The Train Tracks of My Mind

I often write essays that seem to be one, two, or three sentences long. I use Twitter and Facebook to post them, many times, but here, I thought I’d collect some unused ones that are vaguely related thematically. – Owen

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The cycle is perpetuated when you believe you must give in to hatred in order to defeat hatred.

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Many philosophies exist simply to justify what people already felt like doing.

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It’s hard to forgive people for not being the people we imagined they were. They often had no way of knowing this, of course, but that doesn’t stop us.

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When I was twenty, a good friend of mine and her much older husband had their first child. Seeing her with the child, I wrote one of my first songs, the lyrics of which were:

Day is done
And you can’t know
My lovely one
How I live for you
The heart is true
And it’s in your smile
I’ll rest awhile
And sing my love for you

Dream away
At the closing
Of the day
And it’s hard to say
It’s hard to say
Why we spin our lies
And waste our lives
And hopes and dreams away

Treasure find,
Angel mine,
Be my world
Golden girl
Close your eyes
And sleep

Treasure find,
Angel mine,
Be my world
Golden girl
Close your eyes
And sleep

Treasure find,
Angel mine,
Best I’ve found
Love come down
Close your eyes
And sleep

I think I can sit down and remember this song all these years later – well enough to play and sing it – because I still remember how I felt seeing her with her baby. “Her baby” has children of her own, now, by the way.

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Me, at sixteen: For all girls talk about how they want a guy with a ‘sense of humor’, they really mostly like guys with good bodies, good hair, and good teeth.

Met at fifty-four: I was right

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My father used to talk about a subject even after you thought he was done. My ex-wife would try to interject herself after ten minutes or so, at the first sign of anything like silence, but he would start up again. She asked me about it later.

“The train tracks of my father’s mind don’t really have stations. That train doesn’t ever really stop.”

He’s been dead now for eleven years, and I realize: I’m pretty much just like him.

And it’s the same train, in a way.