Friday, January 18, 2013

What doesn't kill you tells you you're stupid.

I used to have a big house, with plenty of storage. When it collapsed, and had to be removed, the asbestos people were called first. Nobody knew we lived under asbestos; nobody suspected that mold and invisible particles were easily ingested with every bowl of yogurt and berries I served.
I won't bother with other difficulties found among the debris.

I can't quite understand this complex world.
This boat I sit in, can sway gently, or suddenly capsize with an errant wave.
My ignorance covers the camel's back.
My knowledge, the last feather that can spook the poor camel.

Houses come and go.
So do gardens.
And commodities.
And heroes too.

I used to trust books, and TV actors when they pitched insurance plans, and my neighbor who sold me my house in the first place, the same house built on fill that collapsed on MLK's birthday of January 1994, at four in the morning, temperatures in the low forties, unusually cold for sunny California.

There must be a trick to this living that my parents didn't know about; and my teachers; and all the books I read; all the people I consulted. There must be a trick!

Maybe  I need to change my brand of yogurt.






12 comments:

  1. it is a complex world...and what is ingenious today will kill us tomorrow you know...the trick is just making it out alive you know...and bringing as many along with you as possible...

    had some cherry yogurt this morning, myself.

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    1. Well said Brian... I also had cherry yogurt this morning... who knew!

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  2. I enjoyed your post. I have often wondered with everything that "happens" if there is some kind of lesson we are supposed to learn and why we can't be told what the lesson is instead of having to go through all that "happens".

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  3. What a horrifying thing to live through!

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  4. What a horrifying thing to live through!

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  5. oh, rosaria)))) i don't know what is real in this (as in non-fiction) and i don't care one bit. you must know how much i enjoy this one)))))

    i read it again and i am quite beside myself. the line about the hero))))

    we know nothing we know nothing we know nothing hold the ones we love while watching the ocean:))))))

    (((for me, this is your best)))

    xo
    erin

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  6. If it only were as easy as yogurt, huh, Rosaria? Sheeeeesh.

    Keep going, girly…you keep us strong, too.

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  7. My father loved a movie called "The Gods Must Be Crazy". I do believe the title to be apt and that the only way to survive with our souls in tact is to have a finely tuned, finely honed sense of humor/humour!...

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  8. Tja, there may be hopes and wishes, promises and trust, but no guarantees, no certainties, no permanence; but we can try to trick ourselves and pretend there are - it tends to work for a little while. In the end, we just have to live with what comes along; and if we are really skilled and wise, we might even be grateful for all there is. Acceptance of and gratitude for each moment, wasn't it that what it is all about? (Sounds kind of familiar and right, but way too arduous to follow - a bag of chips instead will do.)

    Innocently and appropriately, my husband just happens to say, 'I wished we had no problems.' Yah right!

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  9. Tja, there may be hopes and wishes, promises and trust, but no guarantees, no certainties, no permanence; but we can try to trick ourselves and pretend there are - it tends to work for a little while. In the end, we just have to live with what comes along; and if we are really skilled and wise, we might even be grateful for all there is. Acceptance of and gratitude for each moment, wasn't it that what it is all about? (Sounds kind of familiar and right, but way too arduous to follow - a bag of chips instead will do.)

    Innocently and appropriately, my husband just happens to say, 'I wished we had no problems.' Yah right!

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  10. Tja, there may be hopes and wishes, promises and trust, but no guarantees, no certainties, no permanence; but we can try to trick ourselves and pretend there are - it tends to work for a little while. In the end, we just have to live with what comes along; and if we are really skilled and wise, we might even be grateful for all there is. Acceptance of and gratitude for each moment, wasn't it that what it is all about? (Sounds kind of familiar and right, but way too arduous to follow - a bag of chips instead will do.)

    Innocently and appropriately, my husband just happens to say, 'I wished we had no problems.' Yah right!

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  11. When you began with storage & a collapsing house I thought it was a metaphor... wow! Bad luck, but I hope your Oregon home is on solid rock!

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