Most of us at sometime or another have felt the impulse to jot down a few profound thoughts or were prompted by a fellow salad-bar survivor to do so. In the minority are those that truly consider such a specious suggestion as being an actual possibility. If the thought is pondered more than a second or two the audacity of such a monumental task will often cause failure from the git-go.
We recall those daunting essays in junior high school; the “What I Did Last Summer”, or “My Favorite Pet” stories. Two-hundred words or more about nothing when punctuation and spelling actually counted was a pretty tough assignment, even back then. I remember being assaulted by waves of cybernetic tummy toxins invariably arriving the evening before the assigned paper was due. Racking the brain, staring at a few pitiful words flagrantly scrawled across the mostly void sheet of loose leaf, all of my gray matter would be focused on “How to Be Sick Tomorrow.”
For many years my maxim in life has been “one should never do today what one can delay until tomorrow.” And my old buddy, “Procrastination” has always backed me up; one hundred percent of the time. Ah…yes! Slumming with the “Big P” is mastering the art and science of self-rescue by haphazardly mapping the shortest escape route; being routinely assisted by dogmatic selection processes within a selfish society which offers the spurious safety of disproportionate self-esteem. This society freely and without reserve, distributes its own politically correct assessment of one’s work.
My most dependable buddy “P” and I have hidden under a bushel basket of lame excuses while hugging memory ravaging delays as we smooched the cold cheek of our own impotence. Somewhere between the bloom and harvest I fell in love with the idea of wasting time. “P” and I have spent most of our time peeling another day, slicing through another month, and sectioning another year from the fruit of “my life.”
Until this day . . . Of course, you don’t know if it really is today, do you? Only “P” and I know that for sure!
Today, I send my old friend dawdling off whichever way he decides to go. I will use the dividing knife of time to prepare for you, a “real life” story; a beggarly buffet for public consumption. I intend to skin, slice, and bare my inner core in a wholly communal manner before my entire yield of fruit, seed and all, is devoured by “shouldn’t, couldn’t, can’t,” or “won’t”. Let the juice splash where it may!
It is my conviction, that even the slightest therapeutic value of spilling the contents of one’s anemic soul, of dumping one’s tiny puddle of tears and laughter into the immense polluted river of jettisoned journals and orphaned opinions must be reason enough to consider launching a pig. I invite you who may have fallen too soon, or maybe too far from the tree; some who may be bruised, slightly soft in places; those whom have observed the firmest more colorful and tasty fruit being chosen, while inadvertently you fell to the bottom of the barrel, please join me as I catapult from the author’s launch pad! I just have to see if this piglet will fly!
All of us have or will suffer tragedy in our lifetimes. The way in which we accept or refuse to accept these moments will determine the fullness of each of our lives. Will we struggle with anger, bitterness and hatred? Or will those we love, those we encounter see the larger picture of love, charity and forgiveness that is possible?
Casting “P” aside, my hope is that some will embrace this story as it is intended “a help in time of need”.
"PIGS FLYING ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH"
