“in This Twilight of My 20s”
By Neal McCurdy
Near The Bolivar Lighthouse
Sundown, Tuesday
November 25, 2014
On Tuesday, November 25, 2014, my son Neal drove down to Galveston on one of his vacation afternoons to spend the last daylight of his “20s” in a laid back celebration of an impending milestone birthday. Neal was on schedule to turn “30” at 2:51 AM in the wee small hours of the next day, Wednesday, November 26, 2014. He went alone, wanting to spend the time in solitary reflection, but the drive force behind his agenda was his desire to take photographs of the sunset on his last moment of daylight in his life as a young man in his “20s” – and he wanted to do that in a place that always has been memorable to him, on the beach road near the old lighthouse on the Bolivar peninsula.
By the time he shared the featured photo with me, it already had found its way onto his Facebook page as a “friends only” post on his day of quiet adventure – and also placed to this epically beautiful background music: “In This Twilight” (Stephan Carroll ‘Beyond This Twilight’ Remix) by Nine Inch Nails
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahBgfQeLTuU
The best I can do to reproduce Neal’s Facebook production here is to share the photo, the above background story, and the musical theme that lifts the whole creative venture into a thing that sprouts wings and flies on its own muse-driven power. Hope you may enjoy the idea of what may have driven Neal to do this beautiful thing on some level of age transition call to contemplation. I’m his father. I’m not too capable of objectivity here. I love my son beyond words, as all of you with children most certainly understand, but I can see the call to creativity working through him as though it were the aurora borealis, awakening the night to the message that the sun shall rise again.
Each of us, at any age, only has today, but today is very big when we seize it, heart and soul, to do what we individually have the talent to do – and we are not just bound to all the social lessons of practicality that so often bury us from pursuing the edges of what we hope to do in a sellout career for the sake of safely making a living.
Neal McCurdy and Dad
At Home Where the Heart Is
Spring 2014
“Birthday Letters” are a tradition in our family- and Neal turning “30” as the background of this project he created stirred me as his “old man” to write him the following:
November 26, 2014
To My Dear Son, Neal
Upon the Occasion of Your 30th Birthday
Awaken, Sleeping Muse of Creative Genius Residing Within,
Pour Forth Your Message of Hope and Beauty to the World.
Today is Your 30th Birthday, Neal, But Like All Other Days
In the Past and Future, Our Present Day Is the Only Day
We Ever Own – And Even Today is Always Moment to Moment.
Hope, Faith, and Love Are the Fiery Fuel of All Creativity.
Releasing Them All in the Moment of Today is All They Require
For a Sustainable Level of Legacy That Even We Cannot See.
The Creative Powers of Hope, Faith, and Love Never Harm;
They Only Enhance the Level of Consciousness in Our World
To Our Shared Need in Life for Growth and Soulful Expression.
Bond to the Hope for Something Better in the Face of Despair!
Despair is Only Temporary; ~ Hope is Forever.
We all need to Bond in Faith to a Power Greater Than Our Personal Ego!
That Quality of Faith Will Carry Us Through All Weary Times.
Embrace the Trust That God is Love!
And that Love Really Does Overcome All Obstacles to Peace.
Just Be ~ And Do ~ From Your State of Love and Being,
Now and Forever.
~ Love and Peace, Dad
“None of us can capture what is yet to be with our promises;
None of us can regain what might have been with our regrets.
All we can do is – do from the moment,
With the wisdom we’ve been willing to absorb from the past.”
– Bill McCurdy
The Pecan Park Eagle 
November 28, 2014 at 1:55 pm |
Beautiful moment between a father and son,and that light house near the beach on Bolivar ,Happy Birthday Neal McCurdy
November 28, 2014 at 5:48 pm |
Thanks Bill. 🙂