i'll let you know when i get there

oh, they will say how you spent your lives clicking letters on a keyboard one at a time an endless list of chores waiting in lines on hold fueling and refueling wondering things and sometimes never finding out when  now the answers  are right there and everywhere  in an instant and there is time  now for everything and nothing left to do

Midlife is using tubes of mom's makeup to  paint over a rift in the earth. Cotton swabs for understanding. Cupcakes for good enough. Midlife is a soldier in a Santa suit. A shadow. A string. Complexity. A single Crayon from the box. Pleas written in a frantic hand on a sign saying  LOVE

Funny how often, all these years later, I still think about a solitary napkin placed on a side table. On the napkin was a dog on a skateboard with the question "What's the most OUTRAGEOUS thing you saw today?" Next to the table sat Dick; it would be the last time I saw him. Somehow, he looked almost the exact same as I remembered him from thirty years earlier, when he was only 65.   When you live far from your hometown, visits like this aren't so unusual- visits that you know will likely be the last though none of that is said in the presence of the other. There's a greeting and an exchanging of memories and eventually small talk. Full of heart, really, because your purpose there is just to be there. A choice in how to spend an hour after years or decades of absence. That afternoon, I was there. Dick's wife had died years before and he had moved from the home I remembered to a small apartment. When we arrived that day he was sitting in his living room in compl...

 from a dream Who am I? What is my purpose?  What is real?  Is this all there is? Interviewer: How do existential questions land differently in your 30s and 40s? Me: In your 30s you're really cavalier with your responses.  "Who's asking?" "I don't have time for this."  "I don't know, you tell me."  All the bold flippancy of an anonymous account in the comment section. In your 40s, you realize in a panic, "OMG, this is ACTUALLY a test."  A timed one at that.  In your 40s, you break into a sweat and get to it.

It is hard to know if here could be anywhere. How can you tell? It is where I am. I carry some sadness with both of my hands.  It is about the amount of a spoonful and the color of a mountain.  crows yelling flower smelling bikes belling They've cleared so many trees from the park and there's no telling if that was the right thing to do. Depends on who you ask. A lack remains a lack. old growth slow growth the air feels rich and wise years and years and years to shape the rings funny how many things you still may not know about  home  an entire effort may be felled in an instant only circles left to inspect I remember.  I remember. Through the trees that still stand- the sea. If you save a capsized boat - if you can make it float-  it is yours to keep.   The water is moving. The water is calling. The water is deep.