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May 29, 2005

Fiction is Truth wearing her dancing shoes.

Sometimes I wonder. And sometimes I don?t.

Flipping coins in the wind heads or tails your call you cry and destiny answers only her voice is muffled by the wind so you are never really sure who?s responsible for the way your life turned out.

So given to despair. Her soul was always wringing its hands. Even when things were going fine, she laid an extra place at the dinner table and stood out on the doorstep of her days awaiting the arrival of disaster.

She lived huddled. Holding herself close. Part comfort part conspiracy. A player on the gamefield Life giving herself a pep talk and some strategy before she dispersed into action and engagement with the world.

I am sorry for all the times I lost my temper and it found you.


Anger makes you grow bigger on the outside and smaller on the inside. Something within must stoop to make room for a towering rage. Funny how that works.

It was in the first time in a long time that she had been left completely to herself. And in those first few hours there was an awkwardness about everything- as if someone needed to break the ice.

But don?t you get tired of being in a good mood all the time she asked the flower seriously. I know I couldn?t do it. I?d feel silly if I tried to smile all day at everyone. But you do it and you don?t seem a bit silly. But I suppose that?s because you are a flower and can get away with such things.



The recurring decimal of Love.

Women Who Walk With Things on their Heads.

They slouch not nor tarry because holding heavy things on your head makes you hurry even when there?s not much of a place to get to. No one ever offers to lessen their load. When they put one down they pick another one up. Even when you can?t see it- it is there.

When a river nears the ocean does it suddenly stop and draw back- abashed?in the sudden realization of its meager contribution- all that it has brought with it in such a rush of self-importance is a redundancy. A childish offering. If only one could turn around and tiptoe home. Slip back under the covers and pretend it was all a dream. To wake up in one?s own bed.
But no. Every point in a river is one of no return.
There is only that half-second of self-doubt and hopelessness before you tumble headfirst into the vastness and the sweet sweet shock of recognition.


Like a shoelace, one tug and it comes all undone. That?s what unexpected kindness does to me.

On days when my heart feels like a windswept plain
Where every blade of grass must choiceless bow
And every tree stoop to touch its hands to its mother?s
Feet. On such days I walk in the bewilderment of utter joy
Unable to understand why I am worthy of the wonder of this
World.


Frailty in the world always touched her- the weightlessness of a dying sparrow, the pinkgum smile of an old man reaching apologetically for his dentures, the close-to-crumbling veins on a brown leaf floated off an autumn tree. It was the bravery that got to her. That things so weak dared to exist in the midst of this careless world took her breath away and filled her heart and stomach and throat with such a tender aching love that sometimes seemed unbearable. She wished she could protect them all. Spread her arms like a maternalwarrior and draw them into a fiercely safe embrace.

Some days I feel like an arrow. Flying straight and true and possessed of a point. Other days I feel like dandelion fluff floating on the will of the wind without direction or the assurance of making good on my potential.

People don?t like to be pushed around not even by themselves.


On my way to work I marvel at the stream of lives passing me by and then stop short to make sure none of them?s mine.

Blest.
Beyond excuse or rest.

Sometimes I dig my heels in stubbornly and refuse to follow my better judgement.



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