The Decades Roll

The decades roll

I look back

from 36

to 26

16 to 6

I am now sitting in A COMFORABLE GREENCOURDUROY chair

it is circular

concave like a satellite dish

It folds in half and has a green carrying case

I bought it at Target for 39 bucks

At 26 I would have been sitting in a different spot

maybe crosslegged on a bean bag meditation cushion

at a buddhist temple or retreat tent

weathering cold november nights

breath steaming

to keep the chill from the tip of my nose

or in the summer heat walking around a two story high golden reliquary monument

chanting the sacred sylables and watching my mind wander from past to present to future

in a slight of hand to keep my ever present yet ellusive core self concept intact by a constant soap opera like round of mental chatter and cognitive fabrications

At 16 still mushrooming out of adolescence with a vengence

the calm quiet bright eyed child

mutated like a buterfly into a lupa caterpillar and verging on larvae grub

that suddenly awoke to suburban enui and wanted to shock

the walls of social and personal compartmentalization

to wake up to complexitiy with the simple rages and naive lust and uncertainty

clear confusion and mistake making as a grand gesture of insolence

NOW i begin to think about the health of my aging parents and watch with

proud excitement at each new step my young nephews take

I am preparing to be married again next summer

and am settling into a very comfortable and reasonably appointed

home in the west central florida suburbs

unemployed

unencumbered

unhurried

underestimated

but not undone

Flute plays softly in the background

a fresh Himalayan breeze

blown across the dig-iverse

I must go witness the virtual

bloodshed

of community theater

from the distance of

an arm

and the breath

of the Rio Grande

Whatever that portends