To Try it All

To Try it All

(“Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you.” Colossians 3:13)

The tour would begin at the intersection of Second Street
and Alhambra road; two boys who had the wind knocked out of them
simply because school had begun. The asphalt simmered,
the crepe myrtles, the trees with a grandmother’s name, spurred us
on. We marched between the cyclone gates with every clue lost
to new boys finding a place sit, a group to surround our shyness away.

I was never sure who I was, or might be, though I had as many friends
as enemies. Bruce good at conversation, introverted, I think, borrowed
time for him to string words into sentences and punctuate them with the
tiny spaces. He hated his name, his first name, I mean; Marion, it was,
and I understood, though we all agreed, for evil or good, that Bruce was
not much better.

Deidre was good for hanging upside down. Her dad constructed the best
swing set in the neighborhood. She hardly used the seats; more often
she hooked her knees
over the cross-beams of the Capital A held the blue and white tubes together.
It seemed she would hang there half the afternoon, and punch me in the ribs
if I dismounted too soon. And she could throw a ball better than anyone but Don.

Don was good for walking home, and singing “Build Me Up, Buttercup” on the way.
Held back a year and big for his age, he was my protector when a bully
or a chum
sent me a private invitation for a meeting behind the temporaries after school.
Plus, MJ, his sister, was the prettiest girl I knew from third grade through
junior high school.

I still was not sure who I was, or would be. Would I gather notions, subtract
emotions, and arrive at a calculated equation, well-balanced and firm? Four years
of cramming every day full like a knapsack for a month long hike still left me
thrilled at wandering, spilling all my wondering in ink and hopeful encores
after finishing my set of hand-crafted songs.

I was so unsure, though, I stopped at every red light longer than I should. “Your
poetry
doesn’t rhyme, kid; your music barely has a tune, dude; and God needs you
more in the pulpit than on the stage, son.” I stopped my pursuit before it had
begun.

Now I’m old enough to say “No,” to the objections and “Yes” to the offers,
but have traveled so far from the connections my extension cord will not reach
from this tiny spot of paradise back to the places I should have rolled the dice
and given it all a whirl.

It’s not heartache, nor a spirit broken by age; it’s regret, and I’ll forgive myself yet
before the next song with too few rhymes is written from where I sit. I miss
every bus I missed, every song not sung, every role I dismissed and mostly
the courage to try it all.