Farces of Nature

Inertia:
So, you're stuck. Stopped. You haven't moved in days. You see scattered plans laid out around you, scrawled on wrinkled sheets of paper, strewn about your bedroom floor, surrounding you; all your ideas, all your projects, perhaps your dreams, perhaps your heart's best intentions. They are treasure maps to the things you want. Some would take half and hour, some would take half your life. Some are half-cocked, some are genius; most lie somewhere in between. You start to reach toward one, but you don't get far, because there's that other one. You move toward it, but you barely budge. Pulled in so many directions at once, you remain static, in the middle. Until... until you can't take it any more. Turn yourself as best you can toward the direction of your desire, then start rocking back and forth, bit by bit, trying to keep your nose pointed in the direction you hope to go in, and hope like hell that when you finally tip you don't go blindly backward and hit your head on the ground. Rock forward, then back, then forward, then back, each time the arc getting bigger, and then, finally, you tip forward, and you start to roll. Set in motion, you have, at last, attained some...

Momentum:
Man, that was hard, wasn't it? It seemed like every minute disturbance brought you back to zero, didn't it? Every disruption, every distraction, every excuse halted your progress, and maybe you even had to change directions a time or ten, but you made it, baby; you're moving. What now? Now you have to stay just ahead of it. You're like a kid running down a grassy hill, and for just a moment, it feels effortless; you're almost flying, and in that sweetest of moments, you actually let yourself believe that you've crossed some threshold, you've slain every dragon, and this is how it's going to be from now on; it will always be this sweet and easy. But just like when it was forming, momentum continues to be a delicate thing. Where, just moments ago, you were effortlessly gliding down that grassy slope, suddenly your legs are struggling to keep up with the speed of your body. Any change in direction or acceleration, any attempt to decelerate, and you immediately feel G-Forces acting on you. And you can't have a G-Force without...

Gravity (when things get heavy):
Sometimes things happen. Sometimes these things that happen are most certainly not the things you would have wished for. Sometimes you fall. Sometimes somebody gets cancer. Sometimes somebody gets pregnant. Sometimes somebody gets hurt. Sometimes it's you. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes the kid falls down on the grassy slope; sometimes he makes it to the bottom, and stops to catch his breath. Sometimes the surfer doesn't have enough speed and the wave passes him by; sometimes he falls in front of it and it eats him alive; or sometimes he actually plays it just right, and he makes it to the end; in any event, he sinks back down, and he stops. Sometimes people slow down, sometimes they speed up, sometimes they change directions, and sometimes they collide. No matter the result, in any of these cases, eventually, you have to come to a stop, where ever you've landed, and when you do, you take stock. You check to see that your limbs are all where they're supposed to be, and that you can wiggle your fingers and toes. You look around to see where you've ended up, maybe who you've ended up with, or without. You replay the experience in your head again, as many times as you need, and you mine it for information. You see what you've learned.

Rest. Heal. Lick your wounds, cry your tears, mend your bones, shout away your victories and your demons, take a deep, deep breath, and put those lessons in your bag for the next go 'round.

Now, which way this time? It's a big, fat world out there. Don't stay seated too long.

-BR 3.5.07