I saw a frog and toad sticker on the floor of the library bathroom. Maybe taking it with me was gross but now it's on the notebook that I use for morning pages and two way prayer. We ride. The sticker shows a bicycle built for two, frog leads, toad follows. Frog is green, toad is orange, everyone wears brown, their feet look cute on the pedals. Who knew amphibians had such long toes. Ribbet. Ribbet!
My bicycle is loud these days, something's the matter, jangle to change gears, jangle in general. The cobblestone streets look good and feel bad. And speaking of machinery, the sewing machine breaks down when I start sewing instead of continuing to finish my assignment. I decide it's trying to keep me focused, only problem is I don't know what the assignment actually is. Do you?
I swear I'm not running out of time, I know better, except that it feels like I am. The scarcity is a cultural contract I haven't figured out how to break out of. Good thing it's not me who can do the breaking anyhow. Comedy can, keeps ministering, as in, when my Sourpuss Tendencies have me in a headlock humor breaks through. As in, "God loves us exactly the way we are, and God loves us too much to let us stay like this." (Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott, p. 135). The mercies do travel, this scene from Hacks really sent me, grip loosened:
I imagine everyone starts calling each other baby doll and smirk. The truth will, though a lot of times I'd rather not look directly at it. Kind of like how when Michael Jordan meets Bugs Bunny in Space Jam, and says, "You're a cartoon, you're not real," and Bugs says "If I weren't real could I do this?" and promptly kisses Michael Jordan ardently on the lips, the vigorous, humorous affection being the proof. This sent me too. I throw my hands up. Oh Bugs. He's real and so are you. Maybe the truth would kiss us ardently on the mouth if we let it.
I witness a man holding his sleeping child, so careful. "His ear fills up with breathing." I'm impressed she stays asleep through the noise. Something about sleeping children makes me want to behave better.
Some friends are arriving to the city, right on time, and others are getting the hell out. In the newness and the grief I notice what storms do to the light. Blue leaves in the wind. Don't look now. Don't miss it.
