Every Day Is Like Sunday

I have been struggling. Digging for significance. Praying for poetry. I have been hoping to unearth things in myself that will turn it all around, make it all make sense, make it all come right. But it has only led to bleeding innards and tired fingers.

I walked in the sunshine today. It was hot and muggy. Not at all right for the calendar page I have displayed on my wall. But I wasn't a mess of complaints.

I've been working -- it seems like forever. Sitting in front of blank pages that do not fill themselves quickly enough. Listening to songs that always send me somewhere. Sometimes right into a blind wall. Today, I heard a song that jettisoned me back to 1987 and a fury of a sadness that took shape then. Sadness seems to have been gushing through all the tides of my existence. With the exception of a few short years that seemed foreign and friendly, there was an abundance of clouds in the skies of my history. There are stretches of years at a time when no pictures were taken of me. When no smiles were requested. When no one asked me to say, "cheese." There are long stretches that are only catalogued by my infrequent journal-writing or by copies of letters I wrote and kept. I kept them all. Wanted to. And I was always touched to learn that someone else in the world kept them, too. Even if they were stuffed into a shoebox or lost behind the back panel of a desk drawer. There are little pieces of me lurking in unsuspecting places around the world. And I have the photostats.

I don't know if there is significance in the ratio. There is a sort of peacefulness in being content. A dangerous tranquility. It is largely unfamiliar to me. I'm not hoping for a fat, lazy sort of happiness. Not an armchair happiness. Not a poolside sort of contentment. Just freedom from the tearful times. Less of those, please. More hair-rumpling and pats on the back. More admiration and appreciation. More of the special smile that can only be shared by two. The look that can only be understood by those same two. More of the unspoken.

But perhaps I merely fall prey to my music mix. Whereas I began this moment thinking, "Come, Armageddon. Come, Armageddon. Come." I finish it thinking that I should just blame it on the bossa nova.

Don't let it bring you down. It's only castles burning.