How Can It Be?

I'm back from the Rocky Mountains and a great few days. Family. Friends. Health. Integrity. No work. The Lessons of the Five Balls are not lost on me.

Lately I've been thinking about serenity. How is it that one day is four-star, and another below horrible? It's not simply about circumstance. I can guess what a ZenMaster would say. But tonight I'm not interested in attainment. I'd rather roll in the slippery mud of confusing and endearing humanity. So here's my current thinking:

How can this be?
I am content and restless,
Fearless and concerned,
Simple and tangled—
All in the same body
In the same place
At the same time.

All at once
Reading the paper,
Surveying the yard,
Thinning the sprouts.
Working the phones and files
Each only in a small way—
No longer so much that
Survival overtakes
The little creative voice
That patiently whispers,
“It’s time, friend”

How can it be
That I don’t know about “good stress”—
The kind that overtakes
Even when it’s just about choosing a vacation
Or wall colors for a weary kitchen?

How could I live this many years
And believe the path lessens
When all is well?
How could I not know
That the jagged corners
Of life and love and lucky charms
Never settle altogether.

My life is one of those little glass snow balls,
I shake it and the tiny speck flakes
Flutter and fall upon the little figurine
That is me.

I really thought I would feel calm
When all else is calm.
And yet I wake some mornings
With the clueless questions
Of a sheltered person.
I look to a fine day and
Prepare for something less,
Just in case, afterall.

My self—hardly sheltered!
My life—all I could ever ask for or expect!
So how can it be
That I am still my petty and lost self
On too many days?
Searching—where?—for exactly what?
How can it be that I snap at Janet
For asking me to turn the volume down
And I stop writing for three days
Because the agent didn’t offer one kind word.

How can I let a 3 day weekend
Slip through my grateful fingers
While I bitch about the smallest detail
and inwardly brood about something
I don’t even recognize?

Is this the human composition?
Is there a DNA connection
That keeps me slightly off course
For some of the time?

I know about embracing the journey
And I’m not tangled by rushing the destination,
But I’m a ball of emotion
Leaning here, moving there
Wanting the core of me
To set the course
And calm the nerves.

Some days
I can tell you what to do
As surely as I guide myself
Along the certain wall
Of possibility and passion.

Then again, it has taken me all these years
To face the confusion
That comes from not knowing,
Really not knowing from one moment
To the next what I will do
Or not do.
I am wild in my innocence,
Accepting in varying degrees
That it’s up to me to show up.
After that, I can only guess.