Amor Fati

"Such is the perfect man. His boat is empty." Merton. The Tao is all around you. Jacob comes out for dinner and conversation, doing his Senior Seminar on altered states and creativity and thought he's do some field study. Intense talk and I fix a shrimp dish that's pretty good and he leaves before dark. I have trouble with his theory that gaming is a metaphor for life, but maybe it is. I consider it mere play, but maybe play is a metaphor. Anything is possible. I argue that the natural world is a model, then think, after he goes, that my life is hardly an argument. Fate is a deep pool or just a backwater where the current flows the wrong way. I lean toward the non-representational, a personal inclination; the vast swirls of pollen on the lake are meaning enough. Sure, there are times I'd prefer another warm body next to mine, but who can stand the heartache? We're all disappointments. What you could have been or done. I have a Swedish Bow-saw and when I'm feeling low I go out and cut a few branches. The physical exertion releases some chemical and I feel better about my life, if I do it long enough I'll feel sore the next day and remember. Any job you do, eventually you get out all your tools. The nature of the game. A drive toward unachievable perfection. Playing the humble card, I was doing dishes, wearing a scarf like it was a habit draped over my head, I might have mumbled a prayer, it might have been in Latin. There was no one around, the tape, as they say, was not running, just imperfect memory and a couple of fossils. A mop tossed in the corner and broken glass. No denying that there is glitter everywhere, look around you, the shattered is everywhere. A sudden rainstorm and there are drops of water on everything, each one a prism, it blows my mind. I can't even deal with rain, much less a relationship, the real world, the shit that backs up in toilets. I'm missing that switch that tells you to go to sleep. Invariably I think too much, I can channel Darwin or Thoreau, a click of the dial, I can hear Emily, the pauses; sometimes, listening to The Cello Suites, I stop my heart, to clear the confusion, and in this grand mal, somehow, there is salvation. I was writing for Glenn there, I'm pretty sure he got it. It's a sin I can do this. We need to talk. They empowered the wrong body. Whoever they are, You and me Babe.