“Finding things in the woods might have been my full time occupation, were it not for societal demands to grow up. Poet-warrior? Possible runner up to “Finds Things in the Woods”. How we end up working for whom or where, and in what capacity is a bit of a crap shoot for those of us not well endowed. I made a list once, trying to remember all the jobs. Pot-washer, receptionist, groom for an Olympic rider, punch card operator, home health aid, art studio lackey, rag rug maker, concert promoter, quilt piecer, movie theater concessions supervisor, cafe musician, dog walker, impresario, waitress, office support to a drug dealer, ceramicist’s assistant, band member, studio owner, gardener. Off and on, there were some married years, when I got to just raise children. That was the good life, peppered in between much traumatic, karmic crap. Now we see that nothing is sacred, if we try to gauge our successes, only by what we accomplished on paper. We got them to school on time. We paid the bills. We hit the benchmarks of civic duty, by showing up to town meeting and throwing money out car windows, during coin drop. We lived through our ex’s marrying other locals. We drove different roads, to avoid the reminders. And when the sun hit on just such a day, to tell us that everything was going to be alright, we believed it, sort of, and looked favorably upon the future. Dutifully, even guiltily, aware of our part in all the mess. Ready to launch our ambitions onto higher plateaus of tundra, and more pristine sections of old growth forest. For isn’t it everyone’s hidden, unconscious dream, to be led to a swing hanging empty, over icy waters? To where nothing, apparently, is going on in the silence of winter, yet indicators of whimsy, or an alternative universe are in play? This boggles the mind. This crashes the main frame of the heart. Because physical reality is shape shifting on the regular, to invigorate those who have been destroyed, and are rebuilding.”
