We were Sophomores in College and she took me home to Manhattan to meet her family. I wanted to get a pair of Jordans so she took me to Canal St - we got separated on the subway on the way there and right as we realized it was happening we reached for each other’s hands as the glass doors quickly slid shut and the train sped off like a burst of lightning. I was left behind. That moment was incredible, the whole population of that particular New York Subway stop stood still looking around for cameras thinking ‘this must be a love scene in a movie, where are the cameras?’ I took the next train and some radical old New Yorker with a killer accent helped me navigate my way to Canal St.

I came up out of that subway and realized a pace of life I’d never seen before, overwhelming and just all-around epic; I walked a few steps and there she was, standing in the middle of the sidewalk with a cold water and a slice of pizza in hand. In that moment, I am not sure if it was my powerful imagination or the world actually stood still for a brief 30 seconds but either way, my future life flashed before my eyes watching this beautiful creature smile at me as her hair and bright green dress swayed with the humid breeze coming up from under the subway grates. She took a bite of her pizza and said “thought I almost lost you there!” I was in love. 

A note to my future Self:

Dear M4,

Last week, I found an old part of myself. I was sitting in Terminal 1 of the San Diego Airport sipping a scalding hot coffee sitting in a beat-up airport chair listening to the hustle and bustle of a busy Friday morning - I realized there was an internal quiet in me that I hadn’t felt in a long time. The sounds of the airport terminal at 6AM nostalgically reminded me of the first time I walked down Canal St in New York City, circa 2011, it was loud, super-charged with capitalisitc chaos and anxiousness seemed to be floating around in the humid summer air as if propelled by sirens, laughter and yelling bootleg salesman - it was peaceful. I remember that day like a poetic moment in a movie (think Robin Williams’ diatribe in the first classroom scene of Dead Poet’s Society) and I often reminisce of how I fell in love with my Wife, Christina, that day. 

Sitting in that little dirty ol’ airport chair (man, I can’t wait for the Terminal 1 upgrade at SD Airport), I realized that I find some way of checking my anxiousness at the door by simply being in the center of the busiest zones, it helps me listen more deeply to my own thoughts and to be more present with every opportunity around me - I think it also helps me realize that I am not alone. 

When we believe we have the weight of the world on our shoulders and that weight is sitting atop the irreplaceable ‘chips’ which are packed with our gnarliest struggles and scars, it can be very challenging to find the peace and quiet which will help you create clarity. BUT, the work is bigger than you and you will quickly realize how you are not so different from all of the other fish swimming upstream.

There are a few people in my life who, over the years, have indirectly told me or in other words, shown me that the “more you listen, the more you learn.” That’s always been a valuable lesson and viable focus point for me if I am a bit lost but it never felt complete to me - it didn’t have the full cliche slogan magic, ya know?

Well what I realized in Terminal 1 last week was the missing part of that sentence - it felt like I completed the Rubik’s Cube or something - The more you listen, the more you learn.. about yourself.

It’s a strange game we play, this thing called The Human Experience, we constantly push and pull and seem to be really consistent about one thing only in chasing that process, being off-balance. When you sit back and watch it all hustling and bustling around you, you realize that the smoother, more go with the flow energy will eventually get you to your destination and no matter what, if the intention is there, you will meet your goal. The bonus is that you might even fall in love along the way.

So in other words, don’t mistake the chaos with panic, in its own funky way, it’s somehow incredibly orchestral and can teach us so much about how we are just one part, one instrument in the band of greater music being made.

Slainte Brother, 

M4

Poem of the Week(as always, off the top in a minute or less):

Panic is the miss

Big win when you go in for the daily kiss

Structure is good but can’t be forced

Fake muscles don’t make you strong

Stillness is special

Especially if prolonged.

“We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

- Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society