Lotus Blossoms and an Almost Gibbous Moon

There is a recalcitrant moon tonight; shining and not shining. The moon seems to have snagged on the branches of the blooming locust tree, as though reluctant to leave such a fragrant mosaic of fragile blossom. The little frogs sing with delirious joy about their possible love lives, from the creek bank below. All is perfect, peaceful, and luminously Southern.


But I still gotta walk the dog.



Samy, our Bichon Stupide, has just gotten a haircut that makes him look so cute that he should be painted on velvet. He waits patiently as I light an American Spirit. The smoke wafts up towards the moon, like a sacred offering, although a sacred offering that might also give one cancer. Sammy sneezes. We walk off through the mysterious forest, where the cries and whispers of hunter and prey fill the evening... and I trip over a log and yelp loudly. Oops . Never was very good at maintaining atmosphere. -Several small creatures who were about to be "prey", take the moment to escape from their hunters, stopping briefly to mutter "hey.dude.thanks." to me. I am One With Nature. -Wait. I have the dog. -I am Two With Nature.--Okay, he's a small dog, so maybe I'm more sort of One And Three Quarters With Nature. -Perhaps we should move on. I'm a little over the mystery of the forest, and besides, the mysterious small forest "hunters" are starting to complain. "Look, lady, some of us have moles to kill here. Is this a problem for you?", says an owl in the tree above me. I realize that my 11th grade driving instructor may possibly have been RIGHT about how you can have acid flashbacks 2o years after the fact, and decide to go back inside.


But it IS a beautiful evening.

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As I gird my loins (um, only figuratively. Doing it literally can lead to chafing.) to go back To The City in June, I stop and reflect on how completely and amazingly great my life has been so far. Even-and almost especially--the parts that have completely and totally sucked at the time. And I don't mean just "sucked"...I mean "completely sucked utterly beyond telling, complete with screamingly awful seemingly unbearable ouchness" at the time. Looking back, it is clear every single goddmaned thing was specifically designed for very specific and necessary growth.-Of course, that's easy to say now...but it's true. It was a little like going through necessary and extremely healing surgery. But without anaesthesia. (Unless one counts the 340,000 glasses of Saint Emilion I consumed in six months or so. More or less. Probably more.) However, because I had huge blind faith, some part of me DID know that all that "ow!ow! OW!!"-nes WAS leading to a breakthrough. Of course, if you'd told me that at the time, i would have decked you with a fairly effective right hook to the jaw, but NOW it seems clear.


If you want to finish evolving into a Phoenix--if you want to get THROUGH the cycle where  your nest bursts into flames, your life and identity are reduced to ash, and you have the opportunity to transform into a glorious mythogical creature with strong and gleaming wings--you have to grit your teeth--um, beak?-- and know that you won't be consumed in the fire. Also, you have to be braver than you know how to be. There were several moments when I thought "Screw this, I'm outta here", but then I thought, "hey, what if there's a happy ending and I miss it? " Besides, you can't get to be a Phoenix if you decide halfway through to be a chicken.


Now I know as I never have, what happiness is. And do not get me wrong...I have been one ecstatically happy and lucky person, over and over again, and I never ever forget that or cease to be grateful. But now I know that one can be one's happy, sacred self no matter what...in Payless shoes or Louboutins...on a red carpet or in an unheated sublet in Bushwick...and that once you realize that, the chances of winding up where you WANT to be, are much much greater. Ironically, it seems that not letting what your circumstances are, define you at all, means that you then get to make your circumstances what you truly desire them to be. -If THAT makes sense.


And here endeth the sermon.


I guess what I'm saying is, in short: if it SUCKS right now? It. Will. Get. Better.
It may very well get better than you ever imagined possible.
Life is bigger and more magical than we can see from our human selves, our human eyes.
But our spirits know, and want to be part of, that Unimaginable Good.


So cheer up. The Cavalry is coming to the rescue.


Love, actually
Pe