Often I feel like I'm just passing through, this life a beautiful and bittersweet stretch of time, on lease perhaps from someone somewhere or Someone Somewhere (I may never know), perhaps I am an incarnation of something whose form has passed and the predecessor of something to come, a life as yet unknown, (I secretly harbor aspirations of a wild and beloved golden retriever on a farm deep in the middle of nowhere San Luis Obispo)
I shuffle, stride, or run down the alleys and sprawling boulevards of the days and seasons, moving through snow, fallen leaves, or the delicately rich feel of Kentucky bluegrass under my bare hopeful summer feet
I mean no harm, and try to operate from a place of giving and simple loving, my own panacea recipe for meaning as I watch our civilization slowly crumble and the stars still shine bright in the cold sky but from such an inaccessible distance, an inch or a million light years is the same beyond my eager fingertips
So I search here for meteoric remnants and find them in eyes and slanting sunshine and supportive hands on my shoulders and the first steps after last tears and the smell of thousands of years of low technology summed up in a freshly baked loaf and the sound of a small gong with hot tea
Each 365 1/4 brings aches pains experiments triumphs connections and it keeps spooling in my heart almost but not quite entirely unlike the World's Largest Ball of Twine because my story and song move in four dimensions, I dig deep with books and therapists and map myself anew on top of memories I thought were secure in the safe deposit boxes of Been There Done That
I want Something to mean Something Definitively, but alas the sands shift and from above what just resembled Michelle Obama's face now looks like three scoops of mind-defying sugar-free ice cream and wait now it's a little brown jug, but then the loop goes back to the beginning and it's all what I project, looking out the window peeking from behind thick lace or tacky venetian blinds the World Out There is simply a reflection of My World In Here, once again responsibility and freedom tango forever onwards and it is mine to create the world through my lens
My list for Santa didn't yield much this year, probably because he doesn't exist, but the carbon copy which I keep under my pillow includes less fossil fuels, more smiles, an explanation of why anyone would shoot John Lennon, warmer toes, enough patience for me and all my friends, sense of clarity that persists, 7" statue of the Buddha in gold leaf detail to go with aforementioned sense of clarity, whole grains, world peace, accurate accounting of where all those zeroes in bailout money are headed, bone marrow matches for those who wait each day, voluntary population reduction plans, a national holiday where everyone hits the yoga mat, time to read with jasmine tea, an apology from Big Brother about killing public transit back in the 40's and 50's, bigger libraries with old leather chairs, and kale and sweet potatoes for dinner as often as I want it
As always, this is an invitation, hopefully leaving you feeling a bit like you stepped into a high-quality reproduction or perhaps even an original Salvador Dali painting, but in a good way