Sunglasses

I am in a state of continual bafflement about the necessary evolutionary idiocy of human pair bonding and the delicate Newtonian curved functions of women's asses. Are these two things related? Will you make a point, ever, that is not wallowing in the obscene, the erotic? We know the answers to these questions already but as I sit here in the cafe, the wonderment about the initial mysteries is profound indeed. Despite the amount of awe these constructs procure, I've come to no real conclusions about anything deeper than a base, root code, instinct for the propagation of species. Worn ground, endlessly tracked, sure, but wonderful all the same. 

More and more, I truly believe in the audacious luck my life is perpetually becoming. I went to the store today and dropped a bill on booze and sundries. Seven dollars for a pint of vegan, keto friendly, coffee creamer. Thirty five for beer and wine. Four for a package of hair ties (I low-balled these.) Twelve for shit paper. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The day prior we went sledding with friends in the neighborhood. We've been feasting for days, eating like madmen barons with heaped plates of meat and cheese, bread and olives, pastries and chocolates, stood by with whole gallons of beer and liters of wine. I remember, once, seeing my old man at the kitchen table, head in hands studying a checkbook that lacked the funds he needed in order to make the monthly note on the trailer where we lived. I don't remember his face, but the scene of him staring at the wanting ledger maintains, a theme of woe, a great unavoidable burden.

As the year climbs back into lightness, I had the phenomenal luck to be party to many rituals - all of them profound. We visited the river with offerings for the birds and the moose and we hailed the river roundabout, supplicating for a blessing of another agreed upon year of togetherness. We effused goodness and warmth and, later, for our ministrations we were gifted with an earthquake, a sure sign that the animism in Nature had heard our prayers. Later still, the entire family gathered in a log communal house bedecked with fake boughs and colorful ribbons. We sang hymns and celebrated the miraculous act of conception and birth, lighting candles and hearing all the old stories. An 8 months ripe mother played a flute and a young, attractive couple dueted blissfully while a communal fire was raised and another, younger and more attractive couple ushered around bits of the flame for our candles. A brief flicker of light in the dark, an exhortation to go forth and be fruitful, a petition for tribal unity. It was the most human thing to have struck me in some time and I left elated, exuberant, cursing God in the parking lot for the beheld miracle.

 Christmas day came. I spent the day ice-breaking through reality, trying to get a handle on its faults, the rips in the fabric. It was a useless pursuit, but worthwhile nonetheless, like most things. The Packers had won the day prior and I was happy, sotted, twisted, alive as we sat around with family (man-woman-child-grandparents). As much as I wish I could, I can never forget the news clip of a Palestinian father and son murdered by Israeli snipers in the early, heady days of the first intifadah. (You've talked about that before, broken record.) I wonder what happened to the rest of that family, now, twenty years on from that afternoon.