embracing the hidden corners where I see myself

lately as I have been either walking a long or watching tv or working...i have

noticed people in all their different forms. I guess as I have been trying to understand my own life -

and so I have looked out at others...I have often seen young fathers with their children

and have wondered 'why couldn't that have been me?' it's certainly not me now and yet

i have been mellowing, more observant of those people who I identify with... I may not have

the familiar or common 'arc to my life' in that 'getting married and having kids and all that stuff' and though

I really appreciate that 'story' that I see out there I am also starting to appreciate the hidden corners of life

where I kind of see someone, who's kind of an outsider like me. Ah that's a life I can relate to/understand "I think to myself." People like me are out there... People like us are out there...

I heard an author Colson Whitehead talk about his work this past week and he talked about how he tries to write

in different genres, each book he writes - he says it's like having a conversation with himself and he decides what he thinks about things with each different book. I understand that...Stanley Kubrik did the same type of thing with directing different

kinds of movies...I kind of set out with a similar outlook when I was heavy into painting in my late teens and 20s...trying different things not settling on one style in order to understand and maybe give myself the tools to create and develop in the future... I found listening to this artist "Colson" that he reflected on things in a way that I didn't have the tools yet to express it. I also saw an interview with John Green author of "The Fault in our Stars.." - His beautiful and well expressed interview was so inspiring to me in the way he talked about his MI and

how when he writes, he doesn't have an audience in mind - but rather he talks to his younger self, the age group where his plot lies...He tries to express and explain things and he does such an amazing job..I know he suffers...but thank god for his expression... It's so inspiring... He gives me the tools to reflect on my own life....

And just now - coming home from work - feeling really rough and ragged. I took a walk to the bakery nearby..sat down and had a coffee on my own. On the way back I passed all the families and groups gathered...I appreciated them, it looked fun...but. then as I got close to the gate back to the complex where I live.. I noticed a very tiny young man. He look in his 20s...he was sitting under a pergola on a stone wall and he was so delicate looking while he was having a smoke... it's like he was hidden if you didn't take a notice of him...all by himself not on the phone just smoking quietly...avoiding contact ...another un-mainstream life? this is a life I understand..People like me are out there.. People like "us" are out there...