This recording is light. Like angel food cake. That’s what I think of when I hear it. Angel food cake on a summer wedding’s reception table. Whipped cream, and a strawberry. It says to me, “Life is not complicated every day. Some days, you’re just supposed to celebrate or think of new ways to be sweet to people. You’re supposed to eat apples and wear t-shirts. You should not let stress seep into your feet so it can travel up to your throat and into your mind. Keep it away. Some days, it’s not meant to be.”

Let me tell you something about people: they are all anybody has, and no matter where you are, or what ledge your mind is teetering on, they always, ALWAYS have the ability to rattle you down to the piping on your blood cells.

They don’t know it all the time, that they are doing that, that they are drawing picture after picture right in front of your face and are tearing each page off when it’s completed and are starting immediately on a new one. Scribbling furiously. Bloodying their fingers obliviously, their mind a beeline for what they know they need to say. People can be naked minds right there beside you, and when they start talking, really talking,  the only thing for you to do, to effectively do, is listen, listen, listen, and with abandon. YOU ARE NOT THE SHIT. YOU DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING. YOU AREN’T ALWAYS RIGHT. YOU ARE A LITTLE THING COMPARED TO WHAT YOU COULD BE. LISTEN TO OTHER PEOPLE. CONSIDER WHAT THEY SAY. TAKE THE FUCKING TIME. 

Sometimes, I find myself walking around quite comfortable with myself. Quite pleased with how I look and how I sound, and pleased with how other people react to me. You begin to feel like your job is done, or partly done, or a little bit done, and a great, inhibiting boredom slithers into your brain pan like an aromatic snake masseuse. Bad, terrible things come along with this boredom and comfort. For instance, the inability to differentiate your behaviors as well as you should. You begin to mistreat people, act with entitlement, display impatience, do selfish things. You begin a tragic little metamorphosis into someone who cannot reason with the fucking scheme and substance of life. Everything is a future product, or a leg of the race, or a pressure to be relieved, or a valve to be eased. People become park benches for you to sit on, to park your ass on, or lay your hat on, or whatever else you need of them. Step outside of yourself; if you’re living this way, you’ll see it and it will startle you. You might cry a little. Crying is good.

Few people know my closest friend the way I know her. She keeps her thoughts, and the things she knows, a secret for the time when they will sink the furthest down in her listener’s ear. When I listen to her, I think that. I think, What good timing you have, what impeccable timing. It’s part of a good soul, that intuition, ability to navigate an atmosphere, and sometimes it’s like a little vinegar coated brick chip right in your eye. Wake up, shoulders back, be honest with yourself.

I just know how it feels to be overcome, phantom, choking wave, with a good picture of yourself, and the energies you’re putting out into the atmosphere where other people live and walk and try to keep putting along, despite. Despite anything, despite whatever. I needed to check mine out. I need to bring them close to my face, hold them up by their shoulders, and really examine them. Only other people can send you to that point. I’m not ashamed to say it.

“Come on. Love your body. It could be a lot worse.”