Quantum Muse

I have fallen in and out of love in a day, having a life-long affair between dawn and dusk. I gave a week out of respect for the dead months-years? Lifetimes?-before I actually said goodbye. I was with someone for twelve years upon our first kiss. It was a week ago my daughter was the length of my forearm. Two days before that, I graduated from high school, vowing to never set foot there again. Two days from now, my little girl will be a grown woman, telling me she's met the love of her life, and asking me not use their skull as a trophy. I had coffee with my grandmother, even though she's been ashes for years.

Time is an abstract. I have looked into the jaws of entropy and the belly of oblivion. It's one and the same.

A picture book of Africa, given to me by my great grandmother, sits on a shelf in my house. Lifetimes ago, I wanted to be a zoologist and live there. There are those who playfully accuse me of being as obsessed with the Mother Land, which was once called the Dark Continent, as I am with the mountain enclave I've come to call home. I knew someone who would say we all have our Africas, just as I say we all have our Kashmirs. Snake chasing its tale, things have come full circle.

Although I don't believe in fate, I sometimes catch myself wondering. The universe works in queer and amusing ways. I'll be sixty and still wearing that ratty flannel robe. I'll have been to and from Africa at least twice, if not more. Until then, I'll revel in the moment, enjoying the fact my heart is still beating and I still draw breath.