This is Ourselves Under Pressure

“And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night”

                          David Bowie & Queen                                       

Without question, if humans were rock formations, we would be Metamorphic.

Perhaps you have yet to give this a lot of thought, but certainly you would have to agree – especially after considering the alternatives.

Igneous? No, we are not the product of cooling magma. Focus, peeps.

Sedimentary? You could make a good argument how we have our many layers, broken pieces ‘lithified’. I definitely see where you are going with that, Mr. & Mrs. Existentialist. 

But Metamorphic fits just too perfect to be denied. Check the name.  Meta = “change”; morph = “form”; ic = “I see”. 

Metamorphic Fun Fact: Any rock can become metamorphic. All that is required is a move to an unstable environment and theft of equilibrium. Add some heat and raise the pressure – voila! – you are metamorphic. You become a mass of minerals searching to restore balance. 

You already know some metamorphic change can be very bad.  Earthly pressure, coming down on you, is nasty.  It is the terror of realizing the ugliness of the dark side.  This world ain’t all Disney, Mickey. 

Dangerous stuff to be sure, but there is such a thing as positive metamorphic change. Some brothers and sisters don’t have that positive change until their last dance.  Sad?  Absolutely – it is a life not well lived.  Pathetic?  No.  Grace, even granted only in the very end, is still the polar opposite of pathetic.

(Fair warning – this column only gets less funny from here.  And let’s be honest. So far, this has been 0% laughs and 100% weird.  People being rocks?  Paul Simon wants his island back.  I certainly understand if you want to bail on me. Jump over to JS Online.  “Family Circus” was particularly cute today.)

But since we are this far into this human / rock thing, let’s bring it home.

The best way to start the metamorphic transition?  Burial.  I kid you not - you can look it up.

Tomorrow, at 3:00 pm, I am bringing a Lost Boy to his final resting spot. Repeatedly slashed with the jagged knife of a messed up life, it has become time for a grave-side service and a burial.  The last dance.

This burial that comes with high hopes of kick-starting a Positive Metamorphic Process.  More marble, less schist.

Here is where I would like to share an amusing story or two about this man, this Lost Boy, who died last Tuesday. 

I can’t.

I know so little.  I have had longer conversations with the stranger at pump 9 while filling up my car on pump 10. 

I can, however, give you an accurate description of the deceased: Misunderstood.  Mistaken.  Mistreated.  Misplaced.  Never long for this world. A rebel with a cause.

His renaissance begins tomorrow.

He carried this card in his wallet: “In case of emergency, contact Mike Vickery. (Brother)”

Love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night.