51ST BDAY.

I just turned 51 yesterday.  And I’m sitting here about a thousand feet into one of my favorite hiking trails that are “closed” due to flooding.  I believe the sign, I just don’t care to oblige at the moment.  There’s plenty of dry land, as far as I can tell.  Then this twin engine aircraft flys directly over me.  I notice this of several throughout the day because there was a loud pop. Then there was a little smoke puffed out of the left engine.  Some sputtering and then it seemed to make a change in direction back to where it came from. 
So this engine abnormality has happened right above me when I have this thought; “What the hell am I going to do? ” Then I wonder if that pilot and/or passengers had the same thought?  At the exact same time.  I’ll never know.  “Good luck travelers, wish me luck too.”
For me this moment happens often when I look at my current career ending of my life.  I mean the real one this time,  unlike the others.  So I have recognized this dead end I’m on and I’ve got a lot more things to do before I leave this life.  “What the hell am I going to do? ” I’m 51. I never celebrated the 50 because I was on the road from a wonderful college gig in Georgia from Kirkland Productions.  Great group of people at Kirklands, Gina is a genius.  
The twenty something me had some lofty ideals of the fifty year old me.  Let’s not even begin to review the dreams and ambitions of that thirty something me that was freelancing like a western gunslinger with a marker and paper.  Then just as the forty me was starting to rock and roll into some serious works that would have made the twenty something me and the thirty something me want to invest in more got hit. Hit hard. Some massive metaphysical subatomic particle splitting timeline just mowed over infinite timelines and … woof.  Like swish, not woof, like dog.  My life line I’d had been working so hard for, just got obliterated by some massive careless catastrophe. 
Seems I’ve been finding pieces of dreams all over the place ever since.   
So now, at the moment of flight anomaly of aircraft number whatever whom may have possibly survived.  I’m asking myself, no I’m telling myself,  this is what I am going to do.    I have a plan.  I’m going to go out once again on my on into the world and share what I’ve got.  I’m going to answer questions about what I know while I create works of art.  I’m going to listen to what they say,  and see if we can put a little bit more into their artwork.  That little something that makes it special.  A moment that they will hold onto to mark a special point on their timeline.  
 I’m going to show what I know. I’m going to show what I create the kind if artwork that makes me smile.  I’m 51 now. I’m a big very well seasoned and experienced artist of over thirty five years. I’m going to start being the fifty year old that the twenty and the thirty and the forty year old me dreamed of, and quite possibly a little bit more.   
More as this work of art I call “my life” continues. 
And thank you all forthe bday wishes.  True wealth comes from the friends that the man keeps.  I may very well be the wealthiest of them all.  Please and thank you.