You have: a murder of crows, a flock of seagulls, a shrewdness of apes, an obstinacy of buffalo, a clowder of cats, a fluffle of bunnies, a mob of cattle.. I have: a mess of dishes.
I have been eating my way through the pandemic and the U.S. election campaign. I have a mess of dishes and an abundance of extra weight. My hard-fought battle with fading beauty is a shambles, a loss. My clothes don’t fit. My knees hurt, my back hurts, I have acid reflux again. I can’t sleep because of restless leg syndrome. I am irritable and there is not enough cherry pie to see us all through this worry, all the fretting, all the fear of future. Perhaps, there is enough gin? The drugs, the food ease the distractions, the craziness. I eat too much, I drink too much. I have been upset, tight, tense, worried. I know these things and I look up from my temporary desk. I gaze onto the masked crowd and wonder what they can be thinking. Are they equally askew?
Today’s group at the office are unique as any. Two young fellows (probably teen-age yet?) are ordering their special drinks and waiting patiently in the correct area. They are wearing masks and speaking quietly to each other. (I don’t think my relatives will appreciate the following observations so they are welcome to skip the next couple of sentences and save themselves the dismayed, judgemental reactions.) These two youngsters are strapping, though one is perhaps overweight. He isn’t far off the scale of healthy structure, however, he is just a big fella. This larger of the two is wearing loose, stretchy material shorts and obviously nothing else under. His ‘equipment’ is quite large and easily visible. He really should wear underwear in order to contain the distracting bounce. The bounce is akin to a train wreck and I find it impossible to look away. Hmmm. Should I approach and inform? Perhaps not. The other fellow is equally intriquing. He raised his arms in a broad stretch (he is quite tall and could almost touch the ceiling) and his t-shirt lifted, revealing the band of his bright red and silk-like underwear. They are both pussycat-like and living in the moment, they are just being. They are both in a warm pool of sun. Je suis curieux/jaune… I consider the possiblities, the positions. I smile at the consideration. It is a good image even though it is something to resist, my believing that desire can be naughty or evil somehow, that there is a proscribed right way to be and a wrong way to be.
So funny. The being human is a hard job. Darn that Eve and Adam! If they hadn’t eaten fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we wouldn’t have to notice and speculate on each other’s dangly bits, full of worry that we are being naughty or bad. We wouldn’t have to fear the random imperfectness of everything. Now, in the same way that Snow White was slipped into a coma, we are slipped into conscious awareness of our nakedness, of goodness and badness. Even under the fig leaf of fabric, our nakedness entices.
Perhaps apples are the problem? Don’t know. I do sense that the other lifeforms who share this planet don’t fear the loss of living or the loss of perfection through their waking moments. I do know that the little creatures don’t peer surreptitiously at each other’s magic parts and worry that they are being nasty or doing something wrong. The lovely beasts just sniff and hump the willing and are done with it. Some dance around a bit and wave their feathers or build intricate structures and some don’t. Some race away through the water with potential partners following behind, attempting to be firstest with the mostest and some don’t. The one truth that fits all is that the beasts just do and desire and don’t fret about it. They embrace what is random. They accept what is.
Is it shrewd of the apes to just live and accept who/what/where they are and what happens? My gut response is: yes. We humans have built incredible castles of right and wrong that obscure what is real and will stand out in the end. We deny. We think we can do better with life. We believe we can build perfection, safety, eternity, peace…that war can be prevented, bad politicians, unpleasant social interactions or deadly disease avoided. It’s a noble effort, of course. It isn’t possible always.
We obfuscate and complicate what is easy to understand if we would just leave it alone and swing with it. How much less stressful if we accepted things as they are? If we left life alone to do it’s magic without a judgement call? If we relaxed and accepted that the flow is perfect, neither good nor bad however the flow goes. How much easier, less intense, less worrisome our desires become if we accept them. Acceptance requires a lot less effort. Living would be easier if we didn’t spend life in futile, desperate attempts to avoid death. We don’t accept the processes of life for what they are: life and death and hunger and satiation. Just things that are pieces of the whole. The tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil was only a source of worry.
With all of our apple knowledge, we witness that perfection has a form. It is life and man and woman and progeny. Trouble is, we can see that life has an end. We call It death. We think death is bad, evil, painful. We think life is good, delightful, to be defended. We fear death, so deny it, delay it, put it off at every turn. For myriad reasons, we think life is good so attempt to refine, perfect, prolong it. The denying of death makes death the harder to endure. It is going to happen no matter the number of cures or surgeries or the dedicated healthy lifestyle. The lusting for life makes the living more complicated. Searching for perfection, we deny the real. We reject what is different, that sometimes a person is brought to life without a body part or that sometimes a person veers off the procreation path with another sort of desire.
The univese expands but it’s stars, it’s living things die and collapse, drawing everything in toward tinyness. From that tinyness is probably another bang of bigness, of randomness and life again. I say probably, I say maybe because I don’t know. My observation of the circuituousness of nature gives me that Idea. I only know what I can see, that we elaborate the yin and yang, the male and female, the yes and no, the one plus one equals three that exists. We overvalue the Barbie and Ken, the Joseph and Mary, the God and Satan because we don’t like things to be out of order. We want randomness to be set aside. We want to always feel good, look good, be good. That wouldn’t be a possibility. Randomness is essential to the whole, I think. You can’t have a perfect circle if no wobbly ones exist. You can’t have life if death is absent. You can’t have straight if nobody is gay. You can’t have love if there is no losing love. You can’t have peace and tranquility without war and upset. You can’t have today without yesterday and tomorrow.
So. I sit down with my tea and I don’t worry today. I ogle, I sniff and think about humping. I eat my bagel in the moment, not thinking about pooping later. Later is later and will come when and how it does.
Robert On The Air 