String

"It hasn't hit me yet"--This sentiment always feel jagged to me, rough cutting. I know what it means, but I don't like it. I know what it's like to terminate a relationship and then check my e-mail and weigh the pros and cons of an e-coupon. I know what it's like for my grandfather to pass away, cry for five minutes, and then dress up as a talking piglet or dance to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" during a "Best Of" sketch comedy show. I know because that happened yesterday. And then I know how to write my final paper on the racial themes of Show Boat throughout it's five Broadway productions while I miss that man, and suddenly Chelle shows up with a cake frosted in red and green.

It hasn't hit me, but why must it? I don't like the "yet" because who says when "big" things happen they must be big? Why is it natural to come to a point of absolute devastation, horror, drunken elation about new chapters? We live day by day, and it all strings together like Cheerios on yarn weaving between the fir tree branches.

There shouldn't be a moment when everything in your world closes up. Ever. No clam shells, no ring boxes, no tight-fitting Tupperware. Even if it's all meant to be reopened! Even if that's the intent! Even if you're meant to transform! No, no, just string along. Just string along--one spool, one life.


May 2009.

Here's to a sincerely great man.

He don't plant 'taters.
He don't plant cotton,
and them that plant 'em
is soon forgotten.
But ol' man river,
he jus' keeps rollin' along.