So, here’s A Funny Story. Life is a lot like a snowflake – each of our experiences is different from another’s.
However, we make it through this many-pronged life by sharing our pains and joys and finding those who say, “I know exactly what you mean.”
How can that be?
“I didn’t see it coming,” I said to Thomas.
I didn’t know Thomas. Well, not well. I’d just met him 35 minutes ago when I entered the bar. Alone. For the first time in my 54 years of life.
“You didn’t see what coming?” Thomas asked. Continue reading
It’s taken me 89 years, two months, and 26 days to figure it out.
But Lord help me, I have figured out what no one told me all these living days.
I don’t blame the people in my early life. My grandmother’s folk (she had 14 siblings) spent their lives just surviving. The earlier generations didn’t have time to figure out what was real, because life was just too damned hard.
But we technocratic, soft-skinned, thin-skinned spoiled people of the 21st century – we have no excuse. We have toilets and warm showers and grocery stores packed with food. We have vehicles of all sizes and shapes to transport us anywhere; free education from 5 to 18 years; easy chairs to sit in and stare into our gas fireplaces just to ponder. No need to chop our wood and cook our meat on that fire. We just use it to warm our souls and ponder. Yes, to just think.
Not that thinking helped me figure it out. The opposite, really. Continue reading
June is a happy month for my family. But it’s also a month that I need to fluff my aura a lot.
Until a few months ago, I never knew about the joy of fluffing. Sure, I’m a yoga-believer. I try to meditate once in a while, and during my long walks, I definitely find myself in a “different mind-space” at times.
But normally, I’m as stressed as the last (and first) person. Life, you know? It springs surprises and quirks, leaps and jerks, every day. Sometimes, I just want to hide under a good book and escape – but most times I’m unable to get away from the hustle/bustle of daily irritations, situations, and difficult deliberations.
Continue reading
The end could be the beginning, or,
it could really damn well be the END.
A famous quote is needed here –like “to be or not to be.”
No Shakespeare am I, but I wonder if
“The end of never is the beginning of always”?
Books finish with The End. But is the story over?
Do the characters live on, at least in the reader’s mind?
In that case, the end is never-ending – infinite,
at least until the last reader is gone.
A week before my dad died, he declared,
“I’ve realized that when I die, it’s over.
Nothing is left but cold old bones.
I go nowhere, and nowhere is the end.”
I ignored him, hoping for some hope but
held his hand when he took his last breath.
Joyfully we both realized at the same time
That he was wrong.
In honor of National Poetry Month, and in the words of Rumi:
roughwighting 