canary

     We grow comfortable with what we have, what we're used to, and hold fast those tools we find along the way that help us through hard times. We collect things, take things, steal things and hold them up or hide them. We push material around, pile it up, stretch it out and fold up mountains of the stuff. Why, if enough stuff is pushed around in just the right manner...
     Well then, maybe, just maybe, who knows what!
     Some people are comfortable in their skins, with themselves, their bodies, like so much more of that good stuff to use to their advantage. Oh sure, you've got arms and legs and a good head with some good ideas running laps just waiting to be useful. Some of us find the physicality of existence a bit more trying. We can't make an easy time of all the parts, the up and down of ourselves, the feet, the elbows - oh brother - the back, what a thing with a spine nub-nubbing its way up the middle! Of course there's no excuse for this slight of the physical. It's impractical.
     When I was young I used to worry about my hair. Is it okay? Did the wind blow it over? Is it sticking up in the back? Does it make me look nice, stupid, smart, handsome, will it get me a date, a job, a future? Is this thing working for me? It's taking up enough real estate! I patted it down, flattened it out to made it work, always with concern, never with ease, as if it were ticking - tick, tick...
     And I got used to that, living with that, that kind of tool, broken discomfort.
     And then one day; Boom!
    Now I go to my head with one hand - it's smaller now, without that hair, like touching the top of a canary - surprising, that's how small it is. I think back and wonder what all the fuss was about, how I should have enjoyed that hair, piled it up, pushed it around, folded up mountains of the stuff, just for kicks, just to see what would have happened.