Pain gives me somewhere else to focus.  If my apartment is full of spare pillows and empty apple boxes except for the entryway and directly outside the refrigerator, I may spend more time in those uncluttered spaces.  If the boxes and pillows represented pain, they would be there in my system and I might discover the importance of the entry hall and the space in front of the refrigerator, where I formerly did not spend much time.

The mixed blessings of pain are:

Counting the stairs up to where I parked.  Counting how many bundles of firewood I am taking on this camping trip.  The awareness that she/he is out of earshot and so I cannot beckon her/him to provide succor, kindness I want to receive.

The mixed blessings of pain are:

My hypothermic legs regaining tingly, stingy feeling after the boat ride across the lake in shorts in the fog.

They say, “Pain is just weakness leaving the body.”

Pain comes from an ill-maintained balance – for as long as you can remember or just since you started the kettle boiling and smelt burnt you: flesh.

I want the tea and I pick out the flavor and I start the water boiling and then I reach out my hand and lean on "something" just long enough to have that old daydream of smiles and twirly slides in the park and I am rudely snapped free of that image by the scent of somebody, me, burning…smoldering…now! (And not in a good way.)

What was my initial goal?

Oh, right.  Hot tea.

Hand under cold water for thirty seconds and then I’m off to find my cat cup before the whistle sounds.

Zak B. me

July 15th 2011