Part 1
Life
like
what
is
life
like?
Life-
like?
How
can
a
thing
be
life-
like?
If
it
is
like
life
is
it
not
life
?
How
I
hug
the
margins
with
my
questions
Life
like
what
is
life
like?
Life-
like?
How
can
a
thing
be
life-
like?
If
it
is
like
life
is
it
not
life
?
How
I
hug
the
margins
with
my
questions
***
Part 2
What has my life been like the last 10 years? I ponder after asking a friend newly turned 40 about what her next 10 will be like in her imagining and she ruminates on the many changes . . . happenings . . . events . . . growths and losses . . . of the last 10 . . .
And I ponder my own last 10 . . . from 2004 to now . . . trips to and from Scotland . . . friends made and shed . . . a new career – a calling . . . Iraq . . . no Iraq . . . striving to make peace with barely the language for it . . . a grandson . . . paradise and theater of the absurd – all wrapped in to one decade in one life on one tiny planet . . .
Its significance eludes me . . . I am sure it is there but have not the facility to read the leaves of the tea and am left floundering for the meaning . . . the purpose . . . the design in a tapestry where I can only detect the faintest of threads . . .
***
Part 3
What if I had been . . .
President – no room for pacifism with that job description
A mother of many rather than few – would I have gotten better at it with more practice?
A dancer – but oh, the chocolate I would not have known
A Nigerian woman – would I have survived to womanhood or would I have been sold into invisibility long ago for daring to dream of reading a book?
Born a man – what secrets, what handshakes, what ways of striding the earth entitled would I know that I do not, cannot, now, with this feminine-encased carcass, know?
A waitress – would my legs hold me up at the ripe old age of almost 59?
Born with no legs – would I hate you your easy grace?
A cow – would I have been lucky enough to have been born in India?
I suppose a life is what it is like.
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