So here I am in the drink, in more ways than one. I’ve had two b&w’s with a lunch of chicken added to bok choy & garden red chard stir-fried together (the piece of grilled chicken cadged from a week’s supply of Cassie’s stash of cut-rate protein) (b&w: that would be “bourbon & water”). My back hurts. It makes the hips hurt. Though they don’t hurt like they did, they still hurt, and hurt is hurt. Oh, my god, but hurt is hurt.
I’ve learned that sneaking into the icy swimming pool water an inch at a time until the water reaches the sacroiliac helps a great deal to numb the old-bat pain. So….the day is warm, the sun is hot…oh, WTF, why not?
About at knee level, it strikes me that the water is not all that cold. About at hip level, it comes to me that at the age of 12 I would jump into water like this without a second thought.
At 68, I’m smarter than I was at 12.
However, let us suppose that one b&w erases approximately 30 years from the human. Two would erase 60 years. Uh huh. Two and a half would make you…what? Still in the womb? A twinkle in my father’s eye? Nay: a twinkle in my grandfather’s eye…
I declare myself 12 years old and take the plunge.
And you know what? That water is not, after all, cold enough to stop your heart. It feels INCREDIBLY WONDERFUL!
Oh. What a magnificent swim!
And so I am brought back to what I really am: an ecstatic, truth-to-tell pagan whose god is a woman that dwells somewhere Outback of the universe She created. The sky blue goes on and on and on forever and the radiant, no — the radioactive white glare of the star nearest us consumes the west, and yes, yes: people may be crazy, beer may be good, but only God is great.
Thank You, God, for all the life You created. Thank you, God, for all You created that is not life. Thank You for all the magnificence and all the baseness, all the splendor and all the obscenity, all the joy and all the misery, all the grace and all the cruelty, all the knowledge and all the awe, all the mystery of all creation, for all that we who are Your creatures can know or sense.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, God!