life experience

April 15, 2011 – From Amoeba to Work

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I had a very strong existential out-of-mind-body-Talking-Heads-How-Did-I-Get-Here consciousness overtake me for a few moments today.

And not just for me on how I went from a kid playing Star Trek with my best friends Alan and Alisa for hours and hours in the warm afternoon San Antonio sunshine without a thought for anything else (except maybe the Koogle peanut butter sandwiches Mrs. Polanski would have for us) but the imaginary aliens we needed to eliminate from the Enterprise with our make-believe phasers and never-dreamed-possible communicators to dashing away from my office where I am under-web-development-water and writing informational releases about water restrictions and zebra muscles so I can pick-up my new hybrid contact lenses designed to help me see better despite my astigmatism, drop off my shared tax return so my spouse can get it and the stupid chunk of change we owe in the mail and get back in time to explain to someone how to make usable bar graphs in Excel, adjust some graphics in Adobe’s Creative Suite, and be done in time to leave early in order to pick-up-then-drive my daughter to her ballet technique dance class.

If I sit still and breath quietly enough, I can remember the nearly 35 year evolutionary journey my particular mind and body have been on to get  here. It’s quite the epic adventure from an idealistic and ambitious youth defined by infinite immortality to naive and reckless young adulthood filled with dreams of fame and fortune to frightened yet uber-responsible grownup peppered with aspirations of artistic purity and sainthood.

What struck me was how did not only I get from a simple creature existing among green trees and tall grass, foraging for food from my nearby surroundings and caring for my offspring to where I covet my Blackberry, MacBook and iPod, stress over the price of gas and coffee, and pray I am not screwing up my kids too badly but, on a larger scale, how did we all get here?

I know it will probably solidify my membership in the “whack-job” club, however, I truly had a momentary feeling of grief for that lost simplicity brought on by the multi-millennia of progress. It was if I could feel the cold, fresh water from a slow moving stream in the palm of my hands, smell the crisp, strong vegetation blooming everywhere and see my hands dirty with the pure red clay under my feet.

Mostly, in this flashback, I mourned the lack of worry this woman of extinction embodied. Life was life for her. She didn’t owe taxes on top of car payments on top of child care fees on top of a mortgage. She wasn’t concerned whether or not she doing enough for her children. She never dwelled on her aging face and memory, nor did she fret over whether her mate did either. She did not whittle away her lifetime contemplating her true purpose.

She simply spent each day inhaling, then exhaling and doing whatever came next to keep that pattern going.

April 13, 2011 – Healing Takes Longer

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I filled the sink with hot soapy water. Without paying attention, I threw in numerous dirty dishes that needed cleaning. I stared absently out the window, picked dishes out at random and scrubbed without looking. I was using my fingers as my eyes and landed on something I didn’t recognize. Immediately I was reminded that I had tossed in the santoku knife as my whole arm jerked back involuntarily and trickles of red swirled atop the soap suds.

The cut is small but in a most inconvenient place – the tip of my right index finger. It doesn’t want to close over and, I’ve come to recognize, the older I get, things that break on me do not heal with any kind of expediency. It throbs constantly and is tender when touched. Did I mention I am right-handed and work on a computer nearly all day long? Or that although I have a high tolerance for pain, I still like to whine about it? And that I turn almost anything into a metaphorically revealing rant about something curled up inside my backlog of emotional disturbances?

It is amazing to me how such a seemingly small wound could continue to constantly remind me of not only its existence but also my negligent role in the injury’s occurrence. Whenever I forget it is there, I invariably tap it too hard on the keyboard, whack it on an object where I’ve misjudged its proximity or grab a hold of something salty. I reopen the wound again and again without provocation or warning.

It’s been a while since the initial slicing, however, as much as I’ve tried, I cannot force the wound to heal by sheer will. I try to take care of the cut, protect it from infection and attempt to limit the usage of that particular finger.

But it is my index finger on my right hand! It’s my number one, lead-off hitter when anything remotely related to my sense of touch is concerned.

It simply takes the slightest amount of external pressure to fire up the pain signals.

And I have no way of knowing when the closure will be complete.

April 12, 2011 – Kinnecting Rollercoasters and Pasta

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“You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn’t like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.”

~Parenthood, 1989

My current roller coaster ride for today has left me incapable of using my own words…