Lives . . .

I wouldn't mind being a rock.

A smooth rock that's perhaps spent some time in the riverbed.

I once watched children play in a small stream. I had gone to the park for a change of pace and to write.

My observations merged with the story I was thinking about and I saw the flat rocks as fish for the character to avoid. Pretend fish, of course.

I've always been alive enough to take care of people. And now, I find myself more awake but making lumbering Frankenstein mistakes.

Frankenstein needed an instruction manual. I've often wanted one for myself. Mine would tell me where to live in Wyoming.

Lately I keep thinking about the rock. The rock's purpose is pretty clear: sit in the meadow until someone picks you up, skips you across the stream. Then sink. And do whatever rock's do at the bottom--until something changes.

The rock piece wouldn't make a good story. Good stories require characters that act, react, and interact--not that are exclusively acted upon. But here's the beauty: the rock isn't looking to be a character or to even be in a story. How liberating! The rock just is.

Isn't that what people want, too? To be seen exactly as they are (rock) and liked and appreciated and accepted (mostly) because God created them? (I suppose some people's ideal isn't rock, like mine is. Some might wish to be perceived as something grander or better.) (And no, people don't want to be used...I just realized that I didn't want anyone carrying that analogy forward.)

I wonder if anyone has e-published a guide on how not to be Frankenstein. I bet someone has. And it's probably sitting on a server somewhere for me to download for .99.

I won't look though. I will instead close my eyes and see the gray smooth stone--perhaps it has wavy stripes running through it--resting below a shallow stream of water, waiting for whatever comes after one has sunk.

The all-encompassing list (an answer) . . .

. . . be happy

live alive instead of sleepwalking through lists

connect to others

be real. authentic.

. . . be even happier for the journey.

(because you asked on "a strong day". . . because this is all I could come up with . . .)

An observation about the new year . . .

. . . it's much more exciting to start a new year when you've done something fulfilling--like spending 3-4 days writing and developing your novel--in the final days of the old year. Then, it's not so much a starting over as a continuation. (I hope to continue . . . will continue . . . am looking forward to continuing . . . what I started this week.)

. . . as for the blunders I made in the nick of time to end the year with a fizzle, I hope the new year promises rebirth.

Sometimes our simple, naive, stupid acts make us feel so much, maybe they even change so much, which is one way of interpreting William Carlos Williams's lines: "So much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow . . . "

"If so much depends" on such small moments, then I really need to do a better job of making every moment matter. I need to think before I act. I need to show more restraint.

Just some things for me to think about as 2012 starts . . .

Someone asked me . . .

A friend of mine asked me (twice) if I could have just one wish, one wish for me, what would it be?

I feel lost in not knowing the answer.

I can't wish for the coughing to stop or the lungs to clear, because they're not my coughs, not my lungs.

I can't waste the wish on a career, right? Although wouldn't it be fun to be somewhere learning/teaching/experiencing advanced story? And a book? That already feels like a quiet possibility. Maybe.

I certainly can't use my wish to travel back in time and do it all over again with this "better" perspective age has granted me, because I don't want to do it all over. Any of it.

And I can't wish for losses to be filled when I've given up or forgotten how to feel their loss. (I think.)

What about a small farm? I'd like that. Just plants, crops, farmhouse, me. (No animals, except maybe the dog. And a cat. Maybe.) But you can't use up a wish on that.

"What happens to a dream deferred?" Langston Hughes asks, and then he runs through the possibilities: does it "dry up"? (and there's a reason this one is placed before the next one) "fester"? "crust and sugar over"? "Or does it explode?" (I've always liked that last line the best.)

I should wish for a shift in perspective, maybe?
I should wish for confidence? Intelligence? Success? (But whose version of success would I follow, and if I went with my own, wouldn't I just end up being this same version of myself that I am anyway?)

I'm more clear about what I want for others. My wishes for them include happiness, the ability to see and reach their greatest most beautiful potential, the ability to feel the excitement and importance of their dreams. I wish them all that they need, and more, along with the respect for and respect of others. I wish them love, both to love freely and to be loved. To connect with people in meaningful ways.

But for me and that one elusive wish . . .
I simply do not know.

Stray, unrefined, unfinished thoughts . . .

The Continuum of All Things

There's a point
At which the party-
Sized chip bag
Can't shrink
Any smaller
Before its paucity
Of ounces
Qualifies it
For a new name--
  Snack-sized
  A fiesta for two.

And there's a point
At which worry
Or pain or
(fill in any undesired thing)
Can't extend
Any longer
Without transforming
  Me
Into something else
  Entirely.



* * *
A Haiku of Sorts

Enemies and friends
Two sides of one coin, both use
Energy to spin.


* * *


Every north-south road we traversed was under construction, but, as my sister pointed out, we weren't at all annoyed, knowing that orange cones and heavy equipment meant work (employment, a job) for somebody.



* * *

We pray . . .

. . . for large things to be made small and small things to be made large. Masses shrink. Iron levels increase.

This seems reasonable enough. Things can swell. Things can shrink. We've heard stories of or witnessed such miracles.

But what about lost things of a living, physical nature? A lost eye or limb, a clipped thumb.

Where there is physical loss--it seems to me--we rarely pray with the same fervor, the same purposefulness, the same level of hope and expectation that we would use to pray for more health or less sickness. More happiness and less pain. More good fortune and less disparity. Part of this, I'm guessing, is from our observation of this finite existence: we know that not all lost things can be restored, not here. What is lost physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, financially, politically, personally, religiously is not always found, not always regained.

I am convinced, though, that every loss grants us other gains, often imperceptible to the naked eye, yet formative, defining, and alive.

I wonder what my losses mean. How they've changed me. If they've had any purpose beyond suffering. (Or if, as a human, I'm making meaning where there is none.)

A stray thought . . .

My Shadow

My shadow
Has four legs.

It jingles
And jangles
As it trails me
Through the night.

My shadow
Is Havanese.