I'm A Little Piece of Everything

Dear K,

Sometimes I get sad. Sometimes I get down. Sometimes I wonder what this whole life is worth. I wonder whether I should just sit down and not move. It's been a long time since I wanted to die, and I'm pretty sure I'm done with that. I'm pretty sure I want to live and live and live and live. I'm sure that I want my heart to keep beating, even when it will be old and struggling to beat I want it to try for one more beat. I want to die in my bed in a hospital at the age of 136 struggling to breathe and forcing my heart to beat one more time. I like living. But I will die. So will you and the birds in the trees and the whales in the ocean and the grass on the prairie and the dogs in their kennels and the presidents and kings and all the shining faces on television. Statues will crumble. Everything will become ruins and dust and then even the ruins and dust will die. The sun itself will die. Then someday on some distant frozen shore of time the universe will give up its last beat.

Lately the thing that makes me at peace with all this is my secret knowledge that I am part of all these things and they are all part of me. There is no separation between you and I and the bird in the sky or God's wild eye staring down at us or the pig wallowing in its filthy sty. We're the same we're the same we're the same. Time and space are meaningless, you're a little speck in the body of the universe.

I guess, I also don't know how much peace I find there. Sometimes I force that feeling. Sometimes I force a connection with the universe. Sometimes I don't feel like I'm a part of everything and that I'm just a little useless cheap thing that's going to get trampled underfoot. Just something smaller and less useful than a million billion trillion other things just like it. Something that doesn't have anything important to say or do.

Then I go outside and I take a walk and I feel the wind on my skin.

Did you know that I've always believed that God is in the wind. Ever since I was a little kid. I've never been alone if I've been in the wind. I remember once I was walking from our farm house to go check on the neighbors horses in a blizzard. They lived a half mile down the road and it was a crazy cold January and this was a blizzard that kept us snowed in for most of a week. ON the third day my Step-mom and sister decided that they were going to go and check on the horses. I think they were both stir crazy from being stuck inside because of the snow. We couldn't go anywhere in our car because it was so cold. I went with them because I was tired of being inside.

We walked to the neighbors barn in white out conditions. It wasn't snowing anymore, but in Iowa we have WIND. There's nothing to stop it sweeping over the fields. The white out was from the wind picking up snow from all the fields and blowing it around. Making it pile up in huge drifts that covered the road. The wind could just about pick you up. Scoop you up in it's big cold God hands. I remember walking around in it with my arms tucked inside the torso of my coat, sleeves pulled in too, for extra warmth. Hat and scarf around my head, and laughing with delight at how cold and strong the wind was. I remembered thinking that I could lay back into it and be carried off by it, and that the cold would never touch me, but I would feel the giant soft hands of God.

Whenever I am cold and lonely. Whenever I am hot and miserable. I go for a walk and I wait for God to reach out and touch me. Any little bit will do. Any movement of the air over my skin and I am convinced again in a benevolent God that loves me and has a plan for me and that I am doing ok and going to be alright. I think this might be why I like bicycles so much. Because you can pump your feet and feel God rush over you, and it doesn't feel fake, it feels like God.

I walked home from a coffee shop tonight in defeat. My novel is defeating me. I'm being defeated every night I write. It's all garbage and it's all fear and cowardice coming from my fingers through the keyboard. I'm trying to extend the story I Guess. I think I'm trying to make this thing bigger than it is. I'm really afraid of letting it go. I don't know if that is it, or if its just fear, irrational fear getting in the way, stepping on the hose. You know? Fear comes in and steps on the idea hose.

Writing this blog with you is nice. I feel like I can come here and say anything that's inside of me and you won't judge me, and I know that what's inside of me isn't that bad. I'm not important enough to hide anything truly terrible inside of me. I'm just a little guy. I'm just a little guy trying to write. I'm just a little piece of a bigger thing. I'm just a little guy in the wind. I'm just a little piece of everything.

Yours,

K