in the middle of CAConrad

and I suddenly heard a high pitched ringing in my left ear. good lord what is going on in there? what are all the things going on inside my ear? past my ear through my ear canal into my brain? what is my brain doing? what does it sound like? is my brain a He or a She? is my brain pink like spaghetti noodles pink like the colored squirtable butter when I was 8 pink like the awful crayon Salmon? is my brain talking to itself? telling its parts what to do? telling my hand right now to write what to write and to do it fast before I forget? what am I if not a command center that carries out its own actions? how exactly am I having these thoughts? what is it my thinkings are made of? what the hell do they look like? is that what was ringing was that the sound of one of my thinkings escaping?

am I the only person who wonders these things?

do You ever have a moment of total out of body mindfuck? where you see your body, your legs and arms and hands and maybe the end of your nose and you know these are parts of you and you can curl your toes and bend your knees and wiggle y our tongue but how are you doing that? how are you telling your parts what to do? what are You? are you this body? or are you inside this body? why are you in this body and not someone else's body? why the fuck are you here?

if life is so precious how did You end up with it?

and why did that ringing in my ear stop? and why did it start? is it still ringing and I just can't hear it anymore?

I don't think it matters so much what we do while we're here I think what matters more is how we do it. how we talk to the delivery man and if we thank him. how we walk down the sidewalk and if we look at all the signs and people we pass. how we occupy this space and if we think about different it was before we came to be in it. how we treat other humans and if we smile at strangers. how we handle ourselves in stressful and trying situations and if we recognize the Grand Scheme to get through them.

I was just overwhelmed with the memory of a young mother that I met at the beginning of last summer. we met actually because I had really awful, body-doubling pains that wouldn't go away. she knew my Steven's roommate and had a kitchen full of home remedies. she made me a tea and gave me lavender oils to rub on my body and invited us to stay for dinner with her husband and four children. she drew on my hand with henna while one of her daughters sat on my lap. this woman was so incredibly awake to Life. she brought in and completely took care of and fed a complete stranger and asked for nothing in return except for my phone number. her husband said grace before our meal and when one of her sons was still hungry he ate a carrot picked from their garden that morning. his name was Phinnaeus. why am I talking in the past tense? this family is alive and thriving on their love for eachother and for god. I think because I'm speaking more about my memory impression of them rather than the people themselves. I only saw them one other time that summer. Steven and I brought my little brother and a quinoa salad and we had a picnic. Licia and I walked down the road to their neighbour's to pick rhubarb while the men watched the kids play in the stream and with the goats.

maybe we're the fools, and they really do have it all figured out. maybe their god really does exist and will continue to watch over them. I've decided why I was thinking in the past tense just now, and I think it is the same reason I never made a point to see these good, honest people again. they frighten me with their wholeness, with their certainty and their dependence and devotion. standing next to something that good, you feel small.

if there is a god, I suspect it is Licia.