Her Desk

You know, as drawn out as certain aspects of this life can be – and we all know that much of this life is a brutal, uncaring and interminable hell – there is always the thought that the alternative is simply a total wash. So, speaking of alternatives, what else is there? Anyone? I mean, beyond the pipe-dream fantasies of eternal life in the arms of a welcoming god, what lies beyond the delicate veil of living?

Here’s what I know. I know that I have no clue. This means that there is nothing that has come to me yet that has helped illuminate the mystery of that stupid-assed question.

Not a god damn thing.

For all my incessant carping and simpering and all-around whining, there is actually a man buried beneath the layers of scorn that has an acute awareness of just how precious this life really is.

It takes one moment of sitting in my mother’s chair at her desk the day after she died to know that, to drive it home, to make it one with my being. It took one single moment of sitting there at her computer looking at her little notepad and her water glass and her package of gum to know that this is it baby and there ain’t no more.

Yeah, maybe there’s just an aesthetic to that sort of thought. I’m aware of that possibility. But what I’m saying is that the answer is that there isn’t an answer at all, and/or the answer is that you’re living it and it’s time to notice once and a fucking while before it’s irrelevant.

What if death is less than the end? What if death simply is, and as such is beyond comprehension? What then?

Look, believe what you want. I just want to make a fairly simple point even if my logic is flawed so deeply that it threatens to rob meaning from the idea itself. The idea is that we are here now and we know that much and while we are here we need to do ourselves a favor and open our eyes on occasion. Every once in a fucking while it might be a good idea to go ahead and listen to what is going on instead of tuning out.

And look, I’m not advocating never tuning out because all of us have to. In fact, I have to more than others, so stuff that up your ass and hobble on by.

This isn’t meant to shit out of me like some sort of Dr.Phil, back slapping jerk-off. This is meant to point those of you who teeter towards absolute oblivion to recognize that even on the very bottom there are things that will awe you in their beauty. Even in the darkest void are things that will take you in comfort and share with you their power.

I know, I know. Tony Robbins has arrived.

Fuck you if you don’t get it.

Just go back to your shaved chests, and your plucked eyebrows, and your luxury convertibles, and your blue tooth headsets, and your flatscreen television, and your romp through the beds of an endless parade of empty encounters tailor made to embolden your flagging esteem when you are the source of the pain in the first place. Just go the fuck on back.

I’ll stick with silence, and crying, and loneliness, and courtesy, and shyness, and modesty, and honesty, and fortitude, and a deep and intense inner power to confidently express who you are even as you are changing from day to day and moment to moment despite whatever it is that gets in your way every single day of your life. I’ll stick with this crowd because that’s what this is all about.

Or, well, you know… maybe not.

Who can say for sure?