I'm A Believer, or, Still Gullible After All These Years

HE(ART), 2009
Materials: Glass keychain, slate floor, haste


You know the story, I know the story, but we still watch it unfold. In a summer action movie, as soon as we meet the "best friend" character, we know he's a goner, but we still root for him to make it through. Maybe this time he'll make it. Maybe this time, we think, Lucy won't pull out the football, and Charlie Brown will get to kick it. Maybe...

What is it in me that still hopes against the odds? What part of me -someone who has watched countless plot lines play out in books and movies - not to mention lived for a half a century among people - actually ignores the signals in my own life, and hopes that this time, this time things will be different?

I've found a balance in the natural world. I'll strike out on a walk even if the clouds are threatening because heck - either I'll get home before the rain or I won't - both ways, I get a walk. I'm careful - I know that the world contains dangers, either ones I chose to flirt with by skiing or bike riding or hiking, or ones that just reach out and grab me, like last year's unpleasantness. But I still go outside. I still love the smell of the earth after - or during - a rain. And I don't hold it against nature for raining on me. I saw the signs, I took a chance, and I got wet or I didn't. A shower, a change of clothes, and I'm right as...rain.

It just doesn't work that way with people, at least for me. Someone puts out come hither signals and I dash out without a raincoat, then I'm surprised when I get wet. Wassup with that?

As much as I would like to ask the other, obvious question about someone else's motives, I'd get farther asking why the wind blows. Nature, nature, nature.

I can't even answer why I'm not more suspicious, after years of footballs being yanked away. I'm pretty savvy in most part of my life, but I have a gi-gan-tic blind spot around the place where someone starts saying nice things.

So, me and Charlie Brown, on our backs, staring at the sky. Again. Not really injured, just wind knocked out of us. It's not all bad. Let's say we're in a park, and it's warm and the grass is thick and cushiony under us. Let's say that there are clouds floating above us. Let's say we can hear kids giggling and an ice cream truck in the distance. Let's say that there is a breeze making the trees whisper and bend.

The view ain't bad down here, and nothing's broken. I'm more...disappointed. In myself and in someone else. So I'll just take a wee rest, then up and at 'em.

Reading: The Dissident, by Nell Freudenberger

Listening to: Plimsouls

Blooming: Fleur pots