The Master observes the world
but trusts his inner vision.
He allows things to come and go.
His heart is open as the sky.
Tao te Ching
Charlie made me go for a walk. He slipped on the harness, grabbed the leash, and tricked me with treats.
OK, maybe not EXACTLY that way, but this is my journal and the liberties, artistically speaking, are mine to take. So just go with me, here.
I sorta thought the whole purpose of this shelter-in-place thing, other than the “avoiding the zombie apocalypse” aspect (and of course the important bit about doing our part to be fear mongerers to the republicans) was that we could sit around and drink before 5pm and binge Netflix like a lazy motherfucker… WITHOUT GUILT. Apparently Charlie and I see it differently. Oh well, marriage is all about sacrifice, right?
We headed for the big nearby park. I assumed it would be empty because we’re all in quarantine and we all care about the safety and well-being of others, right? Pbbfffflt. The park was a cesspool of wafting germs and non-distancing socialization. Children were speeding by on various wheeled devices, spewing toxic mist like tiny little viral volcanos on the brink of eruption. While dogs are allegedly non-carriers, something about their drool as they provided their free shoe-washing services seemed vaguely and ominously dangerous (as did the owners who swooped dangerously close to me while retrieving their little ankle-biting “fur babies.”
(And let’s pause for a moment to question the sanity of people who use phrases like “fur baby.” Nothing like that ever crawled out of my lady bits or latched on to a boob for suckling. And I have no obligation to chastise it for skipping school and I am not responsible for its university tuition. Ergo, not baby. And I’m pretty sure if we ran out of all those canned goods we’ve been hoarding like libertarian sociopaths for the last couple of weeks, said “fur babies” will be renamed “lunch.”)
Anyway, park. People. Pandemonium. I might note, were I feeling generous to the man who dragged me into the hot zone against my will, that he had to pause because of the pain in his hip, and that he had really only done this dastardly thing for my own mental and emotional and physical well-being, but that would take away from the power of my indignation at having been brought out in the first place. So lets just skip that part.
Like any good pet forced onto a walk, I dropped trou, popped a squat, and shit on the grass. Then I called out “Did you remember to bring those blue bags, honey?”
OK, I didn’t actually do that.
But I thought about it, and that made me chuckle, and the sight of a crazy old lady chuckling to herself while wandering in a park (without a dog or a kid or any of the other props people bring to parks so they don’t look like lunatics or child molesters) scared the kids enough to keep them a little further away on their little wheelybopper moving toy thingamahoozits. I take my wins where I can get them.
I should note that the trip TO the park is rather easy, being mostly downhill. The trip home, on the other hand, is up a very steep mountain, at least a mile vertical climb, and the oxygen at the top is quite thin. I haven’t actually measured it, but my panting and elevated heart rate at the end of the trip are what I’d call “empirical evidence.”
Once inside I flung my broken, exhausted body onto the sofa and practiced my best Ophelia sighs of impending death. I expected immediate delivery of a life-saving cocktail, but Charlie just got on the phone and started chatting with someone as if we had not just braved death itself. Bastard.
I got up, poured a little vodka/soda, returned to the couch, and turned on Netflix.
Without guilt.
And I survived.
Up the Tao Staircase 