This must be the place: You may be gone, but your impact remains

I remembered immediately.

Scrolling through the Facebook stream on Monday afternoon, I came across a post from a dear high school friend who had some sad news to share. A mutual friend of ours, from way back up on the Canadian border, in my native North Country, had suddenly and tragically passed away the night before.

This must be the place: The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

It was familiar, yet weird. 

Over the last two weeks I’ve crossed paths twice with my immediate family. Once down in St. Augustine, Florida, for my father’s 75th birthday and this past weekend in Waynesville, as my parents, little sister and niece came to visit me in Western North Carolina.

This must be the place: Just when you found me, I’m gone

You don’t know me.

In recent weeks, I’ve found myself saying that exact statement above to folks I love and care about. One being my sister over the phone back home in the North Country. The other via Skype with a femme fatale currently out of the country, one that has caught my eye over the winter.

This must be the place: I was never cool. Then again, who is?

She is still a fox.

Midnight. Last Tuesday morning. Wide-awake and in front of a large HD television at my parent’s Florida rental cottage. I haven’t had cable in several years. But, seeing as everyone was already asleep and March Madness was over for the night, I clicked around the endless channels of nothing.

This must be the place: We won, but what’s the real prize?

Once they announce your name, you stand up and move towards the bright lights.

Meandering around a sardine can ballroom of tables, chairs and random folks milling about, The Smoky Mountain News made it to the stage at the Sheraton in downtown Raleigh last Thursday evening.

This must be the place: I remember you, the one in the dusty photos

It came out of the blue.

Sunday morning. My smart phone dinged next to my bed. I groaned, rolled over and reached for it. One eye open, my blurry vision tried to make out the sender in the message. It was a name I hadn’t spoken to in several years, more than a decade since we’d seen each other in person.

This must be the place: It’s midnight, do you know where you life is?

I finally had a moment of silence.

After a raucous Saturday night attending the Perpetual Groove show at The Salvage Station in Asheville, I found myself in the living room of my friend’s house in West Asheville. Midnight had come and gone, and there I was, sitting on the couch, wide awake as folks were already asleep atop the air mattress on the floor and in the back bedroom.

This must be the place: I’m a white man, and I know nothing

It wasn’t the film that was shocking. It was the mere fact I had previously thought “I was aware,” and yet actually have fallen so short in my pursuits.

This must be the place: So many miles, so many roads

I hadn’t slept that long in years.

After driving up and down the East Coast for the better part of the last two months, from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, I found myself awakened from a deep slumber last Thursday morning — almost 6,000 miles and 15 states total. 

Feet in the sand, not your head

How could something so beautiful be so ugly?

Standing at the edge of the ocean on the Gulf Coast of Texas, I looked down at my feet being washed over by the relentless waves of crisp waters filled with mystery and wonder. I kicked around pebbles and broken shells, just glancing down at them with such awe, almost a Zen-like state of mind where you simply zone out and immerse yourself in the winds of change, and of self.

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