Luxury

If you didn’t know any better, an alien perhaps, and you looked out my window at the great autumn-leafed trees, I would not belittle you if you thought that, perhaps, we were living under water, and that it was the currents and surges that moved the limbs and branches. We can stand together, you and I, and watch the colours move softly, gracefully, and in groups as if choreographed by some, offstage talent. Clear, that the top of the most distant maple catches a current that the closer ones do not, at least, not at the same time, so there is uniqueness among the players. You are amazed at their flexibility–sure that something is going to break, as the upper trunk seems to be giving some way to the challenge moving against it. Open the window, and the magic breaks–air. 

Yes, it would be compelling to swim out through the empty leagues and rise up to the surface. What would be there, I wonder? And where would this surface be? Near the moon? Further? What a luxury to be able to simply leave. Fiction though. 

Fiction.

Although I would not belittle you if, upon explanation of what was going on in the world right now, you assumed that noted events were part of a terrible movie. There is no grace. Movement is fearful, and shocking. We might stand, you and I, holding each other, horrified at the pettiness, the cruelty, and the overwhelming greed of powerful, ignorant men. All of this on this heartbreakingly beautiful planet. Shut out the news but you can still feel it, if you are at all tapped in. Open the window and pray for water to wash it all away, but again, there is only air, and the echoes of the crossing guard’s whistle, the coffee grinder’s yowl, elevator doors opening and shutting–attempts to continue on, deflect and deny madness.

 It would be compelling to stop and sit where we are, loving whomever we love–but to stop everything. Stop. What luxury it would be to rebuff complicity–to find some way to release from our physical expression and fuel a great tide of compassion–a flood perhaps. How many of us could contribute? Where would the surface be? Near the moon? Further? What luxury to be able to enact such an effort. Fiction though. 

Or, is it?

Is this Fine?

I was waiting for my turn to order in a coffee shop. There was a woman ahead of me in the queue; her drink, some kind of healthy latte that I didn’t get the name of. The barista diligently heated, added, frothed, and whatever else was involved in creating the concoction–summoning the tea deities– then presented it to the woman who lifted it to her face, took a sip, and, though pleased, asked, “What are those little chunks in it?” The barista offered an explanation that described the difficulty in taming some of the ingredients into submission but assured the woman that they would assimilate momentarily. The woman kept sipping, wondering. I offered, fully in jest, served with gobs of absurdism and sprinkled with guffaw, 

         “Oh, it’s probably just some ham.” 

Yes, that’s what I said.

          “Oh, it’s probably just some ham.” 

                                  Ham.

The woman replied, quick and serious, 

                 “Oh no, it can’t be ham.” 

Yes, that’s how she replied.

                 “Oh no, it can’t be ham.”


I looked at her to see if she was exhibiting any subtle, sly, grokking of the joke. I wanted there to be something. 

   “Oh God, please let there be something." 

–A wink. A nod. Pointing her finger at me as if to say, Good one! 

                     There was nothing. 

                            No thing. 

I checked to see if she actually existed–had mass and wasn’t a mirage or a terrible dream. She cast a shadow, and I heard her footfalls on the shop floor, so, yes, she had mass. Did she have thumbs? Yes, two. I counted as she tended to her troubled beverage, so she was, if we can make a broad assumption, a functioning adult human–adult, because any child would have understood the gag. This woman had taken my suggestion that there was possibility, on some bizarre reality scale, that yes, ham was indeed, a possible ingredient in any drink, ever.  I wanted to lay myself down where I stood–you know, just stop trying. What was the point in going on? I would live out my remaining few days gnawing on the leg of the nearest display table, moaning in a fever of disappointment, and muttering things like, “Ham. She believed ‘ham,’” and “Why must you disappoint so?” I would phone my kids repeatedly and apologize for bringing them into such a world. I would cobble together whatever I could find on the floor, add the shards of table leg I would pull from my teeth, and create a collage that I would title as, My Despair. This would be my final Instagram post. My phone would then die and I would gnaw on that into my oblivion.

I wondered if perhaps this woman had slipped through the veil between our reality and some choice location in the multiverse where meat drinks are all the rage: 

“I’d like a hedgehog frappé, and my friend here would like a beef Wellington shake with a turkey shot in lard syrup.” 
“Would you like to upgrade both to feed-lot size, and get a free ptarmigan slushy? A lamb ice perhaps?” 

 How many more people like her were slipping through? Had they all had their humour replaced with dull-as-a-rototiller at birth? Was this where this most recent hatch of cement-headed politicians had come from? If she was mentally glacial enough to consider ham drinks, what else was she considering as truth during her day which in this present zeitgeist, could be anything–Doug Ford has a clue–that kind of thing. 

“No, it can’t be ham.” 

I weep.

What About my Loyalty Points?

It’s been a while since I’ve written a decent sentence. The good ones–the best, most wonderful combinations of words, don’t come from me–they come through me. I’ve had to shut that access for a while for my own mental health. Full access to that paradigm, the land of good words, requires me to be completely open and vulnerable; you know, heart beating on your sleeve, and all of that. Messy stuff. The reason isn’t unique; I am overwhelmed by the world. This has been ramping up with the orange goat’s presidency, and Doug Ford being the premier of Ontario, but the recent statement by the United Nations regarding climate change and the urgency of humanity’s focus on our planet is almost too much–is too much.

It’s not the climate statement itself, but the overall reaction to it that is, not just a problem–it’s stunningly heartbreaking. The possibility that earth could become uninhabitable is not enough for us to drop our leaf blowers, or park our muscle cars right away.

     Let's not be hasty! Just how inconvenient is this going to be?  

This, from a CNN article, October 12, 2018, by Aman Azad: 

But the planet isn't the only thing at risk as temperatures rise; your health might be in danger, too.


Oh, so it IS going to be inconvenient. Hmmm. Guess we'll pick up dinner at the drive-thru then.

The thing is, the planet is NOT in any danger. The planet will be here long after we’re gone, spinning as it always has, delighted that those parasitic humans; polluting, selfish, violent little bipeds–arrogant to a fault–have blinked themselves into history.  

Recently, I was considering going back to school and getting a degree so that I could help the depressed, but it dawned on me that, if you’re NOT depressed these days, YOU are likely more in need of counsel than someone curled up and living in a corner of their room in an attempt to retreat from reality.

Magical Thinking? Somehow this is all going to go away...tra-la-la.

Personally, I worry about my two boys; the best young men. This is not what I want for them. I imagine them thriving in a world, lush, and teeming with opportunity; a world guided by leaders gifted with mighty hearts, and keenly aware of how delicate our planet is–poets, actually. Instead, the world is being destroyed by terrible, juvenile self-centred bullies disguised as men, taking every chance they can to wank-off at the scope of their perceived power: 

They are the worst people leading at the worst time. 

I’m trying to figure out how to go forward, to live. I’ve been finding some relief in speed-hiking on the trails around here–moving as fast as I can for at least two hours. Anything less doesn’t cut it–doesn’t get through to my soul, curled up as it is, in a corner of my being. Once I get into the second hour, I feel like I’m a part of the forest. I breathe into my whole body, and I feel like, in amongst the great trees, I can go forever. My soul comes forth and, for a time, everything is okay–I’m in a good place. The last thing I want to do is leave the forest. There are certain parts of the trail where I stop and just stand, sensing and feeling the energy of the ground, the dirt and roots under my feet. If I could pixelate and become part of the scenery there, I would do it. But I can’t, so, I try to hook into the energy from my hike and use it to bait some kind of perspective that will get me through the day, and then the night. Then I do it all again.

This is ridiculous. THIS paradigm, right now, is the most shameful comedy, and I can hardly bear it.