For it to work, it can't matter: A case for casual miracles

I heard in a kismet-ic movie line last night that “for it to work, it can’t matter”- that is, if you want to throw a match into the sky and watch it become a star, first let go of needing it to be as so. This notion struck a chord with me and my ever-self-defeating need to take control, to chase my own goal down in nature’s way: like a lion on a zebra’s tail, and grab its jugular…make it mine. For the past year I think I have been making a whole-hearted attempt to release the need but retain the want and the commitment in such goal-seeking instances. But today, cosmos, I plead my case to you.

Dear Cosmos,

Right here- this chair I’m sitting in, in my half-walled office, bedecked by fluorescent light and stale office air- this is the point and the time I wish my art or writing career would suddenly launch from the ground into the cosmos at warp speeds with me attached by a long but sturdy string and dawning a bright red cape and a satisfied look...a shit-eating grin if you will. The rate of movement generated from this creative launch would dry the tears of boredom that I have shed this morning between daily bouts of grievous ear-to-phone squeezing and perilous head-jutting that has caused my neck’s clear and persistent revolt. If I were any other version of myself, at any other time, I would have done a traditional colonial curtsy to this whole scenario before the mutiny of the neck and, with personal belongings in hand, gone running from the scene of the crime with arms spread wide…like a child might joyfully glide through a springtime meadow, happiness abounding, onto some new possibility.

Last time my skin began to crawl with contained creative frustration, quickly squelched by the rational mind and its sidekick “integrity” (circa New York 2007), my spirit-being pulled the mutiny tactic on my physical self then just as now. My formerly “chill” self became a poster-child for high blood pressure, cholesterol and anxiety attacks despite a consistently active and healthy lifestyle. At this first mysterious onslaught of poor health I was baffled by its initiator. But this time I know the culprit.

While I hear the faint sound of "integrity" in my ear reminding me of the tasks on the menu-bar below as I wordsmith my day away for personal uses, I can no longer physically accommodate its urging. That leaves me in my own personal conundrum: if this weren't a small town, I would hand in my notice today, bow gracefully, and bolt. I am now not only trapped by my shoulder-riding pal “integrity”- the angel (or devil?) in my ear, but also by the confines of a small population, and the fact that I want to prove everyone wrong for making me second (or third) choice for an empty title headlining a bunch of administrative tasks no one else would like to do, all spiraling inward to meet at the eye of the storm...evidently this chair, in this office, where I sit.

“Don’t worry” my friend and I always jest “its just our twenties…we can get them back later”….maybe if I skyrocket back in time right now I could spare a few precious years…