Epicurus wrote about dreamers, “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

How about George Bernard Shaw’s quote, “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’”

In a world full of dreamers it is easy to become confused when trying to follow a direct path. I can come up with a new daydream every minute. My whole life I’ve been easily distracted. I’m a dreamer, always have been. I remember sitting in 3rd grade class looking out the window and daydreaming about how cartoons dream. How the bubble popped out of the head and told a story of that characters dream. Money, love, food, winning or success would fill those bubbles.

Recently I started dwelling on how, in those same cartoons, something always bursts the bubble.

Here’s a small list of the things I dream of or once dreamt of becoming; a working actor, a famous rapper, a bestselling author, a World Series of Poker champ, a screenwriter/director, an internet mogul, the owner of a lucrative clothing company, a married man.

Pop!

Here’s is a list of what my reality is; security gaurd, single parent, alcoholic with major tax debt who lives at his baby mama’s gramma’s house.

Despite the fact that I recently had my bubble burst I refuse to stop dreaming. I don’t think I know how to stop. Dreams run through my head like blood through my veins and I need them to survive the mundane.

I dream of all of you sitting at your computers, bubbles over head, dreams developing, hearts glowing.

I wish you all the best in your attempt to make your dream list look like your reality list. I won’t stop. Might be I turn 70 and finally make that list true. I can’t wait.

Who knows? Might be it happens tomorrow.

See you at the next session,
~RAFA

Mr. Gamus, after searching the Land of Lamron, Ainrofilac for over thirty setunim, I found that letter of which you spoke. I read it and found words and thoughts so well organized there must have been an explosion of synapses on the left side of your brain, with and equal party or the right side, joining forces to produce a masterpiece. The neurotransmitters in your synaptic vesicles must have been at maximum output.

If I may say so, this objete d’art was longer than I expected. During my perusal of this magnum opus I took two breaks to absorb the wisdom and take it all in. On my first break I relieved myself of bladder pressure. In the second one I had a slice of danish and poured myself some leche.

Gamus, your words were like a mixture of vegetables and poultry, boiled in a pot and served in a bowl for my soul.

I shall meet you one day in the Land of Nod where we will imbibe and cry eyeballs. Because when your tears are too big to exit through your lacrimal glands they don’t exit through your gluteus oriface. Your eyes simply fall out and new ones emerge in their place. With every new eyeball revealing a clearer vision, looking further and farther. (there is a difference)

At this moment, as I write these words of appreciation, my heart is connected to my mind and my mind is connected to the stars and the stars provide the light to that space between my brain and yours where things we think alike exist. There is plenty of star light at all times, for even in the daytime, people seem to forget, we are lit by star light.

I shall take your words with me as I venture to the Land of the Selbainednu. I will use it as a key to access the greater power for the greater good. Even as I write these words the key you have handed me is at work.

I must go now.

Ylerecnis,
San Edrac

I hesitated.

I went to work a long day, came home late and slept. Repeated that 8 times.

Finally, I have a day off and I can imagine you saying, “hey, where you at fool!” So here I am.

Everyday since reading your letter I’ve thought about how the typewriter in my head is an IBM Selectric. I love the sound and feel of that machine. If you’re a fast typist and you sit on one of the those, hit the power button and listen to it hum, then like the action on a M-16, rat-ta-ta-ta-ta….ta….ta..ting! …oooooh!

Every day I’ve thought about how I was never into watching Voltron as much as all my friends were, but I always liked the artwork.

And I wish I had a sneaker fetish. Those shoes are siiiiiiiiiick!!

So now I sit in air conditioned living room, pillow on lap, laptop on pillow, writing. I can’t believe how long it took me to reply.

On the 60′ Toshiba plays a black and white Seven Samurai. I’m not looking at the screen so I can’t read the subtitles, so i don’t know what they are saying.

With only a few days left in this venture, and a promise you made to write, I now wonder where you are.

I hope all is well and you find yourself in good health. I hope you write again soon.

Sincerely,
~Rafael

So I made a quick left. I cleaned my slate again.

I started a new job that is paying me a nice amount of money. It is a brainless job with way too many hours of my day filled by it. But I needed this, my brain was about to blow. I dropped all other projects. Not because I didn’t like them but because they have taken too long to become fruitful ventures. Those ventures have only put me in the red.

Now I struggle with my own demons of past employment commitments. I am not good at sticking with anything. I have only had one job that I held for three years length. All my other jobs have come and gone much quicker. That’s how I’ve been going through life.

“Call me the Breeze.“- Lynard Skynard.

But I’m getting older and wiser. (i think) I have little by little cleaned my plate and I will focus on this job to get me back in the black.

Thy Constant Struggle is what I dub thee.

But what are you really? Are you the product of growing up poor in East LA? Are you my fear of commitment? Have you manifested from the societal programming that has been embedded in the deep valleys of my brain that tell me that I am inferior and will never make it big in this world? Or maybe, you are a brain clot of all my insecurities that I try to hide under the rug only to trip on it when the pile grows too big.

Like a thermostat, every time things are getting hot for me you cool things down.

What ever you are, I will continue to swim upstream and battle, because that’s what I know to do.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m just used to it. I’m used to being here. I feel safe here? No, I hope not. But I will crack the code and breakthrough. I have to. At least, so that I can be comfortable when I’m fifty. God, I’m almost forty and have not created “a foundation” to stand on.

But how can I stand, I am the breeze, I am the wind, I am constant change.

Allow me to introduce myself: Constant Struggle, I am Constant Change.

UGH!!! I am too old to be this confused!!!

I am Arrested Development. A (almost forty year) old man listening to songs of teenage angst on KROQ. Wearing sneakers and t-shirts every day. Caught between needing to grow up and not wanting to grow old.

Oh how I miss, “My salad days, When I was green in judgment.” – Bill Shakespeare

I leave thee with this:

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
-Shakespeare, Bill

Sinceramente Loco,
Rafael Maestro Cardenas

Thank you for the words you penned.

Although I have not picked up one of your books in about five years, your words remain etched in my brain connectors. They continue to play themselves over and over in the part of my brain that recognizes love and the appreciation of all things.

You knew how to find love in a the women of your life. You found love in the ocean, chairs, cats and even in a pair of socks. And still with all that love you wrote the saddest verses you could write one night.

When I read your lines I felt that every word was painfully spelled out. I could imagine the words starting at your heart, radiating to your brain and leaving through your hands as they held the pen and paper. Your eyes watched as every letter was scratched into paper.

The blank sheets must’ve cried as you wrote. You had to have cried more than once as you wrote; the paper drinking your tears in its’ threads. The tears salty on your lips.

I saw you, as I read, sitting in your chair with a window to the beautiful oceans of Chile. The wind from your window keeping you cool.

What were you playing on that victrola? I want to imagine that it was Edith Piaf. (Click Here) Her voice inspiring your words.

A good bottle of wine at your side? mmmmmmmm…. Now I’m just wishing I had that moment for myself.

Wish you could write back.

Padam, Padam, Padam….

~RAFA

I try so hard to come up with words to fill this white space on my screen but only come up with -NOTHING! O’kay, I do have some posts and I thank all of you who have left inspiring comments. But, I took some time to peruse the others in this madness and found that I am soooo behind.

Most of you really do do this every day and I tip my hat to you.

When I sit at my computer, I find that I don’t have many things to talk about. Then I can’t put a damn sentence together.

But I have forced some things out. When I do that the writing starts to develop before I even take a seat.

I’m sure I’m not the only one with this problem.

I wish I could write as freely and as often as most of you do.

Much Love and Respect,

RAFA

And now you see me, sitting here on the computer watching me TYPE A LETTER!!!

“WHO TYPES A LETTER!!??” I can hear you screaming at me to pick up a pen and paper. You think it might not be personal but it is. It’s a letter to you, Journal. You who knows me best but still does not know me at all.

I’m sorry. I also long for the moment when I have the time to take you outside these walls and open your binding ’til I hear the glue crack. I long to lay you on my lap for an hour of me-and-you time. The fact that I haven’t done this is only more evidence of how busy I’ve been.

Now my friends have started this BLOG thing and…, I know, BLOG is a four letter word.

But seriuosly, I hope that you are enjoying your break from me. All that crap I fill you with. You have to be needing a break from that. This interweb thing is really cool and I wish I could share it with you. You know, maybe I can.

I can scan a page from you and share it with the world.

YES THE WORLD!!

Well, they can access it but that doesn’t mean they will all come, but they could if they want!

Anyway.

Ready……..? Say cheese……

Thanks for sharing this with me, my little Moleskin.

You are very important to me.

Good nite.

~Your one and only contributor~

P.S. You are sooo photogenic.

We were tight, the three of us, Rich, you and me. Three bros. Shoot!, we were even tight with our sisters. Everyone was always surprised that we would all go out together. Brothers and sisters getting along and going to the same parties was not the norm. Others would avoid parties with their siblings, not us.

I still have that picture we took at the mall when we were teens. The three brothers in suits, looking like Italian Mobsters. LOL. (you might not now, LOL means Laughing Out Loud, you never got to enjoy the internet.)

I miss you like crazy. I was in denial for so many years. I couldn’t believe you died. I remember in the beginning I imagined you’d just show up out of nowhere and walk through the door. I’ve seen movies where they’ve mistaken the dead person for another and I imagined that is what happened to you.

I used to have these wicked dreams. You would be in the dream just hanging out like everyone but you would suddenly fall, like a tree. I would reach for you but I couldn’t move. I would see you fall and fall over an over again in these dreams. I hated them. I figured they happened because there was absolutely nothing I could do to help you on the day you died. I always wish that I had never left the party. No one knows how it would have been or what could have been. There are soooo many “what ifs.” I hated when people would talk about the day of your murder and comment on the “what ifs”, I won’t do that either.

Bottom line, I miss you so much. I often wonder where you’d be these days. You were such a smart and handsome young man. The brightest star in the family. My little, little bro. Mom’s baby. 19.

Mom misses you more that anyone can imagine. Sometimes she just mentions your name and starts to cry before finishing her thought or story she was about to tell. You know mom has true tears, so when she cries, we all feel it deeply.

Candice is in High School now, she graduates this year from Garfield. She is so proud to go to the school you went to. The football team won City Champs this year in the AA division. Candice borrowed your letterman jacket to wear to the championship game. When mom handed it over to her they shared such a long hug and so many tears fell from both their eyes before they let go. It ended up raining on the day of the game so Candice never go to wear the jacket. We didn’t want it to get wet.

Both your sisters are married to the same men you knew back then. They have two boys and one girl each. Isn’t that funny.

Your bro Rich is still single as am I. We are both slow to marry and even slow to date. I haven’t figured out why that happened. We three were pimpin’ back then.

I think we are just too picky these days.

Nowadays, I am a struggling entrepreneur, trying hard to make my own way in this world. It got to a point where I couldn’t sit in a office thinking to myself about how I should be doing something I like. I needed to get out and do things my way.

Dad and mom have moved up to central California to get away from the city that took their child. The sad thing is that no one went with them. None of us could imagine moving to a small town after living in LA all of our lives.

Mom is good but dad is having heart trouble. He has an enlarged heart, that’s what gramma died from too. So now me and Rich are worried about ourselves too.

I think I’m going on a tangent to avoid my feelings again.

I miss you bro. I have to go for now. I will write again.

Love you.

I’ve been writing some letters lately and well you just happened to pop into my head. You know I always wondered what could have been. We could’ve made a good couple. Both of our families could have been very happy with us. I’m sure that if we had stayed together we would have at least four kids by now.

What really happend? Was it that you just wanted to move on? You wanted to date a little more before settling down. We were both young and we weren’t ready to marry but we could have tied the knot if we lasted two more years. I wanted to marry you.

But I think I know what it really was. I think it was because I had a child already from my high school girlfriend. You always turned away when I mentioned her and you never told your family about her. I couldn’t believe it.

But hey, whatever right.

You couldn’t understand why I had to be there for my child all the time. You wanted me to break all ties. DUH!! How stupid were you. Wait, that’s kinda mean, you were young, almost 21. I was 23. We were both young.

By now you should understand. By now, I hope you have your children and your family and you will understand why I have to be there for my child.

I’m still a good dad. But still not married. My child graduates from high school this year and she is a very well rounded young lady. I like to think that I had something to do with that. But she does make a lot of her own choices so a lot of the credit is her own. I wish you had accepted that part of me. You would be as proud of her as I am.

I do miss you.

I have changed soooooooo much since we dated and I could never forgive you for not letting me talk about my kid to your family. I would see all your nephews and nieces and I felt like a fool. I could never forgive that.

I do wish that all is well with you.

~rafael

You must be waiting for your ship. If your wait is as long as mine was you will find my writing to be words of comfort and solace.

Allow me to share a few words about myself and a little story of how I ended up here. I am a young man at heart, 36 years of age, with gray hair on the beard I have chosen to grow. I can look a horse at eye level and have hands the size of cantaloupe. A woman’s arms, when embracing me, can barely touch each other. My eyes are dark and set deep. My demeanor subdued.

I was ready to move forward with my life, ready to leave the old behind and look ahead. I felt that the only way I could accomplish that would be to leave my small town and head to the bright lights of the big city.

I arrived here alone one day, with dreams of travel and adventure. My head filled with imagination. I wondered about what was out there, ahead of me. I had no destination just one direction; away from here. But, as I sat waiting, visualizing my future, my past kept creeping into me head. A visceral desire to remove my past from my thoughts struck me with such force that I became nauseous. I decided to hide from all my thoughts and fought it to no avail. I didn’t want the people of this port to see me. So I looked for a lonely place in this already gloomy port. I came to think here where you sit. I let my thoughts flow and I let the tears run.

What happened was an exodus of emotions. A tide that was tugging and pulling at my soul. With every wave pounding deeper into my being I was overwhelmed. Thoughts of childhood friends, family events, classrooms, neighborhood shops and run-ins with trouble. I remembered every bad thing that happened to me and that I had done; broken hearts, broken trusts, stolen property and binge drinking. I remembered those that I love but have passed on; my brother, my grandpas, my grandmas, my neighborhood cronies and the poets that I have become very close to in my thoughts.

A gush of tears filled my face. Each tear that left my body left room to be filled with hope and motivation. You see there is no such thing as empty space and every thing that leaves it’s place will be filled by another. As each drop of salty liquid ran down my face it was replaced with sense of wholeness.

You see, I was trying to run from my past by ignoring it, avoiding it. But, the further back I tried to place it, the heavier it got. Remembering my past and realizing that it was all an intricate part of me, realizing that it was woven into me, I began to feel a sense of balance. In those moments by myself I realized who I am and why I am, and I accepted it all. The good with the bad. The happy and the sad.

The laden subconscious memories rose to the occasion lifting a heaviness I long have carried. This clarity of mind allowing me to write this down. I couldn’t let this experience remain only in my head. I felt it had to be shared.

My only regret is that I can not go into more detail. My ship is beginning to load passengers and I think I will have to cut this letter shorter that I imagined.

I am boarding the big ship to the future and accepting my past in the present.

With that I will scribble down a quote from a great poet that I always recite to myself:

“…the wind bids me leave you.

Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go.

We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way,
begin no day where we have ended another day;
and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.

Even while the earth sleeps we travel.”

~

My sincere best wishes,
Unsigned