Q. How can I enjoy the holidays when life is so atrocious?
A. From dust we came and to dust we will return. I say this on the holidays to the people in my home. They tell me I am a dumb dustball. What is their problem?
Truth be told, I am puzzled by the idea of “dust.” Which dust squirted us out? Cosmic stardust? Yup. I freaking solved it. Babe guess what? Your boy is a genius but I know you will attribute it to luck. No matter. I know my light. I know where it is. I know how it shines, how it shadows.
My point is this: Why are you thinking about life on the holidays? Life is not something to think about. Life is something to immerse yourself within. To experience in all of its kaleidoscopic terror. Life is a honeycomb. You are meant to wiggle into its hex shapes, taking the form of a miniature egg, chipping the honey-sides a bit on the way in. See? Warm life. When you are sitting inside the honeycomb’s cloud of stonewalled grace. Warm life. Welcome to it.
And see, from this view, your crying eyes now dream of Thursday. Should I describe the sea? And speak more of the excellent things of life? White boats line up at the ocean annex, calling me, ringing my little blue flip phone, saying Stop pussyfooting and listen. So I do. I hear mists unfolding. I hear whale bellows. I hear wedding music from across the water. I hear water brides calling sun grooms. I see volcano paintings hanging in pastel English sitting rooms, multiple mostly melon fruit baskets, seventeen melons within, a literal GRIP of melons, oh oh another one, a city subway, a scuffle, a conductor on TV making deep kisses with Antarctica-sounding cello music. See? Don’t worry friend love is everywhere, even now. It is everywhere. Even when it is lost there is yet more to come. Life is castle-crammed and flag-swung with the medieval sounds of love.
Q. How can I be OK with the bad gifts people give me for Christmas? I never want the things they give me.
A. This is what makes life hard: people trying to be nice but being anything but! A few years ago I developed a Christman mindfulness prayer to help me accept my least favorite Christmas gift (clothes). Here it is:
I can accept the clothes I am given
When they could have just given me money instead
The billowing shirts
The silk jackets made for a puppet
The Tinkerbell hat from an unknown Disney aunt
The basketball socks when I can’t even dribble
I am lucky to have clothes at all
I am lucky to be wearing these new banana-colored sweatpants
And a scarf that smells like a cockpit
And mirrored sunglasses absolutely riddled with oily fingerprints already
And yes I am angry, looking out the snowy window
And yes in these clothes I look like a gigantic toddler
A squid doing an impression of a human
A European nightclub owner who is also twelve
But still
I can accept the gifts I am given
With equanimity and peace
Amen
Q. What should I do if I want to jump my hot boss’s bones?
A. You should simply not do it. I cannot imagine anything less wise. Well no actually I can. I can imagine something less wise. In particular: sleeping with your attractive boss. Which is very similar to what you said but just using different words. And actually, now that I look at it again, this time more closely, putting my good eye up to a really big magnifying glass, I believe that what I said is the exact same thing you said. Indeed, the meanings are precisely the same. I said what you said but I said it in a different way in order to make a point. Which is: it is unwise, and bad, to jump a hot boss's bones. C’mon, you know that! It is a terrible idea, you wildflower.
Q. How do you find your life’s purpose?
A. Finding your life’s purpose is about removing things that are in the way. It is not really about “finding” anything at all. In fact, “purpose” is not a findable object - it is not a marble, a set of lost keys, a boyfriend misplaced at the mall. It is something that appears once you have removed all the Olympic-level gray gunk gumming up the edges of your Life-window.
But this raises a question: when removing things, how do you know what is gunk and what is window? How do you know what to remove? You don’t. You just have to start and then see how you feel. Some of the gunk will be ASTOUNDINGLY gummed. It will be so hard, virtually impossible, to remove. So you’re gonna have to get in there with an awl or a hunting hammer or a little Halloween scythe and really put the maneuvers on it. And sometimes you’ll find out, oh no, I chipped the window. That was not even a gunk. And that’s fine! We all have window chips. But keep going and, eventually, you’ll collect all the gummed gunks, the chewy corners of which you can use to fill the chips. And then your window will emerge gleaming in the Nova Scotia sunlight (I don’t know if you live in Nova Scotia but if you do then this would be a truly amazing guess. Am I right? I am huh.).
Q. How can I stop repressing my feelings? Should I even try?
A. What feelings are you referring to? Love feelings? Are you in love with me? Are you in love with Caity Brux, the dour, insoluble starlet of RKO Pictures? Are you in love with the tides? They are caused by the moon. Are you in love with the sun? The opposite of the moon. Are you in love with the moon? You are forcing me to the stars now. The stars are so hard to see with our dying human eyes. We can barely see them, eyes-wise. Look at that star! Oh you mean that little fleck? That nick? That shiny speck? That heavenly thimble of the Angel Gabriel’s glitternipple? Grow up. I see nothing of import. Nothing of note. Why focus on the stars when human feelings are on the line?
And so, to your question, I am telling you no: you should not repress your feelings. Because the premise of your question is wrong. Your question should be “I am entangled in an incorrect picture of my life. My life picture says to not feel a particular way. But I do. How might I blast forward?” And then I would say you should change your life picture. Take the grapes off your head. You are free. You are fine. You just need a new belief.
O'
thank you for this love
Impeccable timing. Amen