I Am Jack's Placid Contentment
I drove my car to work today. What's great about this is that due to a DMV snafu I have not driven my car in more than a month. I love my car. It's huge. It's ugly. It gets six miles to the gallon. I love that machine.
So I'm driving to work. When I left the house it was sunny and warm, so I am wearing a sleeveless dress. I have the windows down, engine purring, a ton of metal humming along beneath my hands. It's beautiful out, sunglasses and skirts, and I'm thinking how nice it is to be just out, going, I'm alone and it's nice.
So I turn onto the main road and it's deserted. It's a Sunday afternoon, holiday weekend, nobody out. And all of a sudden the temperature drops about ten degrees and the sun is behind a cloud and I'm driving in an eerie, gray, cool silence. I'm looking around, it's like the planet is deserted. So I put my cd on, and it's that song, that song, the one with the bridge so beautiful it breaks my heart. Driving along, music nodding, and in front of me a wind is swirling and the leaves are falling and all of a sudden I'm perfectly okay with everything, everything that goes on and went on and will continue to occur.
I have been lax in my appreciation of what I have. I have beautiful children that I would do anything for, anything. I have a job that I love that pays enough for me to live. I have a place to sleep. I know who I am and what I'm capable of and while I sometimes forget, I know what I'm worth. I have youth left in me, I'm in good health and I would be hard pressed to find a situation or entity that could faze me at this point.
I have a solid foundation, I think. It could easily go the other way. I could just as easily, even more easily, rattle off all the reasons I could lay down and never get up. But that would be stupid. Because there will always be something, someone, to drive you to it. To hand you a shovel and help you dig and lovingly pat the earth down above you, sweeping the trail and leaving no trace. I've been lucky. There's always been a trace, a trail, something to follow so that I remember who I am and where I've been and the things, the things, the things I came out of.
It's those things that make everything okay now. Nothing that happens now, or in the future, will ever be as difficult as what's already been. These things now are so small, the things that I concern myself with. And driving today, and having that strange feeling and realizing that it was satisfaction, made that so clear. I am not satisfied, though, to the extent that I want to remain in this state indefinitely. There are things that I want, and I will have them. Places I want to go, and I will see them. Someone I want to be, and I work on it, every day. I hope that I never get it all. Cause then what do you do?
So I'm driving to work. When I left the house it was sunny and warm, so I am wearing a sleeveless dress. I have the windows down, engine purring, a ton of metal humming along beneath my hands. It's beautiful out, sunglasses and skirts, and I'm thinking how nice it is to be just out, going, I'm alone and it's nice.
So I turn onto the main road and it's deserted. It's a Sunday afternoon, holiday weekend, nobody out. And all of a sudden the temperature drops about ten degrees and the sun is behind a cloud and I'm driving in an eerie, gray, cool silence. I'm looking around, it's like the planet is deserted. So I put my cd on, and it's that song, that song, the one with the bridge so beautiful it breaks my heart. Driving along, music nodding, and in front of me a wind is swirling and the leaves are falling and all of a sudden I'm perfectly okay with everything, everything that goes on and went on and will continue to occur.
I have been lax in my appreciation of what I have. I have beautiful children that I would do anything for, anything. I have a job that I love that pays enough for me to live. I have a place to sleep. I know who I am and what I'm capable of and while I sometimes forget, I know what I'm worth. I have youth left in me, I'm in good health and I would be hard pressed to find a situation or entity that could faze me at this point.
I have a solid foundation, I think. It could easily go the other way. I could just as easily, even more easily, rattle off all the reasons I could lay down and never get up. But that would be stupid. Because there will always be something, someone, to drive you to it. To hand you a shovel and help you dig and lovingly pat the earth down above you, sweeping the trail and leaving no trace. I've been lucky. There's always been a trace, a trail, something to follow so that I remember who I am and where I've been and the things, the things, the things I came out of.
It's those things that make everything okay now. Nothing that happens now, or in the future, will ever be as difficult as what's already been. These things now are so small, the things that I concern myself with. And driving today, and having that strange feeling and realizing that it was satisfaction, made that so clear. I am not satisfied, though, to the extent that I want to remain in this state indefinitely. There are things that I want, and I will have them. Places I want to go, and I will see them. Someone I want to be, and I work on it, every day. I hope that I never get it all. Cause then what do you do?
posted by machine central at 8:33 PM
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