The wonders

Have you ever had a bout of the wonders? This can be a very debilitating disease.

For me the bad ones usually show up between two and three AM. Oh, I have one or two during the regular day, but they're fleeting - a momentary wonder then gone. I had one yesterday when playing golf. I asked my buddy Eddie, if he knew which was the more economical golf cart to run - electric or "gas" (propane). We talked about it for a minute, then it was time to hit our next shot, and the wonder was gone.

But my two AM wonders are really nasty! They can be about just about anything. I wonder about (things, or people, or places). I wonder, "What if...?" I wonder, "What would happen if...?"  Sometimes I wonder around - as in around inside a question from a lot of different angles. Then there's "wondering who...?" And wondering, "What is that...?"

There's no telling the topic. It can be anything. Sometimes I have great epiphanies, but mostly I'm just nagged by a mystery - mystery that never gets solved by-the-way. And the good ones go on for a long time - at least at that time of the night when I want to go back to sleep, it seems like a long time. A good wonder often lasts for an hour or two!

Last night at 2:17 AM (I know because my clock projects the time right above my head on the ceiling and I can see the time by just opening one eye.), I had a what-iffer take me over. What-iffers tend to be among the worst because if you think about it there's lots of branches on that tree. You can go off in many directions and none seem to lead to a definitive answer.

So here I am at 2:17 AM wondering, What if Donald Trump gets elected President? Now talk about a troublesome wondering!. It then morphed through Ted Cruise, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, each one in turn leaving me unsettled and in despair. So I found myself wondering, "What's going on in this country that we find ourselves in such a divisive quandary?" That one was worth another 45 minutes just by itself!

Somewhere after 3:52 AM ( I peeked) I finally fell into exhausted oblivion and the nattering in my head let me go. When I woke up this morning at my normal time, I was still tired from my mid-early-morning-mental assault , so thankfully being retired, I rolled over and went back to sleep for another hour.

It was after I was finally fully awake I remembered my wee hour mental excursion and realized it was all for naught. About the only thing clear to me was that we (the people) actually want the political theater that we all seem so incredulous about. If we didn't, if we really didn't want it go on, we'd stop going to these political events, we'd stop following the news people (whose job it is to dramatize every little instance of stupidity and controversy), and the politicians would have no audience for their rancorous performances.

Ok, I admit that's not going to happen. We're addicted to this kind of in-your-face-theater, much to the puzzlement of the rest of the world, thank you. And yes, I know we certified Americans don't really care about the rest of the world. We think, "get over it!" But you get the point. We are the responsible parties! It's certainly not the Brits. Right about now, they're probably thankful they let go of that colony.

And this morning after being fully awake I had one of those one-line wonderings: I wonder if anyone else has this disease? So tonight the sequel will likely be, " I wonder why I wonder?" Wondering why is the granddaddy of wonders. That one can go on for a lifetime.

We Have Come To Be Danced

by Jewel Mathieson

We have come to be danced
not the pretty dance
not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
but the claw our way back into the belly
of the sacred, sensual animal dance
the unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
the holding the precious moment in the palms
of our hands and feet dance

We have come to be danced
not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
but the wring the sadness from our skin dance
the blow the chip off our shoulder dance
the slap the apology from our posture dance

We have come to be danced
not the monkey see, monkey do dance
one, two dance like you
one two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
tearing scabs & scars open dance
the rub the rhythm raw against our souls dance

WE have come to be danced
not the nice invisible, self conscious shuffle
but the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
the strip us from our casings, return our wings
sharpen our claws & tongues dance
the shed dead cells and slip into
the luminous skin of love dance

We have come to be danced
not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
but the meeting of the trinity: the body, breath & beat dance
the shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
the mother may I?
yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
the Olly Olly Oxen Free Free Free dance
the everyone can come to our heaven dance

We have come to be danced
where the kingdom’s collide
in the cathedral of flesh
to burn back into the light
to unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
to root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
WE HAVE COME