*
I feel like Dante before Virgil showed up. Lost in the woods, assailed by three beasts.
Unable to find the straight way.
*
I can’t stop gnawing on the bone of the world. I want to understand deep time and deep space. I want to stand on the shore of some ancient ocean and watch a band of early hominids gathered around a fire, tearing at the flesh of some great creature they have just killed. I want to see their dance and hear their victory songs. I want to watch dinosaurs roaming through a dark and unfamiliar wood.
Given the rarest gift, of life and intelligence and curiosity and wonder, I yet want more. A time machine, a spaceship, a jetpack, a submarine, and a team of scientists to explain things to me.
It’s okay to want these things. It’s in our nature. Desire. Greed for life. Even lichen wants to live, clinging to some hunk of granite, high on some cold, barren mountainside, nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to talk to.
Life wants to exist.
The key for me is to see all of the wild and forever lost past in the present world, and to see the seeds of the future there, too. Just like we are rolling along in the weeds at the far edge of the milky way, we are also at the very center of an infinite universe. In any infinite scale you are always at the very center, no matter where you find yourself. And if time and space are infinite, then this is true for us, right here, right now. And as much wonder and glory and strangeness that I’ll never get to see in our planet’s past, there’s just as much coming that I’ll miss, too.
But there’s just as much wonder and glory and strangeness going on right this second, right smack dab where I am now, where you are.
There hasn’t ever been anything or anywhere more strange or exicting or wonderful than this exact place and time.
I keep forgetting this and have to learn it again and again.
I am a poor student.
*
weekend plans:
long walks with the dog, the wife, and the kaleb guy. or short ones, depending.
dinner at a fancypants Italian joint tonight on a hundred dollar gift certificate so woot.
maybe I can cook something good for Sunday supper.
I’d like to find Annals of The Former World at the smut bookstore and maybe I will.
cultivate gratitude and acceptance and keep my eyes open for everyday miracles.
try, try, try to really see the human beans around me.
*
Namaste.
***
The Dishwasher's Tears 
When I come here I always leave feeling as I were more than what I was when I arrived. That’s the magic you give.
And that fire and child. Beautifully frightening.
xo
Deirdre
Thanks for the company and the kind words.
How bout that Clay, huh?
How bout this whole group of us?
We are some kind of tribe, don’t you think?
yrs-
tearful
We wrote about the same thing. Sort of. Well, I’m not surprised. But I sure am delighted.
Me, too!
This piece reminds me of a proverb I love: Now that the barn has burned we can see the stars. I think i might have shared it with you before. if so, forgive my repeating myself. I just hope that boy is able to see the stars.
Such a relief to be able to comment! i tried many times to comment on your previous post. I love those women in the rain, the sisterhood, the way they are planted there, life flowing around them, ready to manage it all. Really, it is one of my very favorite pieces of yours.
as for the human bean, it was my dad’s very favorite malapropism of mine. My dad was born the same day as you, so it amuses me, and fills me with great affection, to see you use the same here.
love to you and yours.
Angella-
That image always brings me such peace of mind. And it really can be there after the barn has burned. All those things you thought mattered so much. Sometimes they do just get in the way of the moon and stars.
Your dad and I, you and I, our families are intertwined in a way that I count as real. Good souls doing the good work.
thank you, as always.
Hey you,
I kind of get your discontent or hunger or whatever it is… could it be partly fueled by Spring Fever? 🙂
I am rereading “The Book” by Alan Watts. It’s really fascinating… I read it a long time ago and thought he was a mental masturbator extraordinaire, and now well, I still think that, but I also think he’s a freaky genius. He points out that we are not only connected, but we are all just part of the same larger organism…. and breaks it down convincingly!
Makes me think that if you study or are connected to anything in a deep way, you understand it all. That we just have different interests as humans and different things that draw our attention, but once you start getting past the novice type knowledge of anything… anything at all, the answers we seek are there in the process, the connections and the conscious focus.
Or something like that!
Hope you enjoyed your dinner at the Eye-talian place (That’s how they say it here in the south) I know your Sunday feast will be a glory.
Peace bro,
pf
I agree that there seems to be a kind of universal truth that is gotten at by diving very deeply into one path that cannot be apprehended by the wide, shallow way.
As far as Watts, I enjoy listening to his recorded talks that crop up on NPR, but I don’t think I could read him without sharing your early opinion of him.
I don’t know if my hunger is spring fever or not. It feels more like middle age crazies, like I’m going to run out of time to learn all I need before I check out of this place. But spring could be pushing me in the same direction.
thank you, as always.
She is the one I dream of.
xo
Right?
she won’t leave go of you once she’s taken hold.
thank you for coming by. sorry you couldn’t post before, I think I fixed it.
yrs-
Scott
Hi Scott,
I really love your work and take on mindfulness. This is my favorite of your pieces. Rural decay and the relationship between creation and destruction are themes I have exploring my whole life. I love this piece so much that it inspired a song, and I thought it would be weird to not try and share it with you. Kind regards, Melissa.
Melissa-
Wow! Beautiful song, I really love it. And of course, I’m so pleased that one of my pieces inspired it!
Thanks for sharing it with me!
yrs,
Scott