[A word or two of explanation: this piece came to me in a rush on Saturday afternoon. In a very real sense, I didn't write it. See what you think.]
God does love me.
For at least 35 years, I’ve experienced only partial obeisance to what passes for reality. Blame it on a single dog-eared Alan Watts book, plants, or the electric finger of the sun. (Quantum physics is in there, too, if that makes this respectable.) Ever since I realized that the universe was all inside my brain, it’s been hard to take anything except clay feet seriously enough to want to chop off someone’s head. My own, perhaps, but that comes from the razor whirlpool of my youth.
None of this has saved me from madness and depression — enlightenment is true but fleeting. I know I’m a thing of light inside a shell, however, and that the day you can pin religion on me is when you’ll get your bacon from the sky.
Someone recently spoke more sharply to me than I expected. I immediately felt as dirty and angry as a junkyard dog and spent the next two days barking at a mirror. I even got a sore throat, and a sinus infection came roaring back. If I had been a country, there’d be 10 million dead. It seems to me that one could learn from this, though all there is now is the din of braying, fear-crazed hordes. I wish they’d get a life and let the rest of us have ours, but since they won’t — apparently — there’s nothing for it but to fold them all inside us like an omelet of everlasting love. (Yes, I really said that. I don’t know where it came from, but I like it.)
Reality, though, is for the birds. In truth, I mean, like for the distinctly happy ones I saw one day in a pristine meadow in the Valle Vidal, or for another flock I saw one evening heading for their roost in a stunning untouched canyon south of town — a perfect jewel of Nature’s own creation, now to be carved up for fancy homes, where selfish bastards will take chunks for themselves and smash the covenant ‘twixt man and Gaia. ["BARK-bark-bark-bark!"] Oh yes, the omelet… How could I forget?
It’s easy, actually. As natural as salvation, as open as a tomb.
A man comes rushing at me with a knife, I’ll either run or kill him dead like thunder. He stands across the road and sharpens it, perhaps he only wants to whittle, but we live in a time where even wishing for a blade is grounds for being stomped to death. Under the circumstances, what’s surprising is that there are so many of us left.
I’ve said before that if the course of our adventure coming from oh-so-fat-and-sassy life in Maryland with five college degrees and 4,000 pounds of crap between us has taught me anything, it’s that the same observer looks out on everything that’s shiny-new or cracked & broken; on firm young skin or wrinkled cellulite, on big fat paychecks or scary Visa bills. To these I’ll now add swarthy non-Methodists with AK-47s in their teeth or clean-cut lunatics in suits; rapine developers or deadly pure ascetics; dirty, barking junkyard dogs or puppies clean enough to kiss and slobber over… Hold it up to the light and there you go, a kaleidoscope of concepts, chatter, and broken dreams. A river of tears, a bushel of ripe bananas. What the hell. WHAT THE GODDAMNED HELL!
Sometimes when I’m losing it, an angel makes me sleep. The other night I dreamed a beautiful woman and I were standing by a lake that stretched far away to dark green mountains. It was like no place I’d ever been, with absolutely giant trees like magic sequoias rising from the shallows and the banks. I couldn’t believe how tall those trees were, how calm and peaceful the surroundings. There were even big white egrets flying through the mist.
Now if I tell you I had a damn primeval vision, you can take it to the bank! Well sir, I did, so dump it in the pan with all the other stuff. Crack me open and add me too, and you, and you, and you, and them. Fire the guards, bring the troops home, plant a garden, watch the sky.
All you need to know is “red or green?” and don’t go barking at no mirrors, please.
[The preceding piece is coming up in this month's Horse Fly. Be sure to read it all or buy a subscription. Oh! "Red or green?" When you order something to eat in a restaurant and it comes with chile, you'll be asked whether you want red or green. An omelet most likely would! Believe it or not, a state legislator once suggested a bill to make that the "Official State Question." They never passed the law, but then they didn't have to.]
No related posts.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Magnificent. You’re walking on your Beauty Way; keep going, we’ll get on the path and catch up eventually.
Honestly, I didn’t “get” it the first time I tried to read it, but I was talking to Mom on the phone while reading and, well gimme a break.
So, I’ve slept on it and now revisit for another read. Hey, this is good stuff!
tis not half bad.
i used to live in maryland, then new mexico, now florida.
very nice pics at the fotofeed.
Magnificent or half bad, either works for me. It’s a hairball of an essay, feels good to have it out. My publisher at Horse Fly wrote, “John, It’s a bit tough to do Kant and Hume in 700 words or less but you came close. Thanks for the piece.”
Onward.