taipei, taiwan
you can find me in this physical form, dressed like a happily languishing bumblebee, floating through the aisles of a grocery store.
you can find me standing at about the height that i am, falling to the earth at about the weight that i am, seeing to the distances that appear to me to be curious, beyond which things are blurry, so i only make educated guesses.
my body is made of misshapen vegetables and fruits today. muscle fibers torn from jumping and hanging a few days ago, then leaping and falling and rolling. all in such good fun! then back to the business of learning ancient Chinese wisdom. then scrambling through pictographs. then exchanging time and money for goods and services.
i have found a few things to purchase, in this physical form, in this physical world, that will make life more convenient, or, effective, or efficient, but the stubborn side of me is pinching pennies in scarcity mode, even while invisible numbers – like bank account references and calendar dates – stay unseen, like mirages on the other side of a mountain.
this is good practice, being rejected. all i can really do is keep repeating my mantra – “hey, you know, I’m not in a hurry.” I don’t know if this is *exactly* true. But it’s true enough that when life happens outside my purview, among the billions of timelines I have no effect on, all I can do is trust the universe. do i feel the feelings associated with choice or non-choice? i do. but these are threads in the pattern, stitched like flashes of color, like flashes of light, like flashes of insight, in the moments before dreaming.
i have a theory. a theory i will keep to myself, in my mind. not written. because maybe i’ll forget it and then there won’t be a legacy of sadness involved. but in this theory, there’s a moment of, eh, redemption, or reconciliation, an arc – for all these times that I think to myself, ‘here is a path’, and yet there is no way – that all those streets will wind like silk around dandelion seeds. but the sweeping motion will be interrupted, one day, and all the preparation will be worth it.
not that the preparation isn’t worth it already, just that – patience is a virtue; right? you can wear it like a thin coat against the wind, but if nobody sees you shiver – you still shiver. the lovely irony being that tomorrow – you won’t remember that you were in any discomfort at all – “what pain? everything was average. median even!”
this has become more true lately.
today is the first day and the last day and the day in between. which is why long-term purchases are fuzzy, like my eyes are squinting. does this new 10-year backpack really last 10 years? or these shoes that don’t need socks, so my toes can see the sunlight. is this logical? or at least i can buy fewer socks during the warm season. it’s all hazy. my new time management software is helping, which is funny as fuck.
my top priorities, in rough number, populate the day and move around based on what i’ve done so far and what i add. they play hopscotch every fifteen minutes, success or failure. when i forget who i am, i hit a button and the schedule is right there in front of me – fixed. so that after a week of this new pattern, i’m not missing any of my core activities. self-improvement. all of them. which is, again, funny as fuck. because if all days are the same and all days are improvement, then there’s a loop of discontinuity.
this weirdo dance of activities on the screen is like, burning tumbleweed crossing a city street in front of police cars. somehow – information about information about information – has created this self-fulfilling prophecy of poetic action. the chaos is contained. all that’s left to do is, no matter the life or death of the physical form, accept the next activity as gospel.
that is so. concretely abstract.
which brings me back to the beginning.
i have springs glued to the bottoms of my shoes. my walking shoes. not the kung-fu shoes or the yet-to-be-purchased expensive sandals, probably water resistant? which would make them budget-worthy. i have springs glued to the bottoms of my shoes, the potential energy could send me to the moon like a rocket.
i don’t know, man. i threw away my last shoes when i wore holes in the bottom. there were my feet, poking through and squashing against rocks on pavement. the springs never sprung. i kept looking at the moon, waiting. i do my squats every day. every day is leg day. self-improvement. to be able to jump when it’s time. it’s time to jump. the springs are loaded. waiting, waiting, waiting.
but if i waited yesterday, and i waited today, and i’m waiting tomorrow, all things being median, then i’m not really waiting at all.
i went to the store today and bought an ice cream bar and ate it with – a sandwich. sweet raisin bread, discount ham slices, cheese, unfamiliar. mustard. familiar.
and poured rice wine into cranberry juice. couldn’t even taste the alcohol.
