ISawArkansas

A friend of mine had just been given the dreaded diagnosis, and we were out in the May sunshine laughing. I told her I read in The Economist that morning that smokers didn’t get covid.

She laughed and lit up and died of smoking too much for too long several days later.

She looked forward to what she called her transition – “Finally!” she said after being told she would die soon. “I’ve been looking forward to this for years!”

We didn’t use our remaining time under the hackberry, where we spent spring, summer and fall afternoons talking fast while the tree grew slow, on anything any different than we always had – wondering what in the world this life is about.

She remembered information from high school in the Mississippi Delta about Hercules being told 3000 years ago to take the belt of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. She had a leather belt given her by the god of war, and Hercules was ordered to acquire it as one of his 12 labors.

Hippolyta was planning to give Hercules the belt, but he didn’t know that, so he simply killed her and took it. It was murdering people that got him into hot water to start with, thus the 12 labors.

“Sometimes we just make weird mistakes, and anger and fear are our go-to crutches for placing blame,” my friend said.

This came up because a couple of days before, Trump tweeted that he inherited empty cupboards from Obama, so he really couldn’t do anything to help anyone who got sick. Was he bent on justifying his shortcomings because accepting purity as a way of life has passed over him like an August cloud?

We shrugged. We knew it wasn’t just him.

People, people with perceived power in particular, seem to have a hard time keeping their end of pacts and pledges – “then was then, now is now” – “prove it” – “I never said that!” “You should be grateful!” and all the other bilge that never gives direction or closure.

Is stubbornness an attribute? Is deception? Is denial?

It’s a high to recognize and attain fair and proper information, it’s an anxiety to be hoodwinked.

We already know that we want to be one thing, but allow ourselves to be treated as another. Is that the root of our discord? Are our only choices to fight, be used, or lose? Should we watch Harold and Maude again?

People are our species. We are really smart primates and dominant on Earth and proficient at surplus killing. We’re not the most murdery or hurtful of mammals, but we’re contenders.

After being given free will, a conscience, a blueprint to develop personality and character, a social security number, why do we still insist on taking the hard way through this life?

We do know some stuff because wherever we go, we take ourselves with us.

It was this tendency to spend more time telling others how to behave than behaving ourselves that got us going that final May day under the hackberry.

We talked about how everyone, poor or rich, already has what they’ve chosen to share. Their perception, their outlook, their advice, their gift.

So why wouldn’t that be what we’ve been looking forward to for years?