MUSINGS and other writing by Mark Kolke

. . . . . . there is no edge to openness

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ARCHIVE WINTER 2020-21

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IT’S ABOUT TIME

Sunday, December 20, 2020 
 
 
I cannot breathe long enough to make all thinkable mistakes.
 
I need to learn from others’ fumbles and miscalculations. That made sense when I was younger. But there isn’t as much time or runway in front of me …
 
I struggle to fix everything I should repair, be undone, or unwound within me, and nobody can help me with that. Nobody would want to help me with that.
 
That’s the mental struggle.
 
Some days I wonder if that is making me a better person, better writer, or better anything, or not. This is undefined, perhaps genius or insanity – somedays it feels like I vacillate between the two in hopes of finding some average-middle ground, but these things don’t seem to average out. It’s not the total divided by two.
 
It’s less than that, less about things, and more about time.
 
Live, re-live, start over, live, re-live.
 
Love, re-love, start over, love, re-love.
 
Write, re-write, start over, write, re-write.
 
Painting a picture – trying to examine more closely because transitions in ages and stages of life, love, and work are so intermingled they are like ingredients in something I’m cooking. At first, you can see them, but then they are the new thing created, a mixed mashed-up blend of everything that makes a new thing that never existed before.
 
Life, it seems, is a recipe – part ingredients, part process, part heat, and sometimes cold.
 
There is so much to look forward to and hope for – but first, we must live through this bleak winter ahead. Nearly everyone will get vaccinated, and almost everyone will survive – that’s the best-case scenario.
 
The worst case is unknown.



 
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