Howdy internet,
Well, I kinda fell off didn’t I? It’s been a little while since I sent one of these, so I wanted to play catch up a bit. Below are a few musings from the last few months.
Some poetry and opinions and other fluffy stuff.
Hope y’all enjoy!
Sunday, December 8th
Loosey goose finger cuffs and other stuff I learned the easy way,
don’t come barking at my picket fence with your wet nose and pocket watch talking “ain’t it about it time” we got to the point of all things,
the pier reaching like a prayer mat, stretched to sea something deeper, meaningful and whatnot worth the walk,
tip-toein’ over tomorrow’s problems with the alms bowl tumpt over and your pockets pulled flopside like a lazy pup,
“don’t hound me I’m getting somewhere” we all nod too quick like a beat we can’t catch,
wellllll keep waddlin’ west til ya know where the prayer stops,
til you taste depth drop like the last bubble bursting,
why don’tchya just take Neptune his slippers and tell me we didn’t already do this, all the hop scotch and kickball and politics,
all the long winded jokes set sail-less to a gusto that just won’t blow like she used to,
maybe it is the end this time,
finally the apocalypse,
finite and fly by and all the poker chips stacked from here to Piza, lean into it baby and we may just get over it.
Lean in and thin out.
Let go the nagging nod off and just sit with the fishes.
Vicious and viscous and varicose veins, we are straining to keep the two-step, but we are dancing. We are all frolic and no fawn left frivolous in this meadow of make pretend.
We are finally getting there, again, to the end of the script-ure,
to the curtain call and altar waltz.
We are goosed loosey,
flightless birds in a down puffer still flapping.
Don’t give into this drowsy depression they’re tablespoonin’ us,
the long slew of the witch’s stew and dubble bubbles toil and trouble.
We are getting there the only way we know,
too easy.
Wednesday, January 8th
Ahh the New Year.
It feels good to be here again. In the cold unfolding of the unknown orbit, another fly-by the sun and maybe this year will finally be THE year.
Hilarious how many THE years I’ve lived through already.
What is it now? I’m nearly 34, so at least 12 or 15 new starts with some anxious reaching. Some shrouded relic, two arms length away, and me desperate hopeful to finally hold it this time for real. To fill whichever, relic shaped void I so happen to pray to this year. Another god of the gaps, but this time, let me carve its relief, embossed and glazed and set out to dry.
If we are to toast, let me sculpt both the vessel and the drinking glass.
If this is to be another THE year, then at least let me pack a lunch first, a sandwich and aspirin and good luck, a rabbit’s foot or rabbit stew, or whatever we reach for when we realize we’re walking backwards.
I don’t think I believe in a THE year anymore.
Like all our childhood myths, we must grow up and out of the role of audience and into the role of performer. If there is to be a stage at all, we must be the ones to build it, if the play is to go on, we must stain the hardwood of matter with the hard work of sweat. We must mask and dance and laugh when we don’t feel it.
If our children, are to believe THEIR year is still coming, we must learn to play the part of hero AND stage hand. To act like we believe in magic, so they may learn to see it.
Santa, and Shakespeare, a Savior, or Sanity all metaphors for being here in honest awe of the play AND the cast, the dance AND the stage, the rising set and setting sun, the myth and the make believe.
The curtain call and final bow of any human worth their costume is not the graceful exit, nor the adoring fans, but the magic made alive in another, emboldened not with fear, but wonder, maybe I too could carry the stage forward, could learn to play on behalf of others, maybe this could be MY year too.
Wednesday, February 5th
The month of No TV.
We put them in the garage with the rest of the mostly, useless junk we’ve collected with our lives. Put out to storage, to sit and dust and wait.
There is nothing inherently wrong with TV, we keep telling ourselves, keep cushioning the blow of doing without and wanting to do-with again.
We say “it is only one month, the shortest of the year” and like any addict we bargain with Time and Chaos in hope to return to the fount not too thirsty to drink. Better for it, but not so much so we leave it dusting. We hope to come back grateful, for its soothing lull, and not apathetic to its grip.
TV is a wonderful metaphor for modernity. Soft and instant and assumed. It is a wonderful metaphor for the monsters we let sleep in our houses, for the elixirs we stare at, sniff, sip, and then drown in.
There is nothing inherently wrong with TV, but there is something inherently dangerous about our relationship with simple satisfaction, with the unearned respite from the mounting storm.
We should deserve to sink subtle into our dessert, should not feel guilty for leisure, but that lack of feeling should come from somewhere inside, not streamed directly to our amygdala, not chased with Cheetos and cheap taste.
Well-earned Rest is a well that we must dig ourselves, entrenched in shovel, must labor the bucket and then be quenched honest.
We cannot expect to own our rest, if we do not own our work, if we do not own our leisure.
There is nothing inherently wrong with TV, but it is casual satisfaction in a time of serious need, of deep longing for refreshment. It is too easy, to flick on, to let play, to assume the role of audience when it is our time to play the Hero.
For us, it is often easier to cut loose than cut back, and this month we are filleting the beast, hands mucked in the daily grime without pause or shuffle. We are saying No to something made magic, to say Yes to making the magic on our own.
To slow down. To work hard. To seek and find, the glowing wonder, out and about in the real world. Or at least in a book, at least in a poem or a pen or a pan. To make and be full, rather than feasting on what Luck shows to the doorstep.
This is the month of No TV and less convenience. Of reaching rather than receiving.
A sloppy metaphor at best, but at this Time in Chaos, it is the twine we are following, out and back again. Hopeful, to return, thankful for the journey.
And perhaps a little bloated on our own doing.
