MAGIC SUNDAY MORNINGS

It's quarter to four and my sleep sensors advise me to pack it in before sunrise. And I will, regretfully, because I've always dug these early morning hours when, in all probability, most of evrybody else is asleep.

It's a peaceful time. The pressure of life isn't off, but it's in the tolerable stage, as if it, too, sometimes needs a break. Except for a heaven-forbid emergency, the phone won't ring and I'm just jellin' and enjoying the solitude. I'm indulging in my favorite mode of relaxation, watching a movie that is so romantic as to mess with my heart or so thrilling that it provides another way to temporarily diminish the weight of troubles. Almost like going to church, so cool it is to reason with yourself.

And the best part is that you've got thirty-six hours to pull yourself together, reset your body and brain clocks so as to make them in sync with the return to everything that comprises the pressure of rejoining society, enabling you to be ready to handle the weight of functioning. And that requires retirement at nine or ten Sunday night so as to replenish the sleep receptors and awake ready to deal with Monday morning.

But what a vacation you gave to yourself. You sat back on the most comfortable chair on the planet, activated the legs support and allowed--no, invited--the magic of movies to give you a shore pass.

And you find yourself remembering things from the past. Quite vividly in HDTV flashbacks which provide the ability to judge yourself, retrospectively, and ask the inevitable question, "Did I do the right thing?" or should I have handled it differently? How did my decisions come to effect my life and the fates of those who were, at one time or another, passing through for various periods of time.

You are your own King Solomon, resolving those issues which were the significant game changers of your story. The fog of emotion has receeded. There's more room to analyze things and it's therefore easier to distinguish the good guys from the not-so-goods. Some flunk your exam while others stand tall, smelling like roses.

You realize that everybody makes their own mistakes. Therefore the key to the code of goodness is the presence or absence of an intent to hurt others. That's the litmus test of life which enables you to differentiate the wheat from the chaff.

People don't change. They get old. Some can adapt by properly rearranging their priorities; by understanding who is bound to you by solid love, as distinguished from the counterfeits.

And if you can identify at least one such person upon whom you can always depend to love you and be there for you, luck has touched your life.

For me, that person is my blood.

My lids are getting heavy now--it's a quarter to five --and I always beat the sun.

Early Sunday mornings are magic time.

An atmosphere for remembering, reviewing, analyzing and turning the hourglass over.

And the beauty of it is that you can reconsider your thoughts and modify or even reverse your decisions.

 For, after all, am I not talking about matters of the heart?