Monday, October 19, 2015

Community can be defined by words or actions; by privileged and class; by intersections and city names.  There are layers built in, as we travel out of our "lived-in" zone to enter into new communities.  With the transient nature of our civilization, it is quite possible that through our lives, we fall in and fall out of several communities.  People we live by, coworkers, that cashier you bonded with who moved to New Hampshire.  Our kids create these funny evolving communities, and some times we get pulled in, the moms or dads getting together for dinner or drinks, but then that falls out as the kids get older and interaction moves slowly from comparing stories and receiving advice and bonding time to a time of frantic changes and leaving nestlings.  Hearts are broken, prayers said, and soon the empty nest is there waiting for a return.  Even more communities are formed from the evolution of this change, as parents, free to explore the world with less tether attached to their souls, venture out of the "lived-in" zone and forge forward.  But all of this talk of community makes me wonder what is the value that is placed on it?  And where do the boundaries exist for the community that I live in.  If I see a boy hurting but he is blocks outside my lived in zone, can I still consider him a member of my human community?  I shall sit and let him wait it out--he looks tough, the boxing kind--and I will sit and wait to decide if he deserves to have good schools and good tech and good chances, because he may not be my community. But I know that his school is overcrowded and that the job scene isn't great and he's had a whole lot less than I in just about every area--jobs, education, socioeconomic, etc., etc.--And I complain that people like him come to my community to rob houses and cars and flee with our wealth.  And he is still sitting there.  It looks like he is waiving and smiling.  I may be able to trust him.  But I shall wait.
I sat for a long time and stared at myself in the mirror, searching for some kind of direction, like it would suddenly appear, nestled tight in a laugh line, a forehead crease in the sign of an arrow. And I held a handful if lunesta, the moon's beams at their finest, and stared at those chalky orbs, walking their ways into the creases in my fingers. Wanting so badly to swallow them all and finally sleep. But not the sleep of never more--the sleep of you and me and uncontrollable laughter and sobbing until my chest heaves and screaming so loud that my throat burns. Because those are the truly restful sleeps, where I can release the you of me who is so wound tight that you encircle my diaphragm and leaves me struggling for breath. Under your pressure, I have become a shell of myself and wanting only to emerge, if only for a moment of sunlight. But you only release me in the moonbeams, and all that is left is falling.