It’s all good, just get back up and keep going til the wheels fall off.
With these words bouncing around back and forth around my head, I find myself on the way back from picking up some groceries and thinking about my ongoing existence as a human being and the creative path that lies ahead of me in the midst of the Revelations.
Though of course, on a day like today, these thoughts, every once in awhile, lead me to but one place—that being pain.
And why would I think of pain on my way back from such a simple task you’re probably asking yourself?
I guess the answer to that though, is that to imagine pain—at least for me—has always been somewhat of an awfully hazy thing.
I want to say so much about pain right now, but the words can’t come around at the moment without being slightly forced.
No, the inflammation of my fired up heart and all of the words burning in my mind would only aggravate the matter worse.
The name of the game today is silence.
Softness and silence.
I should not be writing at all.
But yet, and without much heed, an unforeseen inspiration, or something that glowed like an inspiration, intruded itself upon my blossoming mentality, and bloomed for an instant within my wide open mind.
From here I must throw without caution my decision to remain quiet to the wind,. Because now, I no longer find myself warranted by my own doubtful delusions about pain.
Which is when it came, the aforementioned wind. It brushed up against my heart and soul sending my mind entirely to another place altogether—a long lost forgotten memory.
The words, now forced by the windiness of my mind start to flow again from my fingertips without much thought.
Going With The Flow
There are some things about myself I can’t explain to most anyone. There are some things about myself I don’t necessarily understand at all. I can’t always say why I think about what I’m feeling, or how I feel when I sit down to start writing.
Sometimes I don’t know the differences between my strengths and weaknesses and what I’m supposed to do about them. And if I start thinking about these sorts of things in too much detail, without catching my own wandering mind in the act, everything gets extremely hazy.
And when things get too damn hazy, I can only think about what I cannot see in front of me and in light of that, sometimes, things will get very dark quickly.
It should also be noted that if I get too anxious and/or struck by some unforeseen fear, most likely I will become unconsciously self-centered, and without meaning to, I start to confuse the shit out of other people, only to wind up confusing the hell out of myself, and most of all, them too.
And perhaps, because of this, I am not a good person at all.
Still, to this day I don’t seem to know what I think till I see what I say. Maybe I am just an eternally smitten fool with a knack for stringing sweet & rhythmic sentences together, who likes to write about this, that, and the other, only to cover up his own internal shortcomings.
Flipping The Switch
And though by admitting this, I again see a light of understanding.
And what a delicate, soft, and pleasing light it is.
To speak matter of factly, it is quite illuminating, and it rather came quickly to be honest too. It’s as if someone Upstairs flipped a switch on in the cluttered and dusty attic of my worried mind.
And under the influence of this illumination, I no longer think of pain in the hazy way when which I had my first brush with such a thing as pain.
Something has changed within me in an instant.
Again, who really knows why?
But for what it’s worth, this different mentality of mine than just a moment ago—a remembered memory and a lost thought away from who I once was—now poses itself but one question.
Who could possibly have any interest in the not-so-exact memory of when I was first scared to death of pain?
That's a damn good question.
Granted most of my memories from my childhood I can’t recall with accuracy. My memory can sometimes be so damned unreliable that I tend to think I’m trying to prove something by it.
And what exactly might I be proving?
A long lost memory about pain?
A Long Lost Memory
It was late Spring or early Summer.
There was a baseball game.
It was a crystal clear, yet somewhat hazy day.
I was playing center field in this game.
I blacked out in the bottom of the ninth. I mean, I didn’t just fall down and collapse out of thin air.
But I did for the first time ever. I brushed up against the very thing they call excruciating pain that day.
Everything was so vivid. Which was a normal thing for Petal, MS that time of year and at the age I was. And if i’m not mistaken, I believe I was nine, ten, or even eleven—to be exact.
The weather was what you’d expect for a sunny day in southern Mississippi, except for a few dusty clouds. The temperature was hot and way too damn humid. The sound of youthful exuberance and thriving life surrounded me. Everything felt so alive just as it does right now inside my very own mind.
Anyways, it was the bottom of the ninth. Runners at the corners, two outs. Good guys were up 3-2. The game made you want to bite your fingernails and boyhood pride on the line. The golden child of the league was up to bat. His name was Ramble. An impossible out. Always was. Our pitcher was gassed, nothing left in the tank. The golden boy had worked the count into his favor, three balls, no strikes. Our poor pitcher put his fourth fastball right down the middle on a silver platter for the cleanup batter to deliver the game winner.
My memory from here mind you, is awfully hazy. What I can remember though was a distant and muffled cheer from the peanut gallery. The ball screaming on a rope in the direction behind me. The direction in which I pushed and shoved my ass as hard as I ever have off my right foot and blindly ran full speed in an angled direction behind me.
That’s when it happened. Everything went dark. Pitch black.
Hell, it was like a total eclipse in the middle of the afternoon. I blacked out like it was midnight.
After a short while I would guess, I came to, lying on my side like I sleep. A sapphire looking haze clouded my vision. The sky was as blue as I imagined it would be Up Yonder. The sunlight as gently piercing as when it first wakes me up from a longwinded nap in my hammock. I can remember smelling the dampness of fresh cut grass, the musk of my old leather glove. I felt the chill of the dirt below my wide open eye, the warmth of a velvet like liquid spilling delicately from my forehead, while filling my eyes with a hue of blood red. All I could think was that I was in so much pain that I was fixing to fucking die.
In the haziness I saw the silhouettes of my teammates that were seemingly passing me by and I think I began to wonder where they might be going. They were most likely going for some cheeseburgers and milkshakes after the game, I might’ve thought.
They seemed though, to be jumping up and down, celebrating apprehensively, their voices excruciatingly silent with worrisome lips. There was a sharp and dull pain just above my right temple. I suppose I must have mumbled something. I can’t recall correctly. Before I fell back into the darkness of agonizing pain.
Later that afternoon, I came completely to in a blinding hospital room, after a dozen or more stitches, just above my one good eye, and a severe concussion to boot. A few teammates came to check in on me, and they told me that after snagging the game winning catch before blacking out, the only thing I would say is, “it’s all good, just get back up and keep going til the wheels fall off.”
Getting Back Up
Now, where and the hell did that come from? To this day, I still haven’t the slightest of idea. I was probably most likely just day-dreaming of winning an all inclusive of trip to that Great Gig In The Sky.
But three plus decades later the words of wisdom are still here, engraved, scarred, or stitched, if you will, within my mind, just above my one good eye. And here I am still trying to figure out what and the hell I meant all these years later.
Figuring It Out.
I suppose that if I should find myself chasing another line drive and running with blind passion full speed into six inches of the most hard pressed plywood of pain my head and my heart has ever felt, supposing I did wake up, not knowing whether or not I was alive under a heaven like sky with my hands holding quite the surprise, or if I had done gone on ahead that day and died.
What words of wisdom could I—a man of forty six years—utter in the face of pain?
“It’s all good, just get back up and keep going til the wheels fall off.”
Quite possibly.
Til the next time.
Ryan Love
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