Josh Brolin Instagram – Sitting on the deck looking out at the countryside, the pond, and listening to the sounds of the wildlife. Coffee in hand. My daughter having just gotten married and all of us having been inside the greatest, most intimate wedding ceremony I’ve ever seen. Everything was real and as diverse as the personalities involved were, everything was selfless, connected, and directed towards the wedding couple. Turkeys gobbling somewhere off to the south. The sun just hitting me. Frogs braying. My family asleep. Ground squirrels scurrying around. The hidden sounds of a truck sneaking across a dirt road. How strange I feel this morning. Here, this morning, alone on this ranch, among all this wildlife. I feel what a waste of life certain behaviors are, reactions. My daughter last night, my God, and her groom: awe. We will leave here today or tomorrow and keep going, kids still in our bed all night. We will travel, and I will compile there. I know what to put together. A book from ‘87 until now: journals, prose, poems: a gasoline bubble bath. “Only the weak are cruel”. I read this morning. When your daughter gets married it all shows up: the memories, a life lived (or not), and how certain relationships resonate. I am so grateful for this time and this place to be able to have this time on. There are the kindest people out there. I have little kids to raise again, entire lives to monitor and be sensitive to. I didn’t grow old and go off to Italy. I stayed and walked my daughter over a grassy countryside to a commitment — a groom with tears falling down his cheeks — and I melted with it, into it. Everything is thriving right now: the plants and these sounds of birds and small animals I’m listening to right now. It’s all blossoming, only to wilt again, then later again open its petals to the sun. We fluctuate in a life. We die and are born again and again and again into a mystery that never gets solved. I am ripped open this morning. My son and my daughters are happy, contented. All the greatest gifts have no form, and sit there waiting to be acknowledged. @edenbrolin @cameroncrosby9