What is a period of silence, when you expect something else? Many years I have sat beneath the trees with a tattered notebook in my lap. Letters becoming words, finding their way through a sacrifice of ink contained in a small plastic tube. The words trickle and pour in unpredictable volumes, and that is okay.

When the words stop, I stare blankly at the faucet of my misspent youth and wonder, how can this be? Didn’t I suffer? Didn’t I wake up beyond the living dead? Did I not awaken to a lead weight of doom in the pit of my stomach and not know why? But also the mountain tops! I saw them from below and from the top! Certainly those could tell a story! 

It is the nebula that poses the most deception. We enter days to savor and days to regenerate. Those are needed, but they can disconnect us from reality. Untethered I float, slamming into the hull of whatever vessel I arrived upon. Who am I? I ask the unnerving pilot. He smiles and says “ it’s not the turn of a friendly card that wins you the game, it is what door you choose to enter.”

For 30 seconds this morning, I contemplated hitting the reset button, then I came to my senses and recalled that is a seven year journey with all the negative charm of the Oregon Trail.

No, broken stuff may abound, but it is my broken stuff. I can make it not broken, slowly.

at May 26, 2024