The Indwelling

There's a time for everything, right? Like, we who are introverts have to have our moments of being extroverted. We idealists or pessimists have valuable thoughts from our various positions, but, for simple quality of life, we need to spend a good bit of time being realists. In spite of all the relational work Ryan and I have done over the past six months, now is the time to bust my butt and get Bike & Build funded, and Duke after that, in addition to readying a new draft of the play. Somethings one can only do by oneself.

A day goes by, quiet in the gloomy house, with nowhere to go to separate work from leisure, Sasha and Hank bored and sleeping inside as I type on my Mac, the Florida summer oppressively hot outside.

So what does one do? Remember the regimen of prayer at Taizé, how three times a day kicks apathy in the butt at critical moments. Grow a maintained beard. Go to the library for some new CDs and blast Ben Folds, Bon Iver, and Tupac. Ride the bike hard, discovering new routes. And take pleasure in the fleeting moments with friends and in little odd moments during the day when joy breaks in, like watching a squirrel jump from tree to tree, when the dogs brighten up they see their pack leader in the morning, or when Tupac says, completely randomly, "Man, Fidel Castro is a straight guerilla pimp." Even though I don't quite know what that means, it still brings me the joy I get from random things, a joy that is awesome, unexpected, and ever-abundant in a world of diverse stimuli, a China Buffet of disparate experiences, every choice around you so rich, so full of life and delicious MSG.

On second thought, imagine this as a China Buffet in Albert Brooks' idealized heaven in Defending Your Life, a buffet with all of the taste and none of the fattening properties, where you could, if you wanted, eat MSG on everything or have bacon milkshakes. If you wanted.