pendulate appraising

I'm not who you want me to be.  

In a way, I'm sorry, I suppose, for the discomfort this has caused, may cause, and perhaps will cause in the future.  To be certain, I never was.  It's just who I am.  I love the eerie sound of a shakuhachi flute.  I have quirky sense of humor.  I like walking through the woods with you, but just as much without you.  I still think capitalism has clearly failed, and I don't want to trade my life for money.  I still think most of humanity is not going to survive all that much longer - maybe 100 years if we're lucky?  I love spacing out looking at the sky.  I often don't want to sit yet another period of zazen.  But I'm not really sorry, now that I think of it.  

Truth be told, you are not who I want you to be either.  You're not more considerate in the moments I want you to be more considerate.  You keep making rich desserts when I'm failing to conquer my sugar addiction.  You lean in for more contact when I want to withdraw and collapse.  You love Led Zeppelin in a small, closed space at such a high volume.  You want to sit more zazen.  

And we both belong, so much so that it can't be measured.  It's an aspect of reality that is so true it can't really be conceived of.  You belong, like sitting on a bench with a beautiful woman on a sunny Friday afternoon in late May.  You belong like someone telling you they missed you and giving you a long hug.  You belong crooked, and you belong straight.  You belonged at three years old on a pony, just being there with the smell of the mane and the hay and the hot earth.  

I belonged in a drunken cab zooming through Beijing, going nowhere past beautiful, terrible buildings in the night.  I belong in the shade of a hickory, listening to friends talk about big ideas.  I belong in the tide that is swelling to eat Miami.  I belong on an old steel frame bike, whizzing gracefully through the night along a nameless river.  I belong in the seamless giving and receiving of a waltz, a swing, a tango past the slender flower in a cobalt vase.  

We all belong.  We are all coming home in every moment.  Children being naughty, presidential hopefuls with red-faced hate, policemen with twitchy guns, nuns and hookers and businessmen and mechanics and pit bulls and a million drops of water in the passing cloud.  My white skin next to your black skin, it belongs.  A man's lips on another man's lips, they belong.  Hip hop and tapioca pudding and carbon in the atmosphere, it all belongs.  

Where do we go from here?  Where does this real dream head next?  Belonging is our right by still being here in the moment, but that's also where it ends.  No entitlement, no privilege blinders, no apologies for abusing our power.  From this moment, our responsibility unfolds into the future.  Where do we imagine we are headed?  Do we like the feel of that place?  Do we like this sunny park, this concerto that weeps with my eyes, this American apartheid state, this big box pavement extravaganza, this sweaty addiction, this inability to promise our children anything about life with an honest gut?  

It's a fierce mandate, this singular precious life.  So easy to let it slip... four thousand nervous laughs and a glance away, when facing the wave might just be the wide open medicine we need.  The whole world wants you to wake up, and not in some affirmation or self-congratulation or bliss-chasing dreamsicle.  It's right there with the next bullet, the next kiss, the next iceberg, the next flood, the next laugh, the next here and now.