I.
After
we see paintings of the sea, and moonlight, and doom by
Winslow Homer, after we work on income tax forms and insurance and eat
carnitas
burritos and watch Netflix, I don’t feel well,
it’s not a bellyache or a hangover or a fever or something that CVS can fix.
it’s like
this existential ache in my soul; it’s
not something that I really want to think about
because
I’d have to reach back all the way to the beginning
and anyway it’s dinner time and instead I’m reaching into this drawer full of
knives,
serrated blades that bare their
teeth along my fingers, but I’m careful to take just one.
II.
Last week
I saw a TV commercial for a microwavable cup
with bits of vegetable and potato and peppers, you just add an
egg
and your breakfast problem is solved, I am thinking
of this while you and I walk 38 blocks teetering on the edge of
Milwaukee;
this March Sunday morning question unsolvable:
is this it, or is there more? I wish I could just add an egg to this
problem.
Faced with that same question 27 years ago,
I stayed. Was it right? I don’t know. The thought of not having my
three
children, these particular ones, out in the wide world
brings me to fierce and sudden tears right there on the windy sidewalk.
Each
choice is wrong, either choice is right,
or could be made so, perhaps you learn how you feel before the coin lands.
III.
“Is he
a good dog? ….Who’s to say?”
Wes Anderson doesn’t help me here, or Jesus either; Micah 6:8,
what
is the right thing to do in this instance,
what leads to happiness? Do I say, stay, stay with this boy who is kind, this boy we
love
and who loves you, beyond measure,
even if you do not always sharpen each other, make each other better,
like
a knife against a stone?
The world is full of sharp things.
IV.
Life
is a yawning paper cootie-catcher
on lined notebook paper in a 5th grader’s back pocket, first narrow then wide,
narrow
then wide, you can’t know what’s
inside, you just have to pick a color, and pull up the flap, the
question
on the other side propels you
deeper into the story, back and forth and back and forth
until
you don’t know how
you got there or where you are going, you just hold on and
ride,
back and forth and dark and
light, yin and yang, pain and pleasure, if you are lucky,
until
it closes on this world for good
and opens in the dawn of another, without any
guessing at all.
Halfway North 