A wise frend of mine and i were sitting around the kitchen table at the cabin late one night this spring. We were watching the first moths to pioneer through this spring's evenings around the porch light. He said something that has stayed with me.
First off, the friend was stephey, and this is what he told me:
"Logic would tell you that the only thing we shouldn't be suprised by in life is dying. Dying is the only expected thing we know of in this life. Everything else is unknown; but as it turns out, nothing takes us by surprise more than death. And everything else we do, the infinite possiblities and outcomes that make up our days from the cradle to the grave seems to get more and more formulated. and it seems all the amazing things we see and do get taken for granted".
That might be paraphrased somewhat, but that conversation had impact in me. As i write this, a storm is rolling over athens, and as i rode my bike through the streets on my way home, the light above me looked like a calico cat and the air i rode through was cool and the trees shuffled on their trunks with anticipation. And tonight i might go to party. i might get drunk. i might fall in love. but whatever i do it will be of my making. it will be unexpected. and i won't take it for granted. and tonight, the people who sat in the houses and bars watching television and talking on cell phones as i rode past them under the calico sky will be working their way towards the logical end.
I just wish some of them could have been there with stephey and i at the kitchen table in the cabin.
The second string of thoughts that were provoked from mind numbing quantities of alcohol came that morning, while lying in the tub urinating straight up in the air.
1. "i hope i don't squirt my mouth"
2. "the truth is the expected never comes when you expect it, only the unexpected is expected to be unexpectible. So expect to die at an unexpected moment of unexpectibility."