Summoned to jury duty, wondering if peers were up to task

Just posted this article in Dallas Morning News:

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20151021-diamond-wilson-summoned-to-jury-duty-wondering-if-my-peers-were-up-to-task.ece

3 Things You Must See at Glacier National Park

Click here to see the video of Glacier National Park with Diamond Wilson and Jay Wilson

1. The Wildflowers 

The mountainsides and valleys are fragrant with wild roses, bear grass, and wild lupines.  Breathe deeply of the crisp mountain air, and catch a whif of the roses while you're at it.

2. Iridescent Glacier-Green Waters 

Finely ground silt in glaciers flows into rivers and lakes as the ice melts and blends into the water supply. The water is often so clear it is difficult to guess the depth of the water. Oh yeah, it's pretty chilly too!

3.  Ancient Glaciers - Giant Ice Formations that Flow 

 Great snow drifts under pressure eventually turn to ice and re-crystallize forming powerful glaciers. These glaciers move consistently, undaunted by thousands of feet of rock that lie in their way.  They cut almost impossible valleys and canyons, leaving large lakes with mountains that seem to grow right out of the water. Rock layers are exposed as the glacier erodes the formations, slicing the earth and baring the layers that formed it.

The Hunt

I must have been drunk. I must have been so far gone on the lows of my sorrows that I didn't see it there, in front of me. My belly ached only for the full feeling of the chase and in hunting that beast I forgot to exist. It consumed me. It did. I foamed at the mouth with a crazy lust and I slept with the barrel loaded, the gun cocked and ready. 

I can't tell you how many times I just closed my eyes and shot into the night, screaming and falling to the ground in a heap when I hit nothing. It crazed me. I left sleep behind in my tent and I left my soul drowning in a river somewhere with a preacher who told me he could wash away my sins. But I got out out of the water before it could save me. 

I grabbed my shotgun and ran into the forest, leaving a trail of wet footprints that blistered the earth as if I were a demon and not a man. I'll always be able to find that river because my own regret is a smell I can trace as good as any bloodhound. 

And I guess that morals must be the pilot light for our eyes because the light went out in mine the day I stopped seeing the world for what it was. Two flat, black discs hovered in my sockets and I saw visions of the beast taunting me, always a stride away from the range of my gun. Once, I shot him point blank in the face but sick laughter echoed back with the crackle of the air and I knew I only shot an illusion. 

My hair grew long and my face became sallow and when I saw my reflection painted in dew drops I titled it, "Jesus, Incomplete" because that's exactly what I looked like. My teeth turned into sulfurous spikes, jagged and broken from incessant grinding. I had only one shot left and I decided to use it on myself, to end the hunt. 

By the time I saw it, I couldn't stop the bullet. This time the beast was so close I could feel his breath on my skin. And as the shot raked through my body, just before my eyes closed in death, I saw his name hanging from his collar. All this time, I was chasing Happiness. And finally when it was too late, I slowed down enough for him to catch me.

Ashes

They said it would be heavy. I honestly thought they meant the velvet bag and the box of ashes I had to carry away from the funeral home. What they really meant was everything that came after. 

You sat in the passenger side next to me, well on the floor actually, because i was terrified of tipping the box over and spilling dust everywhere. I kept waiting for the music to turn sad, for thunder to peal somewhere in distance, for the sun to hide behind a cloud. Instead, a car horn beeped, my blinker clicked steadily in the car, and I waited for red lights to turn green.

Life was very normal in the world around me. Like I belonged in a dream and stepped into the real world without belonging to it or being part of it. And then I began to understand what they meant when they said your ashes would be heavy.

I finally understand why the color for mourning is black. For one thing, it's easier. A choice you don't have to make at the beginning of the day. But the real reason is that life isn't in color anymore and everything looks the same anyway. Maybe if the world looks at me in my mournful clothes they will understand, just for a second, how heavy your ashes really are. Maybe they will forgive my tears at the grocery store that seem so out of place, maybe I will be invisible to the advertisements and tweets about Mother's Day, maybe Google will shoot a message to all my credit card companies that I don't want my mother's maiden name used as my security question anymore. 

You see, even though I took the urn home and put it where you asked me to, I carry your ashes with me no matter where I go. Someone once told me if you removed all the empty space that exists within the atoms of the Empire State Building, you would be left with an extremely heavy building the size of a grain of rice. That must be why your ashes are so heavy. All the love and memories we shared still carry the same mass even though your physical volume has been reduced.

They told me your ashes would be heavy. And I'm growing stronger every day to carry them.

Imagine

Birthday Stream of Consciousness

When it’s 5:00 a.m. and the upper story in the old house groans a little bit, foot on flooring, I smile in my sleep because I know I am amongst friends and family.

When coffee smells like three-quarters of a cup, that is enough, because I just happen to have milk in the car and when shared with friends, a little becomes a lot.
Like Jesus, I think five loaves and two small fish are enough for my world when served with prayer and a smile, well, maybe a little hot sauce too, ‘cause you know we have to represent the Latin side.

Leftover milkshakes are a warm reminder of how last night slipped under a blanket and turned into today. These cool mornings have sleepy eyes but I like it so much better when the fog is on the outside and not in my mind.

I love that you can flip furniture, cabinets, turn a house upside down and inside out and still have it feel like home, because home is where the animals are, curled up and stretched out on every chair you want to sit on.

Sometimes anxiety can turn to butterflies when a message arrives that I don’t want to delete but save for a rainy day like exponentially having 100% of your attention, digital.

And, I’ve said it once before in words that you haven’t heard because I spoke them on a different floor of my consciousness, that last stop on the elevator that requires a special set of fingerprints to open my emotions. But today, here’s the view from the top of the building. A snapshot, one that self-destructs with time and the infidelity of memory.

Our hearts don’t beat alone, exempt from the source that gave us life. So either I’m an echo and a memory or there is some umbilical cord that connects hearts of mothers and daughters, a cord that doctors and death itself can’t cut.

And, if I could, I’d wind that cord around my finger and listen for a dial tone and wait for your voice. The best thing about being half of you is not my eyes, but that we could read each others’ minds, and that sometimes when I talk I sound just like you.

Now the coffee is getting cold and the morning is getting brighter, a reminder, that success never sleeps and time sprints through the night. Heartbeats are just reverberations of the funeral drum so I hold my head high because my life is worth dying for.

So you can follow in my footprints, blaze the trail ahead, or walk beside me, but keep marching. Make the ground shake with every step and change the winds when you speak, because if a butterfly can have its effect, imagine what your thoughts can do.