runaway

*
or


dance till the train smacks you down




*


Either way, it's a comin'.


*

I don't know why this constant recurring battle with The Wild Woman of Borneo undoes us so. It's not like we're new to it. She has been dismantling our lives, her life, for years, with a great singlemindedness. We've been in the trenches a long time. Imagine Groundhog Day had been directed by David Lynch. Like that, sort of.

"Good Morning, Lumberton! At the sound of the falling tree, it will be seven am!"


And you stumble to the window and the ground is littered with the mangled bodies of the dead, or there is a severed human ear on the carpet at your feet, and a dwarf dancing in the closet.

Again.


*

I guess we're in the middle of the movie, before Bill Murray has it all figured out. We're still stepping in the same damn puddle every time.


*

We have not yet figured out how to help anybody.


*

But we do tend to each other. We are kind and gentle and patient, each to each. We try not to ask to much of ourselves. We don't pretend everything is okay.
We try to find what comfort there is in the space.


We are the walking wounded.

*


And we're not kidding ourselves. We know this is small potatoes. It is, quite simply, the way life is. It's not an aberration. It's every bit as normal as sunshine and daisies. We are still showered with blessings in crazy abundance.

Look! We're not on fire! We're not blind! Parasite infested! Starving to death or being murdered!


It only feels like it.


*


Ha.


*

Compared to real trouble, we're livin' on easy street. Again, it's like that part in Castaway before the plane crashes, and Tom Hanks is in the little bathroom of the airplane? Remember that? And he's got a cut on his thumb, and he peels off the band aid and looks at his poor thumb and he grimaces and winces at the pain of it?

He's got no idea he'll soon be knocking his infected tooth out with a ice-skate blade and a big old rock.


*


It's all about keeping shit in perspective.



*

Good luck to you in your struggles. Try to find some peace inside it. It's there if you look hard enough.


***


Namaste.



*