Throwing our sticks up in the air, watching ping pong balls come down. . .

Penguins don't come to crossroads in their lives.  They mill about and their spawning involves a lot of walking.  But sometimes I just pick pictures and these penguins match my mood.  So there.  St. Louis Zoo.  Penguins.

Nancy (the friend, not the unfortunate former wife) is looking for a new job.  I just took one.  Kevin is looking around his house wondering "what next?"  We are all at cusps in our lives.

For me, the real cusp has come as my Mom became less competent.  As her feedback has been more uneven and less approving, I have had to make mental shifts.  I think my detour into drunkenness probably had something to do with my discomfort at losing her approval.  Of course, she approves of me in principle yet, but she resents that we all have a life she still longs for and feels as though I steal from her - sometimes metaphorically, sometimes literally.

I'm not minimizing the loss of a very dear friend.  Diana's death is definitely a passage for me.  An opportunity to learn death and life in a different way.  An "opportunity" to grieve anew.  But I didn't use her as an excuse to drink.  Much.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. . . .

--William Butler Yeats

I think about this verse a lot.  It's part of Second Coming, an important American Lit kind of poem to know.  There is something reassuring and terrible about entropy.  It's something we can depend upon.  Every penguin takes his last dive into the sea, and few of us penguins recognize that last leap for what it is.

When we get to a cusp, the proper thing for us to do is to throw our little bundle of sticks up in the air and watch as the sticks come down to the ground, in a new pattern.  During these times it is proper to pay close attention to how we, ourselves, feel about the sticks, the new pattern, and other things, too.   We are sending ourselves messages all the time and we must take the time to listen.

Captain Kangaroo used to say the wrong word sometimes and Mr. Moose would yell, and millions of  ping pong balls would fall from above, off camera, creating chaos.  Captain Kangaroo would shake his head in a long-suffering way as the millions of balls bounced around.  Mr. Moose would console him.  I think Rabbit was behind it, somehow.

After time, only a few balls were still moving.  Things calmed down.  Inside my head, I can feel more stillness.  I am seeking less noise in there.  I am seeking more balance.  

I am seeking the next thing.