Suspicious Minds

     Revel thinks I’m spoiled. “No matter where you go people help you and do things for you. I don’t get it.”    It’s true, people are mostly nice to me and I’m mostly nice to them. This is especially true on the river. People on the river are just nice. That’s why I like it there, well, one of the reasons anyway. There are other reasons but the people have a lot to do with it. But Revel is wrong, not everyone is nice to me. Hard to understand, I know, but, take Andy for example.

   If Andy is at a jam where I am I can usually count on him being snotty at least once, if not down right mean.  At least I used to be able to count on it. Andy, who has been an annoying asshole for five years, is out of the blue and unexpectedly, being nice to me. He complimented me on a song I sang and loaned me his tuner. He almost smiled at me. Small things I know, but completely out of character with the Andy I've grown to know and tolerate. Then there’s Darlene whose mission in life seems to have been to prove I’m the village idiot.  Lately she’s giving me compliments and bringing me tea. And they aren’t the only ones, it’s like I’m living a Coke commercial, you know the one, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.”

      Somehow in the middle of being curious about the changes I was seeing in other people I realized that I had a choice to make. I could accept this apparent change in them or I could continue to react to them the way they used to be with me. I could keep trying to pound them into label I had for them like a two year old trying to pound a square peg into a round whole or I could let them be who they are now and by extension I could be a different me with them. Loving and open hearted instead of fearful. And let’s face it; it’s either fear or love, baby. I offered love and it’s a lot easier to do these days.

      Elvis Presley was never a favorite of mine but he had a point with Suspicious Minds. “We can’t go on together with suspicious minds. We can’t build our dreams on suspicious minds”    People do change…..if you let them.  Suspicious minds can get in the way of the unfolding miracle of the soul. Suspicious minds whisper warnings and judgments instead of acceptance and trust. Maybe you’ve heard them? Mine used to say things like, “I wonder what she really wants?” or He must know whose he’s talking to.” It was always something that justified my shutting my heart and acting out of fear instead of love.  Then it hit me. I was being was suspicious, not because of anything they did or didn’t do, but, because I was guarding my self against an attack that might happen and that was a problem. I mean, who am I, Edger Casey? Not the last time I looked anyway.

      The need to be right about who you think someone is so that you can continue to defend yourself against an attack that might happen is just insane. And I’m many things but I’m not insane. I know this because Ray told me that everyone is a little crazy but I was the least crazy person I know.  So, I let the past die and smiled at Andy and accepted Darlene's compliment and tea. And I did it for me. I did it because I like being happy and having positive relationships with people. I like being nice and having people be nice to me. Life is just easier without the drama of being outraged, annoyed and upset all the time and  that means accepting people for who they are now, not who they were.  People do change, if you let them.

   Don’t get me wrong I’m betting that Andy and I aren’t going to get married and sashay down the primrose path. He’s not a guitar playing cowboy from Montana who paddles a red caption, after all.  He’s a dang banjo player for heaven’s sake, and I doubt that Darlene and I will be BFF’s forever but you never know. Like I like I always say, “You never know what your soul has in store for you.”