Cool

Beck knocks to ask if he can join me in the three seasons room at 6 a.m. A new shared sweetness of dawn.

Bluejays creating and acting out a raucous so much so that I need my headphones deaden the screeching pitch.

An Amtrak train creeping east to west alongside Chicago Drive, blowing its A-minor chord to honor every cross(ing).

Later, lakeside, before the wilds take over, I remembered long summer days with no one to play with. Floating in the shape of a cross, ears underwater, the sun would warm my body a few inches below the water's surface. I know Jesus suffered when he was crucified but when I was outstretched fully in the water, free of the events of the world, I wondered: at the very end, in the moment just before he left his body, did it feel like floating on the lake, midsummer, no sound but his own labored breathing, eyes closed, fully opened unto the last first kiss?

At the table, I tell the group about this psychologist who gave clients beta-blockers after exposing them to their debilitating fears. This would reset the memory pathways of that event and erase the fear. A first hand account was given by a man who was so scared of spiders that he spent literally 95% of his waking hours checking every right angle he encountered for spiders. After qualifying for the psychologist's trial, he was exposed in a closed room to a tarantula. While being filmed and vitals recorded, he almost literally dies of a heart attack. He is given the beta blocker and the next day, he is exposed to the spider chamber once again. No negative reaction, only curiosity. He literally holds the spider.

I finish the account and everyone was like, “cool.”

And I was like, “seriously?”

But finally, tomatoes! Lovely Romas nested in my palm like a cosmic egg.

Somewhere in the world, this is way more than cool.