Hope

Here comes the sun!

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It’s the Spring equinox for 2022 and we are happy it’s here!

Boyce Avenue – Here Comes The Sun – Acoustic Beatles Cover – 2020

 

Tomorrow I’ll be planting sunflowers, the National flower of Ukraine. We support Ukraine.

Sunflowers posted in support of Ukraine

Peace is possible

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The struggle for peace is real. Often it seems like the same fucking shit, different year.

However peace is achievable even if it’s just in my own community. I can start by sharing love and peace with those I meet today. I’ll just start right now with a deep breath and a smile.

Plastic Ono Band / John Lennon – Give Peace A Chance – 1969 (remastered)

How’s Fearsome?

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A treasured reader asked us through the comments the other day how we were doing post surgery. I appreciate his concern and appreciate even more his gentle nudge to open myself up and express myself more. I’m grateful to be part of a blogging community that is just that…community, a community that cares.

We are doing well. Fearsome survived uncut and unscathed. I got both scoped and cut.

The surgeon cut in order to open the top of the shoulder large enough to remove the rather large cyst that had developed on top of my right AC Joint. He then scoped into the AC joint and removed the end of my clavicle in order to clean out the arthritis that had caused the cyst to develop and then took a look at my bicep tendon as well as my rotator cuff. Both the rotator cuff and bicep tendon were in good shape so I got away with just a cyst removal and the clavicle clean up.

Pain has been tolerable and I am doing well as long as I don’t really do anything. So do nothing right now is the key I have discovered. Stitches come out this Thursday and I’ll be able to finally shower. Physical therapy will begin April 15th.

So during my do nothing time I sleep and I watch films. I also indulge in YouTube clips and just found this one. I’m not a religious man but I do enjoy a well performed gospel tune. Oh honey… is this performance fabulous. It’s truly a work of art that moved me to tears. I hope you enjoy it as well.

Leslie Jordan featuring Chris & Morgane Stapleton – Farther Along – 2021

Happy Days Ahead

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I’ve been saving this famous clip of Judy & Barbra just for today.

Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand – Happy Days Are Here Again / Come On Get Happy – 1963

Congratulations President Biden and Vice President Harris. Thank you for your service to our country. The world breathes a sigh of relief.

Appropriate

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Emotional doesn’t even start to describe my feelings. My feelings are appropriate.

I think I’ll just let myself feel the emotions as these tears of joy still stream down my cheeks as they have off and on all day today.

Filled with hope I tuck myself into bed tonight, for tomorrow will finally arrive when I awake.

It’s been a long cold lonely winter. Thank all of you for sticking with me through it, I couldn’t have done it without you.

The Beatles – Here Comes The Sun – 1969

A Weight is Lifting

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I awake this morning filled with hope. A hope that has me shedding tears of joy. A joy that comes as a weight that has been hard to bear is being lifted. I’m finding it hard to express the depth of this hope.

The hope that I feel comes from my belief that inherently humankind is actually kind at it’s heart. While I recognize the faults, folly and imperfections of us, I see that kindness, love and understanding prevail over time.

I believe in sharing, promoting and focusing on the good. I believe this because I value that you get what you focus on the most.

There is a lightness to my shoulders this morning. There is an easier feeling than what I’ve felt in the past 4 years. My angst is receding. A feeling of relief, calm and serenity is coming over me.

There’s a kind of Hush – Herman’s Hermits – 1967

This tune is one I enjoyed as a child. It’s a tune that takes me to a simpler place. It brings me joy today.

Peace.

I Still Believe

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Dolly has been a guiding light throughout my life.

I still vividly remember the very first time I heard her sing Jolene through the speaker of the AM radio of my mother’s white 1967 Buick Electra 225 as we drove through the back county of Tennessee late at night on the way to my uncle’s house in Missouri. I also remember being at my friend Melissa’s house when she played Dolly’s new 45 of Two Doors Down as we danced to it in the living room of her mother’s small apartment, as well as hearing Dolly and Kenny Rogers sing Islands In The Stream while running the cash register at my very first “real” job at the corner convenience mart gas station.

I consider her a blessing to not only my life, but to our society as a whole. She’s a kind and giving soul. May her message of hope light up your holidays as it is lighting up mine.

Dolly Parton – I Still Believe – 2020

I still believe in Dolly Parton.
Peace.

Boulevard of Realized Dreams

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Back in 1984 there was a rather popular poster of Gottfried Helnwein’s interpretation of Edward Hoppers iconic Nighthawks. In it Helnwein replaced Hopper’s characters with Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and Elvis Presley. The poster was titled Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Gottfried Helnwein – 1984

Nighthawks – Edward Hopper – 1942

Earlier today as I strolled along the A1A, aka Ft. Lauderdale Beach Boulevard, I was taken back to my first trip to this special place. I was but a young gay buck of 20ish years in that year of 1984. The world was my apple and I was taking my first bite of it.

Oh the dreams I dreamt as we cruised the crowded street along the beautiful beach. Expensive cars, beautiful bodies, palm trees, sea, sand, luxury condos, stylish clothes, designer glasses, garish jewelry, massive yachts, love, sex, endless nights of dancing & debauchery, exotic vacations and an openly gay lifestyle. Shallow I know, but youth and inexperience often allows young gay bucks like I was to be led astray into dreams of superficiality.

Yes those dreams all flooded back into my memory as I strolled this beautiful boulevard.

Ft. Lauderdale Beach Boulevard 10/26/2020

I can honestly say that I’ve never experienced this stretch of road and beach so empty of human activities in all the 100s of times I’ve strolled it. If there is any silver lining to Covid at all it’s the ability to experience such a moment at 11 am and 82 degrees F with a nice breeze. Such a quiet moment allows one to remember, contemplate and to dream.

Helnwein‘s interpretation of Hopper’s famous painting always gave me the empty lonely feeling of lives cut short and dreams not realized. Feelings of disappointment, loss, loneliness and sadness. As I strolled this empty stretch of typically busy avenues, I realized just how many of my 1984 dreams I’ve realized over the more than 30 years that have a passed. As I acknowledged my dreams, I started to sense how many of the dreams of those four souls in Helnwein’s interpretation had actually realized. Lives may have been cut short, tragedy may have struck, but dreams were realized and did come true for each and every one of them. My feelings about that poster which was so prevalent in 1984 shifted.

I never owned a copy of Hoppers painting nor of Helnwein’s poster. I did, however, own a copy of Michael Bedard’s interpretation of Helnwein’s interpretation. Bedard’s is entitled Window Shopping.

Window Shopping – Michael Bedard – 1989

Reflection of the 20ish boy’s somewhat shallow dreams as I strolled this morning revealed that the sheltered boy from small town Virginia has traveled the world, danced the night away on the open decks of cruise ships, met and conversed with rich and powerful people, lived and owned luxury & investment properties – even right here on this very  Ft Lauderdale beach – in various cities, found love that has even celebrated a 30 year anniversary, sex-lots of sex, lives an openly gay life as a married gay man with a husband, has owned expensive cars, worn designer clothes, has had and experienced beautiful bodies, can see the Pacific Ocean from his very own house including from it’s newly constructed guest apartment in his back yard, has a beautiful and growing family of nieces and nephews, has made lifelong friendships that deepened beyond that ever imagined, has a fulfilling career, rescues dogs, is a philanthropist, has owned loved captained and since sold his very own yacht, has the blessing of bringing his mother to live out her golden years with him as he is blessed with the ability to care for her, owns expensive beautiful art, is blessed with the talents to actually paint beautiful art, has some expensive watches and wears a Platinum Tiffany wedding band on his left hand, grows beautiful flowers in his yard, has been a drunk and found sobriety, helps his neighbors, is currently sitting sans clothing by a swimming pool in Ft. Lauderdale on this 84 degree afternoon, so many dreams…many more… the dreams keep coming true.

Material and meaningful dreams really do come true.

Dare to dream.

What dreams have you realized?

Comfort Music

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Linda Ronstadt, Emmy Lou Harris and Dolly Parton’s 1987 album Trio is a Fearsome all time favorite. Whenever I find myself in need of an uplift, all Fearsome’s has to do is remind me to pause and listen to the beauty of those three talented voices.

This morning is one of those moments.

Wildflowers – Linda Ronstadt/ Emmy Lou Harris/ Dolly Parton – Trio 1987

This particular tune, Wildflowers, is our favorite.
What tune brings you solace? Hope? Peace?