Two tales

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Once upon a time, I wandered too close to the edge and almost fell. People who loved me caught me, dusted me off, and put me back on my feet. The end.

Once upon a time, later, some folks began to nudge me toward the edge, little by little. They didn’t want me to fall per se – but the closer I get to the edge, the better things are for them, so hey as long as I don’t actually fall no harm no foul, right?

Today people who love me — a lot of people who love me a lot more than I can even process — surrounded me, picked me up, and carried me away from the edge. They dusted me off and put me back on my feet.

My legs are a bit wobbly let and that other group with the nudging habits aren’t necessarily rendered harmless. Still, even a day on solid ground means something.

I love you all.

I will do what I can to repay in love and kindness what you’ve given me.

Thank you for watching out for me.

The end.

To fertilize lawn…

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Reading the instructions on the lawn fertilizer. Let’s sum up:

  • Do not mow for two days.
  • Apply to dry lawn.
  • Allow 24 hours before mowing again.
  • Make sure the product has been watered in.
  • Do not water for at least 24 hours after the application.

It is spring in Pennsylvania, which is a shorthand way of saying it torrentially rains every 3 days, and in between the grass grows two feet an hour.

I’m pretty confident I can never actually use this product to its specifications unless I move my entire house and property to another state.

I am a bag of meat

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I am a bag of meat.

I am a collection of bones and water in a protein and fat based cover.

I keep my true self in my brain box up on top of a ladder of unreliable sensors.

It can’t be extracted.

It can’t be pointed to on a scan.

I’m not confident it really exists.

 

I spent nine months in a meat incubator

Then eighteen years in meat apprenticeship

To learn how to interpret what my bag of meat tells me

My fingers tell me about hot and cold

My nose identifies honeysuckle pollen

My mouth reports fried chicken.

Piece of cake.

My eyes and ears report the body language of another bag of meat,

Report the sounds and gestures,

Send messages to my brain box using both electrical and chemical signals

Pass the interpretations through a sea of mind-altering hormones and steroids who are busy just running the shop

My grey matter receives all of it

Compares it to past memories, degrading them

Tries to fit it into a framework

Increases or decreases other chemicals as a reaction

And then somehow instantly and interminably I “understand”

Sending new messages from the brain box to other systems to reply

 

It’s a wonder we get anything done

 

Every system has cells, every cell has memory.

My thighs remember things.

How to stand

How to run

My fingers remember complicated sequences.

Take away their memories and my brain box’s orders can’t be completed.

Is my true self in my fingers?

I guess so.

I don’t feel like me when I’m re-learning how to something my injured hand forgot.

I host an ecosystem.

Eyebrow mites.

Probiotic bacteria.

Mitochondria.

Germs.

Viruses.

Possibly even a parasite or two.

I like to think my true self is independent of my meat farm

But studies of toxoplasmosis say “probably not”

 

I am in a totally different meat bag than I was seven years ago

Every part of my meat bag is under construction every minute of the day

I am the city that never sleeps

It takes seven years to swap out the oldest parts

So at best I change a little each day

At worst, the meat bag’s intricate systems fight to keep me alive

I prefer the slow change, to be honest

 

We are all bags of meat.

We are each a collection of bones and water in a protein and fat based cover.

We are all changing ecologies of life

We are all trapped in cells

Trapped by cells

At

The

Whims

Of

Chemicals

We

Produce

 

“How are you today?”

 

Damned if I know.

Let me check with the meat and get back to you.

Historical nightmares are new. 

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Things I saw in my dream last night:

  • The remains of a 12th century highway overpass, which was standing over a 12th century cottage, both made of medieval plywood. 
  • An ancient frying pan which was glazed in a salmon pink coating with my great great great great grandfather’s initials (in fancy script) molded into the bottom. 
  • A set of kitchen canisters and salt and pepper grinders made of glass and pewter that stacked around each other like  matryoshka dolls from the 16th century. The far-flung relative of mine who was showing them to us on the family estate wanted to have recreations made so we could have some too. 
  • Scenes from said relative explaining our (totally dreamed up) family history including the doctor who cared for a now-poor family from the aristocracy. 
  • An ancient microscope hooked up to a 15th century touchscreen that allowed said kids to discover and draw extremely small details of natural things, and somehow also the whole town, but with extremely small lines. Sorry Antonie van Leeuwenhoek but we got there first, with better tech. 
  • The beginning of a plague that made people vomit extremely large volumes of something that looked like pepto  bismol 

I am relatively confident that during my next trip to England (whenever that is) my cousin and I will not be able  to locate any of these family heirlooms.