The Return Serve

2024.07.04

Good morning, that wonderful way.

And we're at it again.

The fourth. The Fourth, don't forget the capitol for the Capitol.

Ad what of it. The way of it is like this: We're all mad, a little crazy. When the day gets soft and lazy. what do we say?

We play. We play. We play.

These keys, on this new machine do the daydream, that thing sane, straight down the lane.

The words matter of course. How else will we ever make matter without the words to make boxes for the matter?

Another day. Another day. Another day. And what to say? What in the world to say?

Working on the pieces to get to you. Working on a place to place them. A blog, sure. But where and when and who and how?A So many places, so many faces unseen.

It's a dream I've had my whole life. Well, since I could do the kinds of dreams grown-ups do. So over three decades just to get these letters to you.

Whose you? The reader of These lines. You. You. You.

What to do with them after reading them?

Read some more. Take the feeling received while taking them in and hold that. Hopefully it brings you peace, a feeling of a common understanding of a goal shared. To be clear. To share what's in our hearts that gets left unsaid, that we grasp and grapple with throughout the day, that thing we can't say but so urgently feel we need to, that one phrase to make everything all right. That one sentence to shout, or silent praise, our why.

Our wise 'why,' for why we go forward. Some enthusiasm for life, itself.

So, I go at it, this choppy choppy sane madness, that's a breath of fresh air to type and to read, I do hope indeed.

My attempt is to make it enjoyable. One shouldn't do anything without the enjoyment, at least the satisfaction, of doing it.

Not the goal achieved, the doing itself. The chance to be something intentional is what a day is for. Not to be indentured to another's whims and insistencies. Not to slave for the sake of other's happiness, but to add to it.

With purpose, on purpose, because the serve is returned.

We start with nothing, with pure love and we serve our best to be returned our best. A tennis match, sure.

But life is not a game, it's life. The only thing we've got. So, we serve the only thing we've got and are returned with the only thing begot. Back and forth we go, cause the cause-and-effect game of tennis, called life.

What's the net but the barrier of dream to reality. A net a manifest station to deliver the spirit of ourselves to other selfs and build relationships in body or thoughts, with.

Every physical action is a kind of thought using the words of what's tangible. The touch of the physical object is a conversation. "Every touch should thrill," Emerson said. And he was right. But to spend one's day in ecstasy is no way to be. Moments of divine connection are fine, but they must be opportunities to happen and not the norm.

To be happy all the time is a sad goal. Because happy would become commonplace, happy would become 'okay.' Happiness all the time kills happiness. Happiness is a spark that causes a short warm hot better than good feeling.

Our goal, and the most difficult and ideal thing to be, is okay. Just plain old okay.

My goal is to be a little better than okay most of each day. A state called 'glad'.

We don't use the word glad enough. It's a quiet gratitude for being alive.

This is where I bring back around the tennis metaphor and close things up. But as the game requires a return of my serve, the only way for me to finish is for you to send it back. And as you're reading this, you are.

So, I find ways to get this to you so I can thank you for your time to read it and send you more.

There must be a return, or these words just simply cannot exist. So, I sit in limbo teaching my dog to read so I can be acknowledged for all my hard work.

But he takes the ball and runs with it, convinced it's a game of fetch. Jumps over the net, wags his tail, and drops the ball at my feet.

Instead of you dropping the return to finish the effort.

Extended metaphor going bad: You dropped the ball. Return the serve. I'm always glad for a game.

S.J. Wynn
+he Ghos+