and leaves you naked to face the world. That's when she met the cowboy.

When the actress met the cowboy, she didn't know what she was in for. Yes, he was charming and fun, but he was honest and honorable and a lot of other things she had never encountered in Hollywood. And while the actress thought she was brave, she had never had to be brave before, because she had never faced herself. The cowboy met her on the road of life and helped her face her fears. He put her feet on the path she was supposed to go and he sent her on her way.

You see, this was the cowboy's job. This was why he was here, to help people get where they are going. He was an agent of change and when he shows up, everything changes for the better. The last words he said to her the day he put her on the airplane was: "When you get there, make the hard choice."

And she did. She stopped running, because now she could face the things she was running from. The actress found what she was looking for in California. The Cowboy got her where she was going and he watched her walk into the sunset and waited for the next lost traveler along the road...

We could call this the end, but, as we know, nothing ever ends...

Finding Roy

Thirty-five years ago, I started Chasing Roy. I found him.

My grandfather was everything to me. He taught me right from wrong, truth from lie and what it was to be honorable. Of all the people I have met in my life, my grandfather surfed the Tao better than anyone I had ever met, even though he had no words for it.

Six months ago I broke up with my girlfriend. I did so because the relationship was not healthy for either of us. I had delayed the growth after my divorce and she lost all the independence that attracted me to her in the first place. I set out with a single thought: That I would spend six months seeing if I could live without needing someone in my life. What I discovered was me.

Years ago, my ex-wife, the wife of the guy my ex-wife cheated with, and I went to a mystic bookstore so they could have their fortune told. I am, very often, about as spiritual as a toaster. My ex-wife and the woman came out and neither looked happy and I was about to leave when they told me to go ahead and go in. The woman told me that things were going to get rough and that they were then going to get better and I needed to be ready for that. Standard stuff for fortune tellers. Then she went off script and said something I will never forget. She said: "You are chasing something and to finally catch it you need to understand that you are an agent of change. You stand in the road and people meet you and you help them get where they are going. This is what you are supposed to be doing. You will get everything you've ever wanted, but, most of the time, you won't get to keep it. But sometimes, they stay."

The next year was hell on Earth and I delayed that by finding a woman to bury myself in.

For the last six months I have focused on one thing, trying to help people get where they are going. I made some false starts, I even was unintentionally hurtful to some people, but I'm learning.

Today I dropped someone off at the airport, a person that means a lot to me. They were lost. They were running and afraid and I got them where they were going. This is it. Getting up every day and doing the right thing. Being honorable in your dealings. Being as honest as you can be. Trying to do no harm. This is what my grandfather did every day of his life. I am not perfect, I never will be, and I will stumble. But, this is it. This is why I am here.

Afterwards, I talked to another friend, one who knows me very well and she said something that made me smile and cry just a little. Then it was a cascade, one person after another, not knowing the story, just sensed something today, ripples in a pool.

I walked eight blocks to lunch. I ate at a small deli I hadn't been in for 10 years. I sat outside in the almost warm weather and listened to a street musician play "Killing me softly" on his horn and I smiled. Life will never be perfect, but it can be glorious and beautiful just like the people in it. It isn't money. It isn't possessions. It is life; it gets under your skin. You take one breath and you want another one. We live today. We get today. And, there is, as someone who is very, very precious to me said, plenty of time in the future...

What a beautiful thought.

Burn with me.