I’m staring out at the thick-leaved cherry tree. The breeze catches the edge of a leaf, and spins it into an unrecognizable shape.
The Bully makes loud and unreasonable demands of a Stranger in a confined public space. Those who only hear the Bully’s words make an enemy out of the Victim. Those who can hear the entire conversation feel deep empathy, even fear, for the Stranger-Turned-Victim-Turned Friend.
It might be “compensation” but it is not “balance” to face a polarized view by standing on the opposite side, well-entrenched in the duality. It is possible that the arduous climb to the center is where balance lives. This is not mediocrity; it is equanimity.
I am stuck in a sharp edge within myself, crafting justifying stories that only make me feel worse. I decide: what if I didn’t care so much about that? And suddenly I feel the smooth, cool, polished surface of a curve where the prickliness just was.
One person marvels at a thriving hive of life; the others see infestation.
Standing at the bureau donning undergarments, I wish for abiding silence. Suddenly I realize that there is a cacophony of different bird songs entering the room. It is the opposite of quietness but as welcome and healing as the longed-for hush. I walk to the open window, which is enshrouded by the canopy of that same cherry tree from a prior stanza, and I am eye to eye with a chickadee and some other feathered body I cannot identify. The screen is the only thing standing in the several inches between eyelash and feather.
There is such a jagged, skeletal, and fragile line between Not-Knowing and Knowing. Like the thin veil between life and death.
Opening the front door, I bump into an unexpected wall of sea-scent. It turns my attitude one hundred and eighty degrees from anxiety to peace. Though they are not mutually exclusive like that.
(Orig. posted in 2016)
