Chap This

I was searching for substance, for direction.

A flash of thought suggested I might return to that sentence and change the word searching for others; seeking, hunting, or perhaps prowling? There are others to be sure, which is not the same as certain.

A habitual internal rebuking of how I handle my moment to moment thinking.

Until I submit to the idea we can’t control that, or so I’ve read; by extension convinced to believe.

I’m wandering off right now, I can feel it. Like at a party listening to a stranger answer a polite conversational query.

“What do you do?”

Holy shit, will this guy ever shut up about how he adores himself?

Revere or adore, does it matter? Where are the chicken wings?

But, I’m a vegetarian; not a vegan, that’s too confusing. The Hipster Vegan? PETA Vegan, Raw Vegan, or the Instagram- look-at-my-shit Vegan.

Omnivorous, I’ll eat what you give me; telling me it’s good for me doesn’t replace taste OK? That’s my criterion.

I’m drifting, I can feel it. Not just by awkward demand to endure the noise from this unwelcomed social stranger, but from what I wanted to construct these words into conveying in the first place.

Find out.

Oh, it’s back! It flittered back into my awareness like a hungry bird, (I decided on famished during my revisit) roosting near a bird feeder hanging near the back patio deck.

    “where’s the chow?”

I was reading postings about Chap books on the Internet. 

I had this notion I’d get my bearings for my own using other author’s honest professions on being.

I just got sad.

Sad that such tripe passes as prose.

That even I could do better, if I only had the needful desire.

I did, not so long ago.

Then I too wanted to convince total strangers I was important; if only in my confused mind doing so was equivalent to proof I mattered. If I didn’t matter to myself, then perhaps strangers would serve as reasonable facsimile; margarine substituting butter; unless you’re Vegan in which then it equates to zero.

That was ripped away from me along with trust in the Easter Bunny and Santa; a traditional ruse to make happy.

Mostly what I preferred was to be left alone, as in don’t mess with my choices.

I’m not even sure content is all that good for me for the rude awakening waiting its turn when I’m not.

I’m prone to revise the most fundamental things I took for granted; what does anger really mean?

And compared to hostile or violence would aggression be such a negative?

We make do with what we bring to the party, and nature never apologizes; we’re tourist.

So being patient with rude, or tolerating a bigot if they don’t affect your economic well being is any sign of sophistication, then I’m your guy.

Just don’t ask me to articulate the differences between Sunni and Shiite OK?

If you don’t know, I’m not going to take your hand and walk you through the nuances.

Crap everything depends.

I’d have a shelf of Ph.D’s to show off to visitors at my home if they’d award certificates for that kind of clarity.

It applies to everything distinctive as spice.  Nothing is remotely like Cinnamon, or Curry, or Garlic for that matter.

Yet we insist on describing characteristics using comparison; everything is this way near or that way from the taste of chicken.

Which by the way, where are those chicken wings? Separated from the function for which they had been designed; flight; modified for ease of consumption.

There’s a small folded card with neatly scripted message by the chafing dish; vegans please use recycled napkins.

Why not?

Lost Voice

   I lost my voice.  Not in the customarily Laryngitis sort of way where a virus invades my vocal cords and suddenly I can’t articulate sounds into words of conveyance.  Nor by singing favorite tunes in a higher than usual pitch.  Oddly enough, repetitive whispering puts as much strain on vocal chords as screaming does; but all of that is purely physical apparatus of voice. I’m talking about the voice of opinion had been silenced; and I was clueless to its cause.

   Perhaps clueless is not entirely accurate. If I could muster up some genuine honesty in my reflection, I might admit I saw resignation coming from years ahead. I just surmised that sooner or later I’d become weary with protesting the outrageous; then inevitably it’d arrive without a lot of fanfare. I recognized it was just a question of time before the fruitlessness of shaking my fist at the Gods for what appeared as unrelenting challenge to my happiness would become the norm; no one was listening. Or more to the point, the God fashioned by years of religious tutelage wasn’t one I could curry favor with nor intercede on my behalf purely because I obtained special status through sacrifice or suffering. I could puzzle out the merits of enlightened wisdom as hard fought products wrestled into possession by formal education; contrasting with a more realistic collection of subtle raw experiences showing that complaint was a poor substitute for effort.  As each door of the unknown was thrust opened I only found more darkness; it was up to me to screw up the courage to go into it without permission or assurance that it was safe. 

  I had learned early on, and then again in college philosophy, that all knowledge contained kernels of doubt; strip away the lazily accepted handout assumptions and what remained was a pool of questions that snared wandering minds as sure as the gravity of the largest black hole; where experience conflicted with craftily cultivated expectations there’d sure as shooting be dissonance.

  What mattered became a paradox; then an oxymoron, where a point of view defied vocabulary.  A place where words served the symbols of abstract concepts, those being mere propositions formed by conjecture; both true and false.  Words contained worlds of their own interpretation as they were coupled with other like-kind words, resulting in a train yard coupling defying the imagination as to designed intent or purpose; where any position could be interpreted to mean the opposite:  politicians had been playing that game for years, but then no one took them seriously at their word anyway, so it was forgiven and politely forgotten.  The trouble arrived when the rank and file of citizenry picked up the practice so then no one could discern what to believe; the worst of it all was, who could be trusted? Ultimately dissolving into a predictable reaction citing ‘it depends,’ and to be honest, trust always was a subjective exercise anyway. But we were lured for so long into the false belief that ours was a shared value system with agreed upon boundaries.  Only in the dire-straights of emergency was it noticeable that the thundering cacophony of the crowd was crying the same lament: Who’s in charge here anyway?

Soon enough, it became so damn painfully obvious. It was never a singular case of protest about personal situation, but rather realizing discomfort wasn’t anything that made me special anyway. Kind of like realizing the discount coupon had expired.

After that, what was there to say beyond apologizing for misconception?

My mistake.

Great Light

My street,

It’s nestled in a nondescript cul-de-sac

Fragment of a designed, esthetically pleasing subdivision; forgettable in its similarity to so many others like it.

There is a discernible absence of Christmas lights this year.

A few wreaths; a few red bows hanging upon random doors,

but an extravagant celebration of the holiday season

is palatably absent.

Would this be an indictment to current times?

Subtle statements in the wake of weathering a decade long economic nightmare?

Has the community sobered to the real challenges of surviving?

Exhausted by fretting the unknown?

Abiding with scarce little more energy to spare than on essentials?

It’s a view; a sad conclusion.

Perhaps yet, it might be the pensive breathe before exhaling generosity.

A mere repetition of the thematic life as a cycle of growth; then decomposition

Even the mighty Redwood will eventually perish and disintegrate .

Into the very forest floor that nurtured it for millenniums.

Comparison is our way of learning

To every feast, lies nearby bleached bones of famine

Learning to appreciate next cycle’s arrival

We become wise in this way

So this quiet darkness may be the nursery of our change

Cherishing good fortune, when it returns home; to the roots of efforts.

In that moment of clarity; see beyond the mask of lacking

The gift of understanding reveals it is “I” who surmise; then decide

If “I” am rich in opportunity; or poor in expectation.

This pause; this seasons ending is an invite

to celebrate the chance

to evaluate values used in filtering what measures happiness.

Stripping away external worthiness standards might just bring back personal treasures

Mewing in the arms of opportunity

Is freedom’s delicate coddling

We’ve named our precious darling liberty.

It can’t be manufactured in some foreign factory

No cheaper, reasonable facsimile can be had.

It dwells in the heart of every human being; even in the bosom of those whose forefathers surrendered that legacy in trade for illusionary promises; like safety from the threat of violence.

In my youth, I was encouraged to believe the opposite of love was hate.

Later, I embraced the notion love was uniquely divine, it had no opposite.

When I accepted love as an open heart to life, did I recognize its opposite was indifference; so much the source of unhappiness.

 I noticed how love was like liberty; it cannot be taken, it is always given away.

The tale goes:

There was a light; part of a greater all the energy there was, compressed into a single great source of light in the center of the firmament surrounded by endless jet black darkness

It became aware of itself as being light, but also that it was surrounded by bright light.

Everywhere it perceived only brilliant light.

It possessed in the very core of its existence an irrepressible yearning to witness its own illumination; its own specialness

So it requested of the creator to allow it to behold its own brilliance

And that wish was granted

It was cast out into the dark abyss without memory of the warming home in the community of brilliance.

In that solitary loneliness, given opportunity as its only companion; so it could glimmer and burn brightly,

Casting its great cascade of light outwards into the uncharted unknown.

In so doing, witness its kinsmanship to all light; possessing quality that added to the whole.

Is it not the same for each of us?

As single flames of light

Sometimes we need reminding

Given chance by darkness

To illuminate our surroundings

With our own unique, unquenchable brilliance