Five Moments

They flattened a penny for me and it's sitting on my desk. I'm squinting at it from the corner of my eye because I have this keen sense of awareness that invloves little more than it, because I'm talking about it, and the keys on this credit-borrowed computer. There have to be about 600 things on my desk along with the penny, but all I can see is it, a non-descript, two-dimensional thing I assign no meaning to except the immense comfort that my son isn't watching Tree House while I am flipping pancakes for members of the earth barely heavier than pancakes themselves.

***

I often wonder how I can bury myself in six years of intense schooling, which garnishes some kind of respect, mostly from people who chose not to do the same, but then feel as though I've gained a huge amount of intellectual knowledge when a 32-year-old sex trade worker addicted to crack informs me that when our thoughts and ideals don't fit into our values and morals we call them mistakes. Do I really find this earth-moving on its own merit, or am I superficially impressed because it came from someone who thinks flip-flops make her like Cinderella? If I do, I am oppressing her with my condescending admiration, and may as well take my place among the long line of people who have turned her heart to pulp.

***

Sometimes I think that in trying to escape meaninglessness I am fulfilling my greatest fear by working so hard for freedom that I miss out on the liberating moments of my life. Only _____ more _____ and I'll be free, time to settle in, flounder around in a bubble bath, hire a sitter and spend the time under a tree somewhere, get my hair cut by someone else. The time carries on and only the lies I tell myself can keep up.

***

I want to find the Maa words for "create" and for "peace" so I can introduce them to the average Canadian via a name for my freelancing enterprise and a tattoo on my left wrist, respectively. Maa is spoken by the Maasai, a tribe in Northern Kenya that have complex initiation rites into various stages of life and use pebbles against the cervix for birth control. They live with a simple abundance that inspires a shameful desire in me to go to them and beg them to make me a warrior princess. They probably would, in their kindness, and never teach me the word for "old maid" either.

***

I have decided to give up my futile hold on the shape of destiny and leave all the big decisions up to the Universe. I will continue to walk in time with my heartbeat, but there is no more room for expectations and other preconceived resentments in my life. Although I cherish them, as familiar as my mama's hands, I must let them fly away now, to the great resting place where negativity gets composted into little piles of that grogginess one feels after napping in the afternoon.

peace~