Never let them down.
It is the winter of life. That cold and dismal season of wet snow and no work. The children are supportive as is their mom, but it’s a support that one has to question. When men and women are raised to compare themselves with others, it is hard to break the constant measure.
Tapes and sticks that measure lengths and widths. Scales that measure weight and significance. Clocks that measure times. Those times sometimes measured in minutes that could be measuring earnings. Or those times sometimes measured in weeks which could be measuring time with no earnings.
Bank accounts measure means, ebbing and flowing through bill cycles. Bills use time to measure on...or past due.
Hope filled conversations sharing possibilities merit hand shakes and slaps on the shoulder from friends. The same friends who illicit perhaps the worst measures, not of themselves but within ones self. What do they think of me?
In this winter, the happy bottle feeder sews an afghan of great charm, to himself. The wonderwall of all the extremities of life has been rubbed to a nub, and there is nothing but himself.
‘The children have culled an irreversible image now,’ he thinks. He won’t even let himself think of the adults’ opinion of him. How then must we live? What shall we do? The philosopher’s questions, once bold conversation pieces of which he held and shared many respected opinions, are now fiery arrows carried in the flesh of his back.
The evangelical’s advice that its always darkest before the dawn, a swan song from the depression era, left him months ago. There is no balm in Giliad, there is no rescue.
The Buddha call to live without cravings has become a call to die, craving peace.
It is the winter. The last meal (less than a vile offenders would be) is this dollar fifty cup of coffee on the table in front of him. He thinks more about the quarter in his pocket as an inadequate tip than the fact that this is his last day.
His mind drifts from the would be measure the waitress will use after he leaves to the task of the day. It is a sadness, a deafening blow to be sure, but a piece of peace.
“To be....or not, is no longer my question,”
The journey over, he pauses before he pulls the quarter from his pocket. He closes his eyes in silent prayer to the gods of absentia. It is a prayer of solitude, contentment, and somehow thanksgiving.
It is quiet here.
Before he opens his eyes, he feels a warmth on his back. The sun rising in the East. He opens his eyes.
He opens his eyes.
Author's Note. This is dedicated to my friends who are struggling to find work. May the sun rise on you and you feel it's warmth on your back.
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