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That’s why I deleted all my social media apps. That’s also why I put them back the next day. Then I called someone I’d been meaning to call for years. Neither of us had any news. If there’s a universal language, I asked him, what is it? Hope? Pain? Want? Rebirth? He hung up because he smelled smoke. Next thing is I’m looking at the place in my yard where I used to plant a garden. You think you know what you’ll miss but it’s always an underestimation. Like how I bought a package of pumpkin seeds and then never planted them. I kept them in a drawer for years then eventually threw them away. Now it breaks my heart worrying they’ll never find the soil and sun they were hoping for. My list of things worth hoping for begins with the strength to keep hoping. It ends with an observation about the animal kingdom. They are better and more beautiful than people in every way, it says. Heaven is too full with them, there is no room for us.
In a nutshell. In a jiffy. In your spare time. In plain sight. Inside a closet locked from the outside. In comfortable clothes. In itchy ones. In a pool of water. Inside a nesting doll. Inside another. Behind the scenes. Behind the eight ball. Behind the gas station. Behind on your taxes. Behind the frontrunner by five and half games. In secret. In plain sight. Here, there, and everywhere. Out loud. Outside the city limits. With an outside chance. Wherever you do business. Without having to leave your house. Without having to leave your family. With no strings attached. With deep regrets. With an eye toward the future. In a ball on the floor. In outer space, admiring the universe. Adrift in the Milky Way. On an alien planet. Under house arrest. Under a rock. In the arms of a parent. In the bed of someone not your spouse.
Humans have to laugh every 15 seconds or they’ll change the channel. At nine seconds I wonder what I’m missing. At 13 I remember the hole in my pocket and I wonder what I’ve lost. Years ago it might have been the coins and marbles of my youth; today it’s the coins and marbles of adulthood. Wishing to be eight years old again keeps me pretty busy these days. Nothing on TV compares except the one about doctors falling in love with their patients. Half of them are doomed. You can tell which by their level of child-like hope. I’m nearly done laying out a yellow brick road in my backyard. It goes from the porch, past the garden, around the shed, and ends abruptly at the fence. My neighbor is there, leaning. We both know I need a permit. Only I know my permit was denied. Just then my kids come running out the door. They want to know where we keep all the hammers.
