Hello, From The Sweltering Heat of Hell

Subtitle:  Putting My Suicide on the Back Burner

© Robert Burnham,  2008,  San Antonio

 It is so hot.  Over a hundred degrees every day now.  Walk outside and it's like walking into a blast furnace.  Took Streaker out for a couple of hours this morning but after 11:00 it's just not possible.

I was just taking a nap when the phone rang, so I didn't look who was calling.  It was 'HER'.  She said she called because she left her little bottle of woolite behind.  But she made sure to add that she spent a lovely day, yesterday, with Frank.  Why would she do this?  I don't need or want to hear these things, I just simply told her it was none of my business - and she could get a new bottle of woolite.  Then I hung up and new tears welled up in my eyes.

Who knew someone could feel so lonely in a city this size.  I don't have nothing against this city other than the fact that it is probably where Satan comes when Hell gets too cold.  Actually, I like this city and I like what I have brought to it:  two schools already built and now doing three more.  There's a lot of kids here, and like in many large metropolitan areas, the schools are over-populated and under-staffed.  I am not suggesting I am on a moral path; I do what I do for my pay and the company I work for builds schools for a profit.  I just think there's worse things a man could do.  And a lot better things:  like live in the wilds of the Canadian woods where Maples grow taller than anywhere else, or be out somewhere in the middle of Montana, raising an adorable family (5 Kids, Single Mom) under the big Montana sky and working on a ranch.

It's funny how we end up where we do and doing what we do.  And the way we react to our lot and our surroundings.  And, as the Bard might say, that is the rub isn't it?  How we react.  Because, I've noticed in my travels (and my travels have been extensive) that you can put two men (or two ladies) in the same place, with the same circumstances and there's no guarantee that both are happy, no guarantee that both are sad.  So, then, what changes the scale from happy to sad?  It is all within our reaction to, and perception of the world around us.  And I am one of the sad ones but in the deepest valley of my heart, where-in lies all of the sum of human emotions, I want to be happy.  I don't know if I can get there but I've decided to try.  I don't even know how to get there and I keep hearing Satan's lies (or inner-speakings, for any of you who may be atheists and do not believe God's love and an opposite force to it) that at forty-five I am too old to accomplish happiness.  That my life has past me by.  And sometimes, my friends, I listen to this crap and I eat it up like chocolate covered honeycombs.

I have a beautiful friend back east.  And I don't me that he's beautiful in an aesthetically-pleasing handsome way.  Friend-back-east, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying your an ogre or some sort of Elephant-Man.  What I am saying is this man is beautiful because 'carpe diem' is the way that he chooses to live.  He seizes each and everyday for the true beauty that is on display in this world.  To cliche, he 'looks on the bright side'.  ALWAYS.  And I have never known him not to be thankful to God, for all that he has, for all that makes him a happy individual and I know that he was placed along my path for a special reason and maybe for the first time, I'm starting to see a little piece of the reason. 

I can walk, he cannot.  A drunk driver ensured him of that fate more than twenty years ago.  We are the same age, so that means that half of his life he has sat in a chair.  His faith never waivers, I question my faith on an hourly basis.  The places that he can go and the things that he can do are limited.  I still climb moutains, swim rivers and hike across expanses of open desert.  Instead of lamenting this, he has found other things to do.  He has a lathe in his kitchen and has taught himself tool-making - I have oftentimes suggest that he build me a bomb; but he refuses.  He is probably on par with some of the world's best chefs but his culinary training came in his own kitchen at his own hands.  And he has taken in and cares for his 'challenged' nephew, where I exist, responsible to no one.  He is a happy person.  I am a sad one.  There is a lesson in this for me.  Wish I could learn it.  Wish I could eyeball it, swing and slam it right out of the park.  Wish I could bring it home.  I'm gonna try.  I am 'going to' try.

I'm not sure why I think that any of you would find joy or interest in reading this and to tell you the truth, my reason for writing is selfish.  Writing helps me.  It gives me a certain sense of affirmation.  It soothes my soul.  As a reader (you ARE reading this), it is your job simply to read and to be touched by my words.  I am no Dante, no Shakespeare, no Twain, Tolstoy or Penn.  Never will be.  But I have a gift for writing, given to me by God and recognized a long time ago by my mentors, that tells me I am able to reach out and touch your soul with my words.  For the many of you who's souls and spirits I can't touch; I don't need to know this - it's irrelevant to my BELIEF that i am a writer and can do so.  You see; I do write from a very selfish perspective.

I know there is another reason for sharing this with the people who actually know me.  You are the people ultimately responsible for my inspiration to seek and find the beauty and happiness that is lying right in front of my eyes.  Even if I live in a place hotter than Hell's Kitchen.

I may have to lean on you from time to time, if that would be okay?

God Bless all you wonderful people and 'readers'.