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Flash Epistle Number Twelve
The last, best place is a thicket in the mind where the heart can run to hide and refit. The heart hunkers down, eats and imbibes to excess, refilling itself with the soul’s food and drink, clearing the head and remembering how to think. Surrealistic clarity emerges. How much flotsam and jetsam can one head carry before the need to purge normalcy and the modern detritus becomes necessary? When your spiritual cup runneth over, it’s time to flee. Stop examining your life. Give Socrates a solid kick in the balls. Wisdom, however vital, can become a drag. Do what works for you: meditate, eat leeks, listen to Eric Dolphy, bathe your naked ass in sun, masturbate with scholarly intensity. Rest silently and contemplate whipped cream, strong coffee, illustrious orgasms, why vulvas resemble orchids, the Statue of Liberty, who really is buried in Grant’s tomb, and why your cat puts up with you. Whatever leads you back to ground zero. Become blissfully blank. Relearn the language you spoke before birth, empty and serene as night sky over desert. There is one Path to the thicket, but many roads to choose from. Hide out in that thicket like Ned Kelly, the James Boys, John Dillinger on the run. Blessed are the quirky of thought for they shall become outlaws. Revel in your exile. Be cunning, quiet and free. Stoke the flames of your diminished imagination. When your brain is restored, and the posse of conformity has given up, slip from that thicket, back to the world, and be.
