If Lost, Please Locate Your Nearest Random Stranger and Listen

We all have our stories. I enjoy it when I get to spend time learning about someone else's story. I feel privledged when someone shares themselves with me. Once, while traveling to Philadelphia I met a guy I call G.I. Jason. He told me all about how he wanted to become a sniper for the CIA and all the discipline that came with his journey. He happened to be on this particular bus going to DC to leave for a foreign country and one of our "democratic wars" . In the course of the night, he wound up falling asleep, head falling into my lap as he attempted a autobus version of the fetal position. This spoke pages about him.

While in Cleveland, I came across this wonderful crone who wore her years like the women in my family do, with grace and leathered toughness. She was smoking a cigarette at the bus station, under a huge sign that said "NO SMOKING". A security guard came over and asked her to put it out. The conversation went something like this:

Guard: Mame, do you see the sign?
Lady: What sign? (she inhales a puff)
Guard: The one behind you.
Lady: (She turns ever so slowly while still smoking her cigarette) I didn't see that sign before.
Guard: Well, your gonna have to put it out.
Lady: Son, I am older then the first dirt God made, but I'll put it out. (As she inhales, then puts the cigarette out on the bottom of her shoe).
Guard: Thanks, mame. (Walks Away).
Lady: (Lights another cigarette).

These memories came into my head tonight. I know they have been told and retold, written in my journal and I'm sure thought of more then once, but I wanted to put them here...to explain why I write a silly little blog on the web. Besides being a really nice reprieve from school work right now, I like to think I am sending out energy into the world with this thing. I am a person who has made many mistakes, many wrong turns, and lets face it, its taken me too long to own them sometimes. Sometimes, even though I feel comfortable in my independence and focused journey, I get lost on my road...Wondering if I am even on a path. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot remember where I am...and in this moment I feel completely scared that its not just the sleepiness I am feeling. But I never feel lost while listening to someone's story, watching our events unfold, or writing my own. My own story is a combination of self and all things that have touched me. Words in my head and words on a page are a way to connect them, and in a story unfolding I feel like I am touching something beyond me...and this guides me onto another day. So excuse me if I post too much right now. I feel glad I am going to school, glad I think I am going in my direction...but its taking much energy and putting things out here helps to remember which way I am going, what I want to put out into the world, and what I want to come back to me.