i'll let you know when i get there

near the speaker, a question: "what if  the future  you fear  is coming?" if that feared future arrives or is here already in some seed form, it changes nothing. little matters.  still. curiosity matters.  still. hope matters.  still- sights & sounds & a warm blanket on cold feet & busy ants moving things  Night skies drowned out by light pollution Other people's trash Replying always replying Mixed drinks mixed media mixed reviews mixed feelings ALL of it IS still happening. & if/when that changes, well don't we humans  just kick the can move the line hit refresh acclimate? when the future I hear is coming arrives it will just be another day of the week & we will go on pushing snooze & dropping crumbs &  canceling plans & charging devices & worrying about a new tomorrow drawing near.

She was bent over on a block under the bridge  Slowly standing  With her walker  On a heat dome day. "Are you doing alright?" I asked as I passed And she immediately, urgently shook her head "NO" White whisps loose under her hand and bent over like a cane.   My mind prepared to get her water or walk her home or even something more extreme when she said "My daughter and granddaughter passed away a few days ago and I am just beside myself." "I'm so sorry. That's devestating." And more sincere, useless words said. "THIRTY-ONE YEARS OLD." She said with anger at the injustice as she slowly walked away. 

when you see the black speck in the clear water, you scoop it up urgently, not sure how long it has been circling, and when you suddenly see its little legs moving in your palm,  A Miracle!   "you're alive!"  you will think with delight here you are here you are there you go there you go step onto this leaf you're free you're free and you will think yourself a little noble to have saved a life! something profound something powerful how benevolent of you to have seen and thought enough to save And later it will find you. Like a message a memory hissing air from a tire something about the way those small lives are quite different, actually something about colonies they way their entire lives are harmonized inseparable from the whole and the quickest search reveals that an ant separated from its community wanders alone, confused until it dies What happens when there's something bigger? What happens when, soon, we are small and some giantic force through some fund...

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.