Ravaged

Originally Posted Saturday, February 1, 2014

Sickness, illness, disease, and physical injury.  It is terrible what the human shell endures.  This morning is cold and rainy.  The heater is cranking.  By this afternoon, it will be hot enough for the a.c.  The world, too, is broken.  Arctic owls fly south where they've never been before.  Polar bears can't find suitable ice flows.  Sanctimonious conservatives still live by their sick and twisted greed creed.  Dogs mate with pigs, elephants with giraffes. 

I made the last thing up, but you can never tell any more what is true and what is not.  I'm going to take the young Justin Bieber posters down from my bedroom wall. 

It is Saturday, and I have made a pact with myself not to do anything.  I want to give my shredded nerves some recovery.  They worry so about the demands of the day.  They want to be creative.  They want to be productive.  Not today, I tell them.  Let's take five. 

If I could only get my life together in the way of Aunt Thelma.  I don't know how she does it, but she does it well.  She has a magical suitcase that holds all the treasures of the world.  She travels light, but is always well-armed.  Sophisticated languor.  The things she needs are internal, it seems.  Whatever it is, many want it.  She navigates the ravaged world with style.  Once when I was young, she told me a naughty joke, smiling into my eyes before she looked away.  It was a secret between us, I felt, that I would never betray. 

She makes me want to give up the silliness of nakedness.  I'll become a fashion photographer.  Clothes make the woman. 

But that is not what the human heart wants, I think.  Or not the heart, perhaps but something else.  Today, though, I am satisfied with this picture.  It tells a story on its own.