or as Pink Floyd poised…”IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?”  

 

**CAUTION EXPLICIT LANGUAGE**

This story jumps around a bunch like my inner thoughts largely spurred by my wild imagination, dreaming and a recent, blessed reconnection to an important man in my life— my cousin David.

 

Greetings earthling: Do you ever feel like you’re not of this world? Seriously. 

Often I have felt disassociated from the “normal” here on planet Earth…actually, in truth, I HAVE NEVER felt “normal” at all really. (And from what I see as socially acceptable as “normal” here I’m not sure I’d even want to)

I do not mean by any means identifying as elitist or “better than” at all— actually often quite the opposite: broken, shattered, weird, troubled…certainly DIFFERENT.

Growing up, I was alone a great deal…an “only child” till I was 10. My mother and I were quite close as I was with her in her early college years, my father away on construction sites while working on his degree. I learned to find a lot of fun in my mind and my imagination. I do recall a friend back in Oklahoma City from my very early childhood, Timmy Gavin, but he had MD and died a couple years into our friendship. Thus I learned loss and the fleeting nature of this life— quoting George Carlin “ya know this is gonna end in tragedy!” Hilarious! All in perspective AND FUNNY DAMMIT!

We moved to Baltimore when I was 5ish. I found that I was one of the oldest kids there since my parents had had me so young in their marriage. I had fantastically fun alone times in the gravels of the Reed Hall single resident housing complex just across the tennis courts from our row house in the “compound”— still in plain view of the guardhouses on the corners with officers that packed heat. I constructed massive involved cities and airports in the gravels and had one grand time, me and my Hot Wheels and Corgi aircraft— as well as some BBC Thunderbird spacecraft models I recall. 

I colored a lot and did ceramics and other crafts with my mom, listening to music which was always greatly important in my family but a whole lot of time i was left to entertain myself. I started “Mark’s Babysitting and Car Wash Service, sometime in there and created my own Crayola® business cards— see DIFFERENT from a very young age.

I watched quite a bit of TV, specifically Leave It to Beaver and imagined what it would be like to have a neighborhood to roam in. My Three Sons thinking how cool it would be to have a brother(s). The Partridge Family and The Monkees thinking how awesome it would be to make music. 

My only sense of having a kindred spirit or brother was my cousin David whom I’d see in the summers at my Grandpa Baker’s house in McAlester Oklahoma, my birthplace. Oh how I yearned for time with my Aunt Vivian’s family: cousins Deborah, David and Donna. (Well David…Deborah was kind of a brat to me and Donna seemed a lot younger though wasn’t really). I need to also include my cousins, Viveca, Monique, Laurette and Patrice daughters of my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Vince— but they were girls so while great times, it wasn’t the same as times with David. Plus David and I were the only grandsons so, yes, we got doted upon.

Anyhow, a number of my closest fondest memories of family growing up orient around the backyard at 1303 South Ninth Street in McAlester in either a St. Louis Cardinal baseball or Dallas Cowboy Football uniform David had. We were roughly the same size (No I was chubby). If not out back playing catch or tracking locusts or whatnot, we were out in Grandpa’s boat fishing or eating out in Krebs at the Isle of Capri Italian Restaurant or swimming off the so-called beach at “Old #9” boat launch— where years later I would learn to water ski — probably all with David. 

I remember going to the Oklahoma State Rodeo in the courtyard of the Oklahoma State Prison courtyard a number of times and whether or not it is factual, my memory of great times in the Sooner state seem to always include David.

David had then and still does have an important place in my psyche, life, memories and heart. But you all know, time marches on, we grow older and focused upon our surroundings and tasks and things change— at least the frequency of time together seem to spread out. Life comes flying by us, flashing by like star fields in the aft viewer of our starship.

I did have friends in Baltimore in school. Tyrone was one of my closest. A lean mean, fighting machine Tyrone and I played cops-n-robbers in the schoolyard but living in the compound apart from neighbor schoolmates, when I left  school I was back on my own.

Johns Hopkins hospital being internationally recognized residents were from all over the world: England, France, Israel, Sudan, South Africa, Italy, the Congo. The compound was a block away from the hospital smack dab in the middle of the ghetto for realz…ha ha ha. The inner city was mostly black, or negro or african-african depending upon the year of identification. So? So? So what! People of different origins and colors were what I knew. I sincerely NEVER gave a passing thought to the colors of our skin making one iota of difference in the “who” we were. Cats and dogs were different colors, fish were, leaves were…why would people being different colors make any impression upon me at all? It didn’t. Still doesn’t. 

Jumping ahead in time, in 1972 my long awaited dear brother Andrew Coy was born. By all accounts and my memory, I was an exceptional brother and it seems looking back with all the work my father was putting into his career often even kind of a father figure, pseudo….certainly a much older wiser brother. 

Andy and I despite the difference in years were very close…we’d joke that we were twins born 10 years apart. As it turns out Andy was an incredibly talented pianist— actually ANY stringed instrument of any kind. I was a natural drummer— not as good as Steve Housewright mind you but much more than proficient. My cousin David infused a marriage of both our talents: a keyboardist and drummer. 

David was also a wild and crazy guy and a great mimic as I considered myself to be, both great admirers of Mel Blanc and the like. When our families gathered in later years in the South of Texas in Brownsville or Padre Island at the Isla del Sol (many times at BlackBeard's seafood restaurant) we were often told to put away our swashbuckling personas, or goofy buzzard voices or (as would be apropos so close to the border) Speedy Gonzales chants and return to the table. Did we mind?— Oh hell to the NO!

Crazy attracts crazy and fools of a feather buffoon together…yes, ya done got yourself a barrel-full of monkeys where Andy and David and Mark were without a doubt. Growing up when we did, we were all on the edge of technology. I delving into the world of design and publishing; David and Andy doing interfaces with keyboards and all— we three were certainly cut from the same cloth. (Somehow I think blame or credit lies in great part to the influence of one William Marion Baker, our grandfather!)

In a far too short synopsis, I moved back from NYC and started an advertising agency, Andy graduated law school and became affiliated with Waves, a music software company, David became an actor. David and Andy both ended up in LA and I’d hear of their exploits from one or the other— such great fondness and admiration was shared among us I believe. 

Anyhow, yada yada yada…careers and children and places, Andy and I both ended up divorced and living together in Knoxville. David was blessedly still married and in LA. We’d connected on occasion but the intervals stretched and sagged sadly…nonetheless, love does not diminish with time or distance. 

That chapter and existence of my life began unraveling with my marriage and the beginnings of separation from my boys and then divorce and living with my mother to care for her in her cancer, her death, moving in with Andy, his death, moving in with my father, his death, falling deeper and deeper into oblivion and perhaps running in desperation, I moved to Delray Beach to retire, paint and try and put my life back together. 

Not to diminish or discount this very critical next phase, I fell out of religion but NOT spirituality, which actually grew as in sincere desperation I turned my will to God— I’d done a more than stellar job of fucking up what I tried to personally manhandle and guide.  

I’d even said screw it with finding someone to be with and said to God aloud “If You want me to be with someone for the last part of this venture, You will have to put them in front of me— I’m tired of trying and messing up. If I am to be alone, so be it. Ball’s in your court”— as of course, it always had been but….sign…ya know.

God thankfully answered with Leslie — a whole ‘nutter chapter and verse but I have finally found peace and purpose without the need for substance abuse patching of the broken places…Thank you Father for being so very loving. Amazing indeed. Amazing Grace even. As I grow older, I see and notice God’s hand a great deal leading me on.

Believe it or not…NOW I BEGIN to really tell this present story…HOLY CRAP, right? Sorry, no not really. It helps me to put words on paper and help thin out the trains of thought going on in my head.

David called me out of the blue a few weeks back. It was SOOOOO GOOD to hear his voice and to have all the loving memories and warmth and adventure and fun come roaring back into my front of mind. I just cannot even begin to say how wonderful it was to truly reconnect. (Ah, yes, I see you God yet again…thank you.)

So many times in the past few years, I’ve wanted to (and actually more than once had) picked up the phone to call Andy and ask or say to him….THEN IT HITS ME… in many ways as gut-wrenching as when I’d reach out and touched his cold forearm to awake him 6 years past now to find him…GONE. GONE…sigh…gone.

Conversely David calling was as joyfully impacting as that touch upon Andy’s cold shell had been harrowing— like a hug from my brother or in this case an audio hug from my cousin who has always felt like a brother. Tears creep from my eyes as I write this…in JOY, mind you. 

Oh, this life….such wonder and awe and joy and discovery and LOSS and PAIN but LOVE above all ELSE…LOVE!!!

Once years ago, I had become very very ill, running a persistent 103.8 temp causing my mother to put me into an agonizing ice bath to try and cool my body…I dreamed that night that I was dying and the only image of “heaven” in my head was cartoons playing a harp drifting on a cloud— WHAT THE HELL…that is HEAVEN? Well SHIT! I don’t want that…that’s no heaven to me. And as such the fear crept in. 

Fear of closing my eyes to sleep, worrying that I’d not awake. Fear of further loss that only grows. As we grow older the list of losses ONLY GROWS. Alas.

Years back maybe because of such fear, I chose to change my reading list to works of science, science fiction and what’s considered “Christian fiction” totally; ONLY. In other words, this world and its drama and pain and worry and angst is all too here and now— when I venture into my mind or nether worlds I choose to desire the place they offer. Science fiction by Asimov, Clarke, Mueller, Tolkien and Heinlein. Science by Kaku, Hawking and Sagan. Christian fiction by Peretti, Dekker, Alcorn and Lewis. 

In my readings some thoughts began to coalesce and soon a new vision of what I pray, I fully believe, with all my being to be “heaven” or our new realm began to take shape. I’m not going to argue or debate anything here and intend nothing but the telling of my deepest hope. Regardless— MY mind’s eye view, this possible reality is SOMETHING I CAN YEARN FOR. And so I shall and DO.

If God (call Him what you will “The Devine Being”, an intelligent creator, the cosmos) is a CREATOR as is our own father or mother— then I believe that there is great joy in OUR: discover, awe, wonder, fascination, and yearnings as I have for my sons— actually for all humanity really. If heaven might be an eternity of discovery and awe and learning and wonder in whatever form we may be…oh what a ride we are in for. Can you even imagine? I just barely can and I have a more than vivid imagination.

This sincere hope and prayers for all humanity is the reason I feel I must present a smile TO ANYONE, a kind word, a dollar or two when I can, an arm of assistance, a silent prayer of hope and healing…a simple hug. 

I was born with a servant heart…yes, also a sadly broken addict’s heart that may well have a “savior complex” of sorts  as I was once told…but first and foremost a LOVING SERVANT heart. 

Again that notion of “different”. I am no doubt a broken being…BLESSEDLY, GRACEFULLY, THANKFULLY…for the more broken I am, the greater the amount of LOVE that must fill those crevices to allow me to continue on and go. How grateful am I!

I mean no offense but I’ve seen and lived the present “THIS IS US!” episode and it sucks shit! It is completely and utterly FUCKED! It is present in the road rage, words of hate and racism, the rash of public shootings, the freaking attack on our nation’s capital, terrorism….WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE? WHAT THE FUCK???? SERIOUSLY…HOW CAN THIS BE??? 

Is there really any cause for hope? If there is it only exists in the minds of dreamers or madmen like…maybe ME?

And so I dream…I dive deep into the created worlds of incredible minds of (my choice of) authors, painters, music writers and musicians…into places of seemingly ABSOLUTE FICTION, for reality holds only fleeting interest to me. Places of healing sighs and rest encompassed in the arms of my wife and the call of a cousin and blessed memories of my past. Often in the writings of crazy, imaginative, enthralling minds that present wild fancifully detailed, intricate tales that take me to where I must go.

I’ve always been a bit of a geek I have come to realize, certainly a science fiction fan and dreamer. I’ve recently fallen down the Star Trek Picard hole. I’ve always loved adventures of space and Star Trek. I am so moved by the themes, plots, relationships, stories…AND THE WRITINGS of Picard do not disappoint. WOW wow wow! WOW!!!!!!!!!

Much to my pride and joy I have recently learned that by marriage I am connected in some small part to what I believe to be Star Fleet Royalty in that one of my relatives is responsible for something that is so moving and impacting to me.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MOST WANT??? 

I want to call ANDY and talk with him about that, about the incredible mind of one of our relatives to tell someone “can you believe we know someone who can write like this, dream like this???…more tears…oh how I wish I could call you Andy…

Oh how I absolutely HAVE TO BELIEVE that we continue on after our ceasing to exist here on earth in this realm and that he knows and sees me or hears me YEARNING for his company…pardon me a minute while I collect myself. I miss you Andy. I love you so very much my dear brother

Regarding the great writing in Picard, in one recent episode, one of the characters of color says (paraphrased) of the powers that be…

“It appears they have taken off their hoods, only to put us into them.”

Oh My God…did you catch that? DID YOU HEAR THAT POETRY…THAT TRUTH???

THEY HAVE TAKEN OFF THEIR HOODS…aka Ku Klux Klan hoods, white supremacist trappings, …holy shit. 

ONLY TO PUT US INTO THEM. The hood— the ghettos, the areas of the downtrodden… DAMN, THAT IS RICH, POIGNANT THOUGHT folks. WOW!!!

How unfortunate for us that we choose to see the worst in people and to expect that to be the “NORM” instead of the perverse exception. Oh how sad we get caught up having to keep on schedule as to ignore a fellow traveler on this blessed but fleeting journey, a small gesture or even a warm thought. As an artist, how pitiful we marvel at the magnificent variety of flowers but seperate ourselves by the GOD-GIVEN canvases of our human wrappings…how shallow? How utterly FUCKING PITIFULLY SHALLOW!

Incredible to me the minds that God has given us that are able to question why we are here. That can weave stories that have such interlocking gossamer intricacies that like fine lace weave incredible stories that seem real. Amazing that we are bestowed the ability to love and care for one another— and yet, often CHOOSE to do just the opposite.

Try it people…LOVE ONE ANOTHER— if even selfishly! Fine, don’t do it for them. DO IT FOR YOU! You’ll be surprised!

You know it is only in having such dreams that someone can envision a thing sufficiently for another to analyze and perhaps make real that which is only fantasy today. 

If one insists in believing that miracles DO NOT EXIST…then you will miss that we in fact are LIVING IN ONE TODAY. Oh, it is not perfect but it is real and it is a miracle…one that we can mold and shape and make better. 

IF ONLY WE WOULD…LOVE ONE ANOTHER! WELCOME TO THE MIRACLE. Glad you’re here. Enjoy.

Now carry on and LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!

Freeman. out.

(intermission ???) The house lights blink on and off and on and off signaling the show continuing.

OH NO NO NO!  You are not even done here man…MATTER OF FACT, YOU’VE REALLY ONLY BARELY BEGUN.

You’ve not drawn together how this all weaves together, not pulled in how Picard and sci-fi and dreaming really meld into this. How completely insane all this is…

So if you desire, come on along further down the swirling abyss that is my mind— my reality?? Hum.

Okay, my mind jumps around a bit. I’ve said before that at any given time I feel like I’ve got 17 trains roaring ahead on different tracks going God knows where…I’ve asked people before what they were thinking and they’ve said “nothing really” and I’ve thought…”Oh my God, I can’t imagine how that feels.” 

Busy busy crazy crazy happy happy joy joy. 

Yes, Rin and Stimpy with a dash of Beam Me Up and a smidgen of Wait for It, Wait for It mixed with some “Oh SHIT!” and lots and lots of Oh WOW and ARMS UP….Weeeeeeee! 

Welcome further into my world; a nightmare?— nah, adventure land of an odyssey of a daydream.

Is our reality merely a projection within our brains, odd tendrils and neurons mixing together feeling “real” like quarks or bosons ONLY existing when they are noticed — otherwise pure conjecture or imagination? 

At times I find myself looking for the cameras like on The Truman show— my life merely a story captured in full, vivid technicolor WHATTHEHELLICHROME HD in my tiny tiny human brain.

Leslie and I will be shooting the breeze, talking and something from my past will cross my mind and I’ll ask Leslie if she knows what the Fibonacci sequence is. Not exactly common place everyday chatter, right? But then strangely an answer on the evening’s Jeopardy will be “What is The Fibonacci sequence, Alex?” 

I hadn’t thought of the Fibonacci sequence in many years, way back talking with my brother and father. For certain, I had not heard it mentioned at all recently. Again, not exactly a “Did you see that game?” common topic. 

Why did it cross my mind? Who knows and then have it mentioned AGAIN the same day, an answer to a Jeopardy question. Makes me pause and say….”Whaaaaaaat?” and look all around. You have got to be kidding me. Okay, where are the damn cameras…right?

Times like now I find myself spinning, swirling mentally, changing bodies or at least point of view and start to assess my thoughts or writing from another’s angle and think…

”Wow, full of yourself, aren’t you? Thinking this existence is “The FREEMAN Show”? How narcissistic of you. And on and on you drone about loving one another and expounding upon your continual encouragement to project Love. Holy fucking shit…will you just shut UP!!! No one cares about your thoughts. No one cares about anyone or anything else but themselves and sure as hell doesn’t give a damn about what you think! Get it man? People quit reading this tripe many many paragraphs ago. SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

Well….No, I won’t shut up any more than I will cease dreaming and hoping. For me to think is to dream is to fly is to live is to love. Really, life spent stupidly dreaming? Whatever. What possible difference could a smile make? Stories are just stories, marking time till we CEASE existing— how foolish that you EVEN begin to think there is anything more than what is here now— IF IT IS?

Sorry to draw the curtain open on you but…(fanfare) tah dah! It surely IS what it IS. And what it is is remarkable!

The young neighbor next door knows that I’m an artist and for whatever reason kids and animals I find are drawn to me. I’d like to think it is because they are unburdened by baggage and can see through the clutter and sense that I’m a kind soul, mean no harm and seek to magnify and love others.

Lauren had painted a rock and one evening came knocking on our door and handed it to me saying “Mr. Mark, I painted this and want you to have it.” I of course said thank you and smiled at her, noting her mom behind her at the edge of our walk. (April, the mom, came back over after Lauren had gone inside and told me that she did that rock in school and when she got in the car at pick-up time showed her mom and said “I’m gonna give this to Mr. Mark.” April said, it’s not for me and she stated matter of factly, “Nope it’s for Mr. Mark.”) Why? I have no idea except that perhaps she had glanced in our townhouse once and overheard her mom and I talking and knew I was an artist.

Unbridled love gifted from a child in the form of a painted rock presented with a smile…SPLASH!…ripples.

We’ve formed a connection and the neighbor families have drawn together partly because of a simple act of a child.

You see our lives are unavoidably intertwined. All of our lives whether we see it or not. I believe no one crosses our path or comes into our lives without reason— no matter how small. Ripples. The cosmic butterfly affect. (which by the way really needs to be renamed and called a “FLUTTER BY”…isn’t that painfully obvious? I mean DUH! — sigh…different story all together— ALL ABOARD #42 leaving on track 11— “Hey, wanna ride bikes?”)

Happy happy joy joy! Crazy weird wonderous things happen over and over in my life showing me how truly interconnected all things are…you may think I’m full of shit and making things up but I am truthful and find just as much “hard to believe” as you may in things I relate. Doesn’t make it not so or any less truthful and real. STRANGE.

As I was going to Publix Pharmacy today I looked up at a stop light and noted a David’s Produce delivery vehicle beside me. So? I then noted in front of me a hideous Coachman camper vehicle called a Leprechaun directly in front of me. So? 

Well, I noted earlier my reconnecting with my cousin…DAVID. David, the actor. When David started out in LA he was chosen for the cast of the movie “Leprechaun”…really? Yes. Granted he has done many other roles but one of the first in my recollection was that movie. Yada yada yada man…you’re just looking for things that line up because of you speaking with David recently. Perhaps. (visioning Bugs scratching his chin…”Mmmm, could be.”)

Walking into Publix, on the loudspeaker in the store was playing Alice Cooper’s Welcome to my Nightmare. Who in the hell has Welcome to my Nightmare on their MUZAK reel?? ANYWAY…So? So, I remembered from the past David really liked Alice Cooper and the first time I heard that song was with David. The hell you say. Absolute truth. What the fuck? Yeah, see…strangeness in wild abundance, eh? (Abba-dee abba-dee that’s all folks! Daaaaamn)

Ripples. Interconnectedness. Causality…Purposeful interruptions and inclusions in our lives— Leslie calls them “God winks”. That’s a good one my love. You know, I’m really fond of my God-sent angel. God-winks they are!

Without a doubt being present and aware…as Jimmy Buffett would saying “Being in the Now” makes a huge difference and heightens our receptors to things and occurrences but seriously… what are the freaking chances of all that occurring then and there?? 

An aside— you may notice I have great proclivity for tangents…I took 8 quarters of college Calculus, quantitative and qualitative analysis, differential equations…yes, graduated with a degree in art though. However I never really liked “Probability” class for whatever reason so my answer to “What are the chances?” is “I do not give a darn”..doesn’t matter…it happened. I noticed. Case closed and YES, WHAT THE FUCK?? Call the guys in the white coats with the straight-jacket…HE’S GONNA POP! smirk

My favorite color is Purple. From a color-theory point-of-view it represents passion, celebration, energy and royalty and is vivid and interruptive…So, in Matrix-esse I did not take either the red or the blue pill, I took the combination. THE PURPLE PILL. (e.g. red + blue = purple) Follow the white rabbit, Neo.

NOW WAIT JUST A DARN MINUTE…You seem to believe Reality and Fiction both exist simultaneously? Which is which? What’s up with that? I mean, I saw the movies and yes, at times I do find that an occasional pinch to check where I am is beneficial…where am I now? And where is THIS in terms of the huuuuuuge expansive universe? It all seems too hard to even begin to comprehend. (“Third floor: housewares in back and women’s apparel and shoes…watch the closing door please”)

An aside on an interjection on a tangent on a whim…Ted Dekker’s Circle trilogy Black, White and Red are incredible and very highly recommended reads from me. They too deal with the reality/dreamworld, here or there?, reality?Which reality? kind of space-time switching about. They will cause you to wake up and wonder…am I here or am I there?? Give them a read. You’ll be influenced more than you can imagine and as I’ve quoted before “A mind changed by a new idea can never return to its previous shape.” I dare you. I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU!

Okay okay for those of you who have dared continue with me— even if as Leslie says “I get about 85% of you maybe”— let me try and wrap all this up into some point. Wish me luck. I’m thinking I need it.

As a child I so vividly recall lying on my back looking up at the stars pondering who was up there looking out at me. I didn’t ponder the scientific or religious notions of “could there be?’ or “what impact would that have on humanity’s grip on 'reality'”…I just wondered who?

I didn’t think “what color are they?” I didn’t fear their threat-potential to my living. I didn’t consider the vast distances that would have to be traversed or the speed of light or an event horizon or quantum entanglement or dark matter…I didn’t consider ‘Let me catch a good buzz and get way stoned to heighten the effect”. I didn’t consider anything of this flesh vessel I was in…I just dreamed ‘I WONDER WHO?” 

Oh how simple and pure and wonderful the wanderings of a child without all our worldly baggage. The need to be able to prove that something could exist within the parameters of our knowledge of physics or to measure it against the societal regards of acceptability or legality or social norms…against our LEARNED RESTRICTIONS AND FEARS!

I suppose that is why I find such solace and peace in dreaming and in sci-fi. Well-told, well-woven adventures to wherever possible or not, to seek out and be awed by, to be dumbstruck with sheer fascination. Wow! 

Sci-fi combines so many of the principles I hold dear…acceptance without pause to visual wrappings, discovery and joyful learning of differences to magnify not to separate. I find it impossibly incredible that tiny minuscule things and occurrences align to give seasoning and flavor and personal experience to our journey here— this short strange ride we are all on. Come on…this can’t be real. Again, tell me…WHAT IS REAL?

Is this a broken existence? Yes, most surely it is. We make it so I’m afraid. 

What little control we do have here is OUR OWN ACTIONS…Change your channel. Dare you do so? After all the pain we know now IS PAIN WE KNOW. What if something different is worse? What if it is unimaginably better, huh?

Well you do what you will but I sure wish you'd Take the time and intent to magnify one another. If in some way I encouraged Lauren to create, to paint and gift and love, oh what great purpose and success my being will have been. I am thrilled to know that someone I know, and am related to even if only by marriage has a part and spark in creating fanciful stories of space and time and what could be. Such great admiration I have for her mind and the creator who has blessed us with such brains. 

I pray we together seek good— we attract what we radiate. Reach out to others. Is there a worse feeling than being alone? My hell personally would be for God to grant me my will and allow me to control my being, my universe— and I fear that might be a cosmos of ONLY me, with the only sounds being my screaming in anguish of being alone. 

I challenge you: Dare to spend the most precious commodity we have— our TIME— giving respect and kindness to another. 

If what crosses your mind, even a millisecond, is “What’s in that for me?” Oh, what surprises await.

See that “No Swimming!” sign. Screw it. Cannonball time I say! 

Stay in the lines…FUCK THAT. What lines?

Make ripples people….make a splash, do the unexpected…CARE. 

Go out of your way to make some impact…real IMPACT. I DARE YOU.

Are you ready folks? Let’s Roll. To Infinity and Beyond! and of course… MAKE IT SO! ENGAGE!

Remember— the darkness DOES NOT consume the light, IT DEFINES IT! 

Thank you for your time.