Peace!

Ha!

If you've got peace, you're just waiting for the ball to drop or the bomb or the other foot. If you've got peace, you've got potential chaos, can't have one without the other. The universe seeks balance, as the research goes, and it's quite a seesaw being here, one minute up, the next down.

I am in Sam's in Asheville. My friend is with me. We've just finished our health food lunches and are whizzing through the store, pointing to things we like, walking fast, trying to stay out of people's way. We're not speaking, more like pantomiming. The store is large, vast space above us, enough to float lots of balloons, and near the front there are many pointsettias glowing crimson. We were mesmerized when we walked in. My friend has a yen for them.

Our lives are both ordinary and mythical. We live and die, aging beautifully, perfectly, full of wrinkles sometimes, though my friend has few. She seems to be getting younger, and she smiles a wide smile. We both woke this morning I'm writing about, we ate breakfast, making eggs with cheese we bought the day before. Mundane in the buying, though having enough money to buy things more magical. At the same instant we have these magnificent heart beats that pump through all sorrow and winter. We seemed to matter, me and my friend; as in if a bomb dropped it would matter.

As we circled Sam's, other people were too. There were so many items to look at and consider as next purchases. Candy and dog food and soup and almonds and coffee and desks and pillows and computers and honey and stereos and car care products; fruits and meats, veggies and snacks; hot hors-d'oeuvres being served right under our noses. What bounty we live in.

Recording these details, few and perhaps banal to you, is a stance against bombs or being ignored. Saying yes to life, to its peace and then its lack thereof.