Quaking

I’ve been to hell and back. Today I’ve been to CVS and back, an hour roundtrip in freezing weather on a county highway on a rickety bicycle that isn’t mine. I got antibiotics I needed but now I’m penniless. Physically and mentally, I’m broke as a sapling after a good windstorm but I ain’t a sapling, I’m an old oak tree and you can’t teach an old oak tree new tricks except, holy shit, yes you can. Turns out. This one is learning all sorts of things. 

When true simplicity is gained 

To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed

To turn, to turn will be our delight 

’til by turning, turning we come round right.

What I have learned (among several things, let’s pick one) is that I can bend. And turn. And, in turn, I can bend and when it’s my turn to bend, I can. Until I come round right. Or at least that’s the plan. Hopefully I’ll have learned some new tricks along the way. Like humility. Like what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. Like God will provide. 

“Provide what?” I shout at the windstorm and give God the bird. And God says nothing. I wait a while, shaking my middle finger at the sky and holler like this is going to break something loose and it’s going to rain down explanation. And God still says nothing. 

But I do feel a little better. Because, after all, God and I are talking. Well, I’m talking. With my up-stretched arm, I mean. So I wait. And God doesn’t say anything. It’s damned quiet. 

And then I realize that I’m breathing. And I start to listen to my breathing, ugly and ragged. And then I realize that God is talking after all. My breathing is the word of God, kinda sorta. My breathing is the will of God, see, and that’s his funny way of talking. And that’s the whole point of all of this. I breathe therefore I am. And I bow and I bend and I shan’t be ashamed. And the bowing and bending is God talking, too. Loud.

And then, of course, I burst out crying because I’m a sap like that. Blame it on my father. He taught me to cry by example. And to hug by example. And to be an addict by example. The branch doesn’t fall far from the oak tree. 

I should add that after my dad quit drinking, he became a Quaker. To bow and to bend and shake like a leaf. Call it spiritual delirium tremens. He died of pancreatic cancer from the drinking. He got the cancer twenty years after he quit. And a decade after he became a Quaker. 

That which does not kill us makes us stronger. But sometimes it just kills us. I should also add that my father died happy, peacefully, surrounded by those who loved him. 

To turn, to turn shall be our delight

’til by turning, turning we come round right.