A reflection back, gives me a path forward

Last night, I was pondering my life, and where I was three years ago. I remembered an anxiety within me, a drive, something, some fire, some voice that told me that there was more out there. Change was coming. I could feel it in the very air I breathed. Minnesota was not where I needed to be in the long term. As great as my previous employer was and all the good I learned from them, my feet, my heart, everything within me was itching for something new.

I knew then, that there was something better, something more, something that God needed me to do. I recalled my earnest prayers with my wife at that time, asking to be ready for whatever came. The answer always seemed to be the same - wait, and be patient. Heather and I knew then, as much as we do now, that when God acts in our lives, it is with sudden haste and clarity.

Within a year, Heather's mom was diagnosed with cancer, and right then, at that moment, that very second, I knew that Washington was where I needed to be. But how to get there?  I had a significant financial obligation to my employer in regards to my scholarship that I received from them, and if I gave my two weeks, or month notice, or whatever, I would have had to pay them back  which my wife and I were not ready for.

A few months, later, my department was cut in half, and I my positioned was cancelled, the scholarship debt forgiven, and an open road to figure out how to get back to Washington. Through some miracle, we were able to get an apartment for an affordable rate, able to find work, and live closer to family.

As many of you know, last year, my Mother-in-Law passed away from that damned disease, and thanks be to God that we were as close to family as we were, to support each other through the next months and year.

Now that the storm has calmed, the anxiety within me has lessened, and I am left wondering to myself - "What next? How do I pick up the pieces and move on? What am I doing here? How can I ensure the best for my family?"

God brought us here, and here is where we plant our proverbial grain and lay down roots. We learn in Genesis that mankind is to eat bread by the sweat of our brow. The frantic energy of searching for God's will has changed, or is changing, into a focus to prepare for tomorrow and the years ahead, to build, to create, to strive for something greater and never settle for what is easy.

There will always be an emptiness from those that leave us suddenly, but we must move on. We must pick ourselves up, as broken as we are, and surround ourselves with those we love, and love them with all our heart. We must do all we can to care for those that are still with us, and prepare ourselves for whatever the future may bring. 

I survived the black plague

By the grace of God, I have survived the plague.

Yes, the plague, Yersinia Pestis, as in the black death.

When I was a little more than two years old, I somehow contracted the plague into my large intestine. There were two reactions.

The doctors wanted pictures to put into the textbooks, as it was a one a million medical discoveries. This picture could be very well have been from that day.

My mother and father were “getting my affairs in order” per the doctors instructions.

Obviously I survived.

There is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a reason that I am alive. I could have very easily died that night and been taken back to that same God that gave me breath. God knows that I have contemplated, multiple times, with all the hell that I have lived through, all the hell I have raised, the mistakes that I have made, why I have been preserved?

I was born to fulfill a purpose. I am here today because there is a work for me to do. It could be that I am to solve some great societal ill or stop some great evil in the world in my day. It could also be that God needed someone to be a small light to the world, a small kind light to brighten the space around him.

I don’t know why yet I was preserved, but I was… and here is the important part.

If you are alive, you have purpose. God doesn’t make junk. You are not junk. You were made to do great things because you are great. 

Yellow Jacket - Pt. 3

Detective Samantha Andrews was on the scene thirty minutes after the call came in. Most of the time, the Seattle police department would be two to three hours after the initial call came in, giving her ample time to assess the crime scene prior to contamination.

Today, she was not so lucky. A body had been dumped on the southbound I-5 exit to Spokane Way. That morning, all of the local news stations were around the perimeter, getting glancing shots of the body. Ed Murray mandated that the force be present ASAP, as to put on a good show and delude any ideas that the police department was stretched thin and that the homeless problem was being well managed.

“That idiot,” Samantha thought. She got the call at 3:30, giving her enough time to put on her uniform, put her long blonde hair in a pony-tail and cap prior to heading out. It was 5:00 AM now. She was hunched over the body, taking pictures of the dried, foamy residue in the victim’s cheeks and chin. There was a white powder residue around the nostrils of the John Doe. The powder was swabbed and bagged for evidence. She assumed a cocaine overdose. Forensics would let her know otherwise.

Jammer, the coroner, was finishing up a temperature probe to determine time of death. He shook his head and then probed again. He was a short Caucasian man with inquisitive blue eyes and brown hair that beginning to thin at the crown of his head. He wore thin black rimmed glasses

“Jammer, what’s the issue?” Samantha asked as the probe broke the skin and headed towards the liver.

“The time line isn’t adding up. Of course I won’t know more until I get this back to autopsy, but we got the call at the witching hour of the morning correct?”

Sam nodded.

“Yet his core temperature is still above normal. Significantly so as a matter of fact.” He pulled the temperature probe out and showed the reading to the detective. The digital meter showed 102 Fahrenheit. “Perhaps he was put up against some burning barrel when he died, but for a core temp to remain so high, for so long would indicate an excruciating fever prior to his death. It is congruent with a drug overdose, but what drug our John Doe took here, we will have to wait and see.”

Just then, the detective’s phone rang. It was dispatch, and the news wasn’t anything she wanted to hear.

“Detective Samantha, we have multiple reports of body dumps in your area, with more coming in by the minute, the first address is-”

“Hold on. Do all the bodies appear to be death by overdose?”

“Yes Ma’am,” the dispatcher said.

“Email me the addresses, and I will get to them when I can.” She hung up the phone and looked over at Jammer.

“Homicide?” Jammer asked.

“How else could you explain multiple body drops of overdose on…” her phone beeped with the new email that came through. She scanned through the addresses, picturing them on a map in her head, “the most major interstate exits into Seattle,” she continued. “That white powder? Some new strain of cocaine you think?”

“I have seen multiple overdose cases,” Jammer started. “Heroin being the most prominent. But I have never seen temps this high, for this long. Whatever it was that he did overdose on, it isn’t something I am familiar with.”

“Let’s get these bodies back to the lab, and quickly prior to any further contamination.”

“Agreed.”

Most of the Seattle workforce was late to work with interstate exits being closed. Some called in sick, others who had the option of telecommuting did so at the first reports of a three hour commute from Everett to Seattle.

Talk show hosts either criticized or blamed the cities reaction to the homeless problem as the root cause of the dead bodies on the streets. Others stated the importance of utilizing and expanding mass transit and homeless outreach programs.

A week later, they were all but forgotten in the main stream media.

The mass spectrometer showed that the white powdery substance wasn’t cocaine or heroin exactly, but contained similar properties to them. From the particulates that they could find, the forensics lab concluded that the white powder was a new drug on the street, ten times more powerful the heroin, and seemed to be 100% more fatal. 

Clan of the Broken Banner - Part 8

Six months have passed since my incident on the ferry. My shirt still has a hole in it, but the more I think about it, the more I believe that the hole has always been in my shirt.

I place the blame of this self-doubt squarely on my therapist.

Who also placed me in an institution…

After I was adamant that someone is trying to kill me.

The pills they have me on mess with my head and my bowel movements. Some are for depression, and some are for neuro-chemical rebalancing. I am in a small room with an uncomfortable bed, too soft a pillow and scratchy blankets. I am not trusted with writing implements, plastic water cups, or even to take a shower in private. My room is also equipped with my own personal webcam, straight to the nurses’ station. I try to entertain them occasionally with one-line out bursts of Shakespeare.

As revenge for this hostile environment, I don’t shower.

I’m not sure how they expect someone to get healthy in this type of environment. If you aren’t mentally deranged coming into the third floor psyche, you will be going out. If you get out, that is.

On a plus side, I have had three episodes. One with a dog running in a road and me, as a boy, running into the road to save the dog from getting hit by a texting teenage driver. The boy’s leg was run over, but the dog was ok.

The second episode was a suicide jumper on Deception Pass Bridge in the middle of the night. The teenage boy, perhaps thirteen, was a runaway after his twin brother was hit by a car. Getting hit by cars seemed to be a theme. In it, I “self-talked” him off the bridge and hitch-hiked his way home. He was picked up by a police officer, and the episode ended.

The last episode was the night before last. Dinner was being served by a dad, or father figure, to two kids. I was one of the kids. A girl this time. The dad had put a turkey casserole on the table but had forgotten utensils. He asked his kids to wait, but a brother, older, stuck his fingers into the casserole and took a big bite. He swallowed quickly, and the food got lodged in his throat. I, as the younger sister, performed the Heimlich maneuver, sending the turkey and spit across the dining room onto the other wall.

On all three occasion, the “episode of neurotic and schizophrenic behavior” was countered with a quick shot of sedation, followed up with new pills.

[][][]

I am having a one on one discussion with my therapist, and my mind has trailed off again to the ferry ride, to my first episodes as a child, eating cereal in my parent’s kitchen. Ten years ago, this all started, and I thought it ended. 

I know someone is trying to kill me, and that these episodes are real. I am helping people (or dogs in some cases) live their lives, saving them one episode at time.

“Are you listening to me Mr. Bargrey?” The therapist is trying to get my attention again. I snap my attention to her. “Do you still believe that someone is trying to kill you? Do you believe that these dreamlike episodes you are having are real?”

I pause and smile.

“I think the drugs are working, and these therapy sessions have really helped,” I say.

“You have had three episodes in the time you have been here. And your charts say that you are refusing to shower or socialize with the other patients. Re-entering society calls for at least some formality of hygiene and etiquette. Your behavior doesn’t show that you really believe what you are saying.”

I look at the door, and the closed camera, and smile.

“Have you ever spent time, a considerable amount of time, in this place?” I ask.

“No, I can’t say that I have,” she replies.

“I would love for you to stay here, for as long as I have, without a means of artistic expression, 

crayon or pencil, no media, no stimuli whatsoever save for the white colored walls and the acoustic ceiling panels, counting every crevice and dot over and over and over again, while nurses, women and men, watch you relieve your bowels, and wash yourself to ensure that you don’t commit suicide via swirly in the toilet, or hanging by shower curtain, while listening to Joanna, the next room over, who swears that there are cats under her bead ever hour of the night… and tell me… honest to God in Heaven tell me! that you wouldn’t go a little insane.”

She pauses and jots some notes down on my chart and then puts it down. She folds her hands and 

leans closer to me.

“Mr. Bargrey, do you honestly believe your life is in mortal danger? That these episodes you are having are real.”

“I do not believe my life is danger, or that the episodes I have are real. But I would love some to keep me from dealing with this place.”

She picks up my chart and makes a few more notations.

“I will have you discharged in the morning Mr. Bargrey,” she smiles. “Try not to let the cats keep you up all night.”

Yellow Jacket - Pt. 2

Rain. Precipitation from the sky in the form of water. In Seattle, it is known as Washington Sunshine, and there are multiple sub-genres of said precipitation. Such names include drizzle, showers, mist, down-pour, cats and dogs falling from the sky, usual Washington weather, each with various adjectives and modifiers.

On October 17, 2024, there was a heavy deluge in Seattle, and John Snyder was hunched in the Jungle. This jungle isn’t what you think. There are no trees in this jungle, no plants, no wildlife to be spoken of, though other civilized individuals and groups might not consider John Snyder to be civilized. No, the Jungle is a large homeless encampment, full of rapists, drug addicts, alcoholics, sex offenders, murderers, and other criminals who were let out and had no place to go. Some of the Jungle’s citizenry simply include druggies whose addiction took them to poverty on a golden thread.

Here, in this Jungle, John Snyder shivered while hunched over a burning barrel filled with garbage and heroin needles. There were dozens of other sharps around him, but he didn’t notice. His eyes were fixated on the dancing green and red flames. One thought ran through his mind over and over.

Money.

He needed money to get another hit. He also needed money for food. He hadn’t eaten in three days. The last few hits had screwed with his perception of time. It was 36 hours of perpetual bliss. He couldn’t recall if it was Thursday, or Sunday. Sunday was when someone usually brought chicken that the Union Gospel Mission was giving out. That seemed so recent to him.

The rain was lessening, and that meant he might be able to pan handle a few bucks for another hit. His muscles twitched uncontrollably as he was coming down. He was thinking in minutes now, minutes to his next hit, minutes to enough money, minutes to talking to his dealer, minutes to that un-explainable bliss.

“You strung out man?” someone said next to him. He didn’t see the man, walk up next to him and the burning barrel. He spoke with a deep, muffled voice. He wore two sweaters, a winter rain coat, jeans, old Sketcher boots, and a red beanie.

“Why, you sellin’?” John asked. “I don’t have money, but I can get some… soon too… I think.”

“Nah, I ain’t sellin’,” the man replied. “I got something new though, I could give you a taste and see what you think.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an orange prescription pill bottle. He unscrewed the cap and tapped out the last pill. It had a plastic coating, half yellow and half black.

“What is it?” John asked.

“It is your favorite ride but cheaper. Ten bucks a pill. Just open it up, pour out the powder, and I think you can figure out the rest.”

“I thought you said you aint sellin’?”

“I’m not. This one’s free.”

John, frantic, desperate for the ecstasy he was coming out of took the pill out of the man’s hand.

“Thanks,” he muttered. He turned back to his tent next to one of the pillars. He had his materials there. There wasn’t enough powder to cook for an injectable dose. Instead, he laid it out on a piece of paper into a thin line and snorted it.

Within seconds, John was back in his restful high, staggering around the jungle as if he were half asleep.

Within minutes, he was lying next to a garbage can. A dried foam covered his mouth and chin. 

His eyes were glazed over with the grey sheen of death. 

Yellow Jacket - Pt. 1

There are two types of people you shouldn’t trust in this world (three if you include lawyers). Never trust an actor because they are a habitual and professionally trained liar. They be anyone at any time. 

And never, ever, on any account, trust an author… as they are the ones who feed the actors the lie.

The author is the master craftsmen of story, of motive, of opportunity, of the human psyche. The author can make you reflect on your own life in ways you don’t understand, and cry about it later and talk about it with your book club friends over a glass of wine and tissues.

It is in this mood, I posit the following. The most dangerous item known throughout the history of man is the blank canvas. It has liberated the captive, slain the oppressor, divided the unified, and unified the divided. The ink truly commands the sword, the bullet, the target, the lie. 

And we fall for it.

Never has such a cacophony been heard from both groups, the actors and the authors, been in collusion to delude the intellect, and capture the mind in an every spinning and sticky web of conspiracy and fandom.

Using this canvass and ink, relying on the divisiveness of the deliberating lawyer, and leaning on the stage and command of the actor...

I got away with becoming King. 

The Force Awakens - Theories and Back Stories of Rey

If you haven't seen The Force Awakens, you have been warned.

In the movie, where Rey grasps Luke's light-saber and has the vision, both Yoda and Ben Kenobi are either talking to her, or she is hearing memories of Luke's...

However... Ben Kenobi speaks directly to Rey, after the visions of her childhood life and glimpses into the future, saying

"Rey.... these are your first steps." It is just a whisper, and I didn't catch it until I started watching the movie with subtitles. And the subtitles clearly show: Kenobi: "Rey... these are your first steps."

So what does this mean? I think it means that as a child, Rey was taught by Luke Skywalker. Ben Solo was also a part of that group, though he would have been much older, and the top student of Skywalker. Ben kills the other students, when Skywalker isn't present, and Rey is somehow saved.

Prior to Skywalker going missing, Rey's memories of her being a Padawan, and her knowledge of her abilities with the force are wiped. This could have happened after the massacre, next to a fire, with R2-D2 and Luke. There is a two second scene of just this in the movie. Why is it there otherwise?

Why else can she fly a ship she has never flown before, in ways she has never flown before - the GARBAGE ship a.k.a Millennium Falcon to be exact? Why else can speak droid, understand Chewy, and have sudden proficiency in the force, enough to hold her own against Kylo Ren - who by the way held a blaster shot in mid air, like he just don't care.

Rey, was trained in the ways of the force as a child. Her memories were wiped. The resurfacing of those memories and abilities leads to the title of the movie

---The Force AWAKENS ---

How much for your Dreams?

This post will be slightly different than others that I have written in the past.

I have been negligent of writing and of tending to my creative abilities as of late. Schooling, new jobs, house hunting, and other hobbies have all seemed to take precedent over writing...

a grievous sin, of which I am well aware, but bear with me...

Someone once asked me, in a small coffee and sandwich shop, what my dream was. He asked me, what gets me going in the morning, more than anything, what is it I want to strive towards. I answered, and shared with him something that perhaps he wasnt expecting.

And now, thinking back on that memory, looking back on the past few years, with everything that has gone on, I begin to understand the phrase

make time...

There is only so much mental energy,  and prioritization needs to be done. Thank god for chocolate and protein shakes.

Are my dreams still important to me? Have I sold out for an easy living? I don't think so.

I could say that I have been telling myself stories of self deprecation and fear mongering, but that wouldn't be true. The truth of these past couple years, with all of their ups and downs, is this.

I haven't loved writing as much as I used to in times past. The addiction isn't there anymore, yet even this blog is evidence of its resurgence. HA!

No, that isnt it either.

I simply haven't made time. I have been making excuses not to write. I figured that if I have time to write, I have time to do other things... house chores, my thesis, get dinner ready.

I simply need to MAKE TIME.

A line from the band COLORS, keeps playing over and over in my head. The song is called Soledad, and it has a lot of meaning to me (you can read the lyrics at http://www.azchords.com/c/colors-tabs-6243/soledad-tabs-103479.html).

One particular line is this:

Every now and again, somebody is going to say, "How much for your dreams? Tell me, what can I pay?"

How cheaply do we sell away our dreams? How short do we sell ourselves in our day to day activities? How often would some of us (raises hand) binge out on a favorite series, realizing later that those hours could have been spent refining talents and capabilities?

I need to MAKE TIME to write and get back into this.