The Light (As Opposed to the Darkness)

It's almost a cliche' to wonder why bad things happen to good people. As my theological position is one that welcomes the tenets of many faiths, I can choose to look at blessings and curses as the man upstairs's way of making her/his point. I think it's true that we don't get hit with anything that we can't handle. Being strong means your strength is always going to be tested. Failing to complete your Divine assignments can result in things to remind you of the power of the Creator. It rarely seems fair but in the Other side's systems of checks and balances it manages to work out.

This all comes to mind as I came out of the Lodge today to see one of my longtime neighbors, a dude I ran into nearly everyday moving to and fro being wheeling into his house with one less leg than when I last saw him. He went into the hospital with pneumonia and came out as an amputee.

The minute I saw him I went over to speak. I didn't ask for the story. He just told me. I'm sure that those first few days are the worst, particularly when everyone you know seems to be still standing. He asked me for some of my books. The package is sitting right next to my computer on its way to being delivered.

My neighbor seems like the coolest cat. He looked healthy. He looked responsible. And yet and still this goes down. It's just like seeing that colleague hooked up to a bag to treat his skin cancer, or the death of my former co-worker Mikel coming out of nowhere. You never know what you're going to get hit with. You never know how things are going to affect you.

I've been down in the dumps because I'm working at a school full of kids without structure or order, where each step forward is follow by two back. But it could be so much worse. I've dodged so many more bullets than I've ever had to take. Never broken a bone. Never spent a night in a hospital. The last time I had stitches was when I was 2. What the fuck am I complaining about?

I started reading Walter Mosley's Little Scarlet today after spending a week or two trying to penetrate Richard Price's Lush Life. Price is a dope screenwriter and I enjoyed his novel Samaritan, but huge descriptive volumes aren't always my fare, particularly not when it comes to the relatively simple genre of the police procedural.

Mosley's work is concise and always moves. I think I had just OD'd on him for awhile. So I'm back on the horse. With TV sucking for at least a few more months I'll be on the book train for awhile. And when I'm not booking I'll be cooking. Someone asked me for menu advice today. It actually make me kinda proud. It's the first downs that lead to scoring, the step by step that gets you there. Let me get to walking, as I'm blessed to be able to. I've got a package to deliver.