What Might Be

For starters, the brain might align with the body to put into action the thoughts that point the way. You know what to do. You just need to do it. You might see through your fear, your habits, your self-imposed limits. You might take steps toward happiness. You might learn to live with less. You might take care of yourself. You might take better care of others. You might find something bigger than yourself to believe in. You might take a chance on a dark horse and a light touch. You might dance instead of fight. You might accept your losses, cut the string holding what can never be. You might pick up your instrument and find the song hidden somewhere in the ventricles of your heart. Nights might serve up directions for how to live your days. Walls might fall and surprise might replace the certainty of never and I don't deserve. It is not about deserving or not deserving, anyway. All that is passing might burn off, leaving what endures in its place. You might find and hold the gift given with no hope of anything in return.

The Gap and Other Damage

Now that we have a Trump as Commander in Chief, it's time for a few predictions.

The biggest and most obvious is that Trump, his cronies, and policies will widen the already monstrous gap between the super rich and the rest of us. Billionaires and big corporate interests have their man in charge and will come after the whatever table-scraps the rest of us are fighting over with all their power and all their goons.

You wait. Those poor, working-class suckers who think that giving corporations big tax break will lead to more jobs, higher wages, and better working conditions will be laid off as those corporations cut workers to maximize profits and returns for wealthy investors. The decline in wages will continue as corporate profits outstrip meager compensation. (The richest 20% own most of the stock market and will benefit nicely, but what's good for investors is not necessarily good for workers.)

And the growing gap between investors and workers in terms of income and wealth is only one way workers will be left out of Trump's policies. All those men and women who are out of jobs and voted for this guy are going to have to mortgage their homes to get life-saving health care because they are working at convenience stores with no benefits for minimum wage. Their real wages will continue to fall after decades of stagnation, thanks to the long line of Trump, Reagan, Bush, and, yes, Clinton.

A new generation will enter an economy that wants them only as soldiers and lackies of the investment class rather than creative contributors to vibrant, diverse economy that supports innovative people looking to make a difference.

But, for some reason, many rust-belt workers support this guy and his plans strip wealth from blue collar and transfer it to trust-funder. They voted for the fox even though they live in the coop.

When Trump's protectionist, pro-corporation policies make working for a living a dead-end, no-win game, those same workers might wake up and see him for what he is. Or not. 

I hope they get really pissed off and vote these wingnut reactionaries out when they get a chance.

Then there is the global climate crisis and Trump's short-term, rapist views of resources. You know what that looks like.

Power has been cemented in the hands of the greedy, bigoted, sexist bullies.

Fasten your seat belts.

It's going to be quite the ride.

A wave will build, I hope, that even Trumpies won't be able to control, if people have so much as two brain cells to rub together. Those unemployed steel workers and rust belters might wake up, and, if they do, there will be torches in the night, tar heated in a carbon-encrusted cauldron.

Grab your pitchforks.

From Scratch

The walls were crumbling, borders fading, gates opening. It was slow at first, but then an avalanche. Where before there had been only routine numbness, there was now an open, blinding field of light. It no longer mattered what he felt or how much he wanted to rest forever hunched over like a fetus waiting for labor contractions. He would stand up and walk no matter what others said, how much he made himself a fool in their eyes. That he could not deny. And it all began with a simple utterance, a few words that took form in the here and now as deeds done. That was all it was and it was enough.

Liftoff (A Tribute to La-La Land)

"Men," she said, when he made a comment about the man in her life, her emphasis on the plural. She wasn't going to let love be limited in that way. If only, he thought, he could be so free and strong. It was a love thing, you see. More than anything, he wanted her to be happy, to live whatever dream it was that filled her, sent her into a swoon of yes. And, mostly, she wanted that for him too. About as much as anyone, she pushed him to chase after what counted as poetic. There was overlap in that way, wanting so much the best for each other that it showed up in wanting it for themselves. The path there, for some reason, was blocked with doubts, tangled with fear, booby-trapped with anger and grief. A spiritual companion made the travel lighter, even if that, too, brought its own price to pay. Hope that it would somehow be less hard, though, refused to die, even as the weight of the body gave way to earthly delight.

Workin' the Plan

As a dreamer, I tend to be fully alive only when I am asleep, in the dark, unthreatening world of private hopes and desires. I know that's cowardly, the easy way to deal with crazy hungers. Lately though, I have been entertaining the possibility of moving those secrets into this life-world; I have been trying to actually do something, to act in concert with what I want, with taking steps toward a life that I can love and respect. It's a scary thing to do for someone who has lived fully only in the safety of imagination and sleep dreams. How to move into what has only been conjured out of the ethers of thought has become the big conundrum, the already always persistent heart's desire. I, for better or worse, am the agent of my destiny. The weight of that sits welcome as I tighten the straps and pick up my staff.

First Light

Symptoms crept in from the corners of awareness at first. The off-kilter blur of vision, the dullness of edges, the balkiness of a mind in the face of new ideas. Then, there were the emotions -- the continual hardening irritation at it all, the whole mess of this effed-up world. He was a hair-trigger when it came to anything stupid or mean. The overall effect was a dimming, a gradual slide toward shut-down. He tried to hang on, to keep the brain fresh and sharp, but the tenacity of plaque was unrelenting, dousing the light of synapses. The fire was going out, whether he liked it or not. He had to face the hard truth: it has begun. Of course, he wanted proof, so he got the genetic test. For weeks he waited for the hard data to confirm his suspicions. In that interim, the world still wanted its pound of flesh from him. He ran his classes, attended his meetings, tried to stay on top of the avalanche of petty details, of cyber pyranha that nibbled and gnawed away the last vestiges of his peace of mind. Enough already, he said. Enough.

Simple as That

With the heart as your guide you listen enough to find what you desire, but then, as is the way of things, an obstacle drops between you and it: a monster, a block the size of those of those holding the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza, or a running rapid full of hungry crocodiles. Your work, should you choose to accept it, on your path to becoming fully human, is to fill in the rest of the story with the wrestling match between your courage and your fear, that and the actions you take to win happiness. You know that a thread lined with gold runs under, through, and around the heartbreak, turning fear into joy. The trick is to sharpen your attention enough to see it, even in the darkest midnight of no moon, and then to leave the comfort of what you already know, usually into the teeth of a howling wind. It's the only way, sorry to say. And you're the only one to do the deed. Your curriculum was printed at birth, tucked neatly behind your dreams, and lost to memory. It left a clue that waits in the mystery of the right note, the right word, at the right time.