Worrywart

And then I looked up, and the answer was right there. Begs the question, what was I looking at before? Madly, sometimes maniacally scouring the nooks and crannies of my mind, and every drawer and box in this house filled with both. Looking under mattresses and stacks of salvaged wrapping paper.

Then it came time to ask you. At first, in a vague way, so that the question itself was hidden. Do you happen …? Have you seen my …? Might you have come across …? All that mumbling followed soon by the time to blame you. For taking or hiding the solution. For refusing to tell me. For losing it. Maybe throwing it out with the trash by mistake or folding it up and stuffing it into the pocket of the ugly shirt you ended up giving to the thrift shop.

Of course, followed by a burdensome apology. How silly I am. How ridiculous. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.

I have a microscope and a telescope, as well as a beautiful set of binoculars. Oh, and I have a jar of reading glasses of varying strengths. Everything necessary to find anything necessary (and not).

So enamored by the idea of the right solution, I may search for hours or days, even to the point that I forget what exactly I am looking for. Still, I must find it. Guided by worry rather than curiosity, I break my nails trying to pry open the locks. What is the destination of my worry? The exact origin of anxiety? The real truth behind my defenses, sadness, and weak knees? Is it clinical, spiritual, ancestral, mathematical, psychological, or just my bad attitude?

Wait, where is that music coming from? A car radio on full volume, and chimes, and dogs in the distance, and crows screeching just overhead. A great dissonance of sound. Nobody is waiting for permission to be heard.

And when I look up, the answer is right there. A tiny insect making its way across my kitchen window. Such a long and arduous journey, I think. In my imagination, she is neither tense nor defeated. She cannot be bullied, though she can be crushed. She keeps going. We let each other be. It is what there is to do. An essential part of the ecology of love, no matter her direction. No matter mine.

“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.” ― Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience