“What I didn’t know then, I know now. What I don’t know now, I will know later. You can’t get too far ahead of yourself, but you also can’t erase the past. Which is why I’m floating. Not overly perturbed to be in utter limbo as my house sale drags on and on, & with time to reflect on how disengaged I feel from the dramas that used to rule me. As I told a friend today: “I didn’t think I’d make it through alone for so many years, but no one came to my rescue and I didn’t die.” Adopting a truly pragmatic viewpoint verges on religiosity. Perhaps that’s why I feel the need to apologize. I’m somehow the only one responsible for the vegetables that rotted in the fridge because I was too busy to make the soup. Same goes for the spider stuck in the 2nd floor bathroom tub. I’ve had many opportunities to save him, and yet ... each day I discuss with myself the relative merits of leaving him to his own devices. He got himself there. And he seems healthy enough, after weeks of living a monastic lifestyle. Some days, I imagine that, surely, dead flies must be falling onto the white expanse of his prison & feeding him ... or maybe he lives on dust. Despite my conjecture, like any good mystery, he seems to thrive. Some days I censure myself for automatically injecting pity towards his plight. How easy it would be, to scoop him into a cup and ... what. Drop him out the window into snow? Let him loose in the house to crawl midship, and hibernate? I have no idea what he would prefer or what would make him die. My bad. This is how I live my life. This is how my relationships go. I feel I may be an alien too. Because so much of what passes for generosity seems like a land grab now. You wanted something from me. And it was worth spinning a huge yarn about love to see if you could get it. I understand. I’m not some noble extra-terrestrial. Like the spider, I was just trying to get out of my tub. You saw that you could “help” me. Surely, the higher ground we skied and traipsed was littered with fallen trees, what happens as you go up. I still love the peeling birch bark that wall papers mountain trails at high elevation. I’m completely reduced with wonder when I find carefully sculpted burrows, piles of chips, tracks and absences. I’m still impressed by your history with snow. I’m just guessing that that kind of idol worship doesn’t hold true, once winter really tests your sincerity.”
