SURPRISE!

So anyway, two years today.  Two years post-transplant.  Feels like a lifetime ago, and kinda like it was yesterday. And even a little like it was 2 years ago.  Ever get the overwhelming urge to weep for no apparent reason?  Like the cosmos just wanted tears. . . from you?  How about the inexplicable urge to laugh? Like you just heard the funniest goddamn thing ever, except you're alone or with someone but nothing particularly funny is happening?  Yet you're laughing. . . in your belly.  How about at the same time?  It's very heady, a sharp sense of vertigo.  Jesus, it's so high up!  You can see for-EVER.  Wind doesn't blow through the sky. The wind IS the sky.  That's me, like, a lot.  Couple times a week.  Start to think, or try to stop thinking and ...what the hell is so funny? What am I laughing at?  Oh, please, what am I NOT laughing at? It's all just a marvel.  A marvel really and suddenly my eyes are blurry and my throat stings and I'm crying like—I'm not crying like anything— I'm just crying.  And laughing.  At the same time.  And very confident in both the happy and the sad and the sappy and kinda tipsy.  And whew.  Will this ever stop?  I hope not.  It's so wild.  It makes me feel like I understand something.  That's what it feels like: understanding something complicated and abstruse and I don't think it can be explained.  Explaining kinda mucks it up.  You have to learn it, you must learn it to have anything remotely resembling a chance, a prayer.  But it can't be taught, which is funny and sad.  Go learn it.  It's like a secret. . .inside a secret. . . inside.

It can't be taught, but I'll try—for you: it's all sound and fury, without meaning.  Which is totally funny: gag's on us.  And it's gonna end.  You're gonna die.  And that's crushingly sad because, yeah, its only sound and fury but it's all we got.  And, but like your death won't mean anything either. That's Funny and sad at once.  It will seem like it does or should mean something, your death, but it doesn't.  It won't.  Not to you anyway.  WOMP WOMP.  Next contestant.  It doesn't mean anything except what you make it mean. Wanna make it mean god?  Go ahead.  Make it mean god.  There are worse things you could make it mean.  Like stuff or money or yourself: stupid fucking vanity, arrogance, hubris, selfishness.  Those would be terrible things to make it about, but plenty of people do, have.  It's your hourglass, you know the way these things work, right?  Sand leaks through the pinch-point.   You can't see the top, above the pinch.  You can only see the bottom, the sand that's accumulated.  But you're on the clock.  Make it mean something.  That's the job.  Make it mean something.  Ever seen a Buddhist sand painting?

There's probably something wrong with the culture or our collective upbringing or just us since we make the culture and raise ourselves.  Something wrong that you gotta go half your life to figure this out.  Or maybe it's me.  Maybe I'm the defective part.   I don't care.  I like that it's flawed or broken or whatever.  Or I am.  It needs work.  I need work.  I'm a fixer-upper.  The demo is done, torn down to the studs, a good plan, a good crew, plenty of money, awesome decorator.  It's gonna be great.  It just might take a while.  These kinda projects always do.

See that right there is what you call a mixed or better yet tortured metaphor.  Evidence of its larger point, however. (things need work, there's always room for improvement, work on them) Which is kinda cool, tortured but self-fulfilling.  I'm letting it stand. I can't really talk about it any more.  I've got too much work to do.

The joy and fulfillment I've known in the last two years are beyond expression.  Thinking about it makes my nose run.  A lot of that has to do with the simple fact that I'm here typing to you.  I know: it's not even that simple a fact, but it's true, I'm here.  A lot of it has to do with the people out there (you) that read this blog or maybe don't really read this blog anymore or never read or will ever read, but are nevertheless my friends, the people in my (and their own) meaning-making exercises.  I want you to know that: that you're responsible for my survival  and my joy and fulfillment.  I am completely ready to die.  I know that sounds like melodramatic or maudlin or too something, but that's how it is (not melodramatic or maudlin, just ready).   I don't want to (die) but I could.  And I've never felt freer or more at peace.  Or more grateful.  Or more fiercely in love.  Did you know love could be fierce.  It can! Raah. (that's a tiger noise.  a love tiger).  I wonder how could it possibly get any better and then the next day comes, better somehow.  Don't know when the sand expires.  Could be sooner in my case--must stay honest about that—but damn, there are no bad days because even the bad days are good days.  really really good.

Just imagine if someone told you to write a poem.  Write a poem, a good one, it will be the most important thing you can do with your life.  It will be the meaning of your life.  It'll be good for you, define you and good for those around you and this is what you should do: write a poem. Give it all you got. This is the key, the poem.  Okay?  Okay, got it.  Poem.  Check.

Except, what's a poem?  That was me.  Embarrassing but true.  I'm still so far.  Oh, golly.  So far from the man, the person, I want to be.  But now I know what a poem is.  I know the person to be, work at being.  I know what meaning is and how to try to make it.  You probably do too.  Hell, you've probably known all along.  You coulda clued a brother in...but don't sweat it.  I'm here now.  Start the party.   Sorry I am so late. I'm a slow learner.  A late bloomer.  Late to my own funeral.  Late to my own (birthday) party.

the finger pointing at the wave is not the wave