We Did Not Make Ourselves
by Michael Dickman September 1, 2008

We did not make ourselves is one thing
I keep singing into my hands
while falling
asleep

for just a second

before I have to get up and turn on all the lights in the house, one after the
other, like opening an Advent calendar

My brain opening
the chemical miracles in my brain
switching on

I can hear

dogs barking
some trees
last stars

You think you’ll be missed
it won’t last long
I promise

I’m not dead but I am
standing very still
in the back yard
staring up at the maple
thirty years ago
a tiny kid waiting on the ground
alone in heaven
in the world
in white sneakers

I’m having a good time humming along to everything I can still remember
back there

How we’re born

Made to look up at everything we didn’t make

We didn’t
make grass, mosquitoes
or breast cancer

We didn’t make yellow jackets

or sunlight

either

I didn’t make my brain
but I’m helping
to finish it

Carefully stacking up everything I made next to everything I ruined in broad
daylight in bright
brainlight

This morning I killed a fly
and didn’t lie down
next to the body
like we’re supposed to

We’re supposed to

Soon I’m going to wake up

Dogs
Trees
Stars

There is only this world and this world

What a relief

created

over and over

It’s really like this!

These are the things that caught my eye while I was capturing video today…

After living alone for two years, I’ve returned to my natural state… I’m not ashamed that I think this is funny! As Benjamin Franklin said… “Fart Proudly!“

Listening to Everything that Happens will Happen Today.

The edit room is a cozy creative space. Clients and producers often ‘open up’ and it seems like I should be charging a therapy fee on top of my normal day rate. The Four Agreements states that words are magic, they can do great good or great harm. The words of a producer popped into my head yesterday as I drove home from the grocery store with the week’s load of bachelor chow. He said that ‘every time there is a divorce, the devil dances with joy.’

Back then, married, I thought it was an odd belief. Now, divorced for a year and a half, I strongly disagree. These words of belief could do incredible harm to those in a flock who need to leave a failed marriage. I think that living in a bad situation is so spiritually harmful that a higher power would HAVE to support ending it. I simply don’t understand the ‘stay together at all costs‘ believers. My guess is that if someone believes that ‘my reward will be in heaven’ then a lifetime of sucking it up is a good trade off. That just dosn’t work for me.

So, once again, I’ll have to disagree with conservatives. The producer that told me that God hates divorce would not be surprised, he knows that I’m a spiritual liberal. The statement that works within my spiritual framework is: ‘The God of my understanding, my higher power, smiles when I take action to heal and grow.’

I thought this was a cool idea… I got it here.