The little accumulations mainly do it.
It’s a sunny Sunday morning and I am headed out the door to the dog park — a place in my mind I have built up as: rest and sanctuary.
Yeah. It’s like that, owning an effing dog — or any pet. The idea of things is always better than the reality.
Pulling into the parking lot, there’s the long view— dog’s frolicking and pure joy.
Entering into the gated sphere, there’s the reality. The dog won’t come. The dog won’t share. The dog doesn’t listen. There’s just so much mud. I am not a very good Buddhist. People here think my dog’s too rough. I’m ruining their enjoyment. Why are there just so many people here?!
People here hate me and my dog.
WHY IS IT SO FREAKIN SUNNY.
I call Colin to let him know yes our sweet puppy got in a tussle and yes there was blood. And, three minutes later, it’s a bloodbath on the phone line too.
“Effing (Child) did such and such and then this and that and you would not believe and fucking men need to start MANNING UP and LEARN and not molesting girls — and boys for that matter — and not wrecking everything and STARTING WARS! Women didn’t do this shit!”
Just. Furious.
What is fury?
I would argue there is no such thing. In and of itself, fury doesn’t exist.
Fury is an illusion that appears when a human being is being smothered by inescapable forces outside of her control.
Fury is a costume — it’s a hurricane sent to wash everyone nearby away.
Fury is a way of taking space. Like a hurricane it doesn’t exist as its own entity — it is the sum of its parts.
When a friend and mother-figure is dying of brain cancer.
When another mother shares on social media how truthful and sublime is her connection with her child — simply because she gave physical birth to her.
When an insane man says “I want that” and proceeds to move forward in taking it — through utter destruction of people, homes, buildings, everything. The world.
When a teen boy manipulates and takes advantage of a young woman and somehow we adults say out loud and to each other: well, she has to learn sometime.
When I cannot seem to find the book I want to read.
When in exercising tireless “ally-ship” with LGBTQ communities, I wonder (but don’t feel allowed to question) if just being a woman shouldn’t be worthy of ally-ship. And why it isn’t.
When I realize lies spun by a narcissist about me and my life can never really be un-spun.
When pandemic inertia refuses to leave.
When I attempt to take responsibility. And wish to be held accountable. And wonder at what is real and true.
When I see there isn’t any kind of escape.
Fury arrives as an accumulation without its realization as such. And also this.
No single person is important — except to themself and to their loved ones, perhaps. Yet so much of my life — and yours — is spent trying to make ourselves so. To the detriment of so many things. To the costs of war.
Contributions matter. This world is a stone soup. Contributions matter.
When I think I am more important, the pot spills. When the taking overtakes the giving.
The givers are overwhelmed.
Whence comes such hurricane fury.
Also:
Thanks for sharing, Zed. I particularly liked this line: "The idea of things is always better than the reality." One thing that's dawned on me recently is that, for me, this is true as well for events that have already happened. In other words, events from my past seem to take on a romantic hue, similar to a dream of the future. I guess this is nostalgia. But, it occurs to me that I was never as happy during those past moments as I like to imagine or pretend to remember. This is to say (or ask), why is it often rose colored glasses when I look in front and behind, but always gloom and doom when I look right here around me?
Love the unwavering question and confession