The End of Safety

Clouds often hide above the earth. I’ve seen it. The air shields, the rain softens and disperses, but still, they keep their distance. My wavy skin feels it. Sometimes, while brewing a pot of tea with the front door open, I can feel the land reporting to me the conditions of the sky. This is not imaginary, but real as the little hairs on my arms, which often stand up at such intimate contact.

Some days, I open all my windows and sit on a front-porch chair, facing the mountains to the east and the huge sky above and all-around, and lift up my chin and eyes to this great wonder, and wonder why it should feel so much better to have my windows open even when I’m not inside my house. What kind of elements control the weather, even the inner weather, such that I could feel safe under such a circumstance? After all, a lone wolf could wander right in off the prairie with all the doors and windows open. That would be the end of safety.

But of course, there is no guarantee. Wolves gotta eat, like me. And they can probably feel the changes of season deeper than their skins, and their doors are open all the time, and they realize – though probably not in mind – that there is no guarantee, that safety could end at any moment. Do they live their lives more completely because of this? Look into their eyes sometime, if you get the chance: clear. Intense. Ready, but not waiting. Our eyes, very often, reflect the opposite. We should run with the wolves, but the problem is doing that and not becoming dinner. Bring a fork? A knife? Maybe.

But leave all the openings to the wind and sound, and let the growing, moving life be its own shape for as long as there is shape, and press into it like a retarded jelly who would wiggle to the very top and come out to the vertiginous drop of every life lived beyond the sunset.