"If you attend to what annoys you, you are giving it energy and keeping it alive..."

In a small bar in Algiers

I remember well the moment I heard those words. It was a warm and muggy afternoon as I walked into a small bar in Algiers.  He looked up from the corner table and asked, "Are you lost?" 

I told him that I had been that way most of my life and I kinda enjoy it. "What about you?" 

"Not lost, but ugly. Born that way and I kinda like it." He quipped...

He spoke with a mixed gumbo French accent, much like the half bowl of mixed seafood gumbo he was caressing. An old grey hat pulled over his eyes making each remark a surprise. Said he was from up around St. Landry Parish. Part of the Chanier clan but has lived in Algiers for over thirty years. 

"Just call me Horace, named after one of them Roman poets," as he reached out his experienced hand.

We had a beer or a few before it was all over...along with some good laughs, lies and stories he shared of life along the Mississippi. He works a tug boat on the River, and has for thirty two years. Lost his wife in the Katerina flood waters. Said his wife was a fine woman and a blessing . Two grown children, that in his words "never amounted to much..."

I asked him if he gives much thought to Katerina and his loss, and his answer was my lesson for that day...

"You know Doc, I did for several years, but after one of them sleepless nights, I decided that if you attend to what annoys you, you are giving it energy and keeping it alive." 

Strange how in those little moments of our lives we remember the smell, the visual, the arrangement of words strung together in a way we can easily draw from our memory. How our mind works to hold onto painful memories and how it works so we can finally make peace with ourselves. In those moments we realize that peace has always been ever present in our Being and always resided there...just waiting...and completely available through all our experiences. 

Photo By: Dado