the tangerine is the miracle.
when I say god is loving, that the meek will inherit the earth, I mean that I would like a tangerine, please. that winning might be nice, that playing capitalism is hard not to do, but you will hold onto your resentments forever. when I was 5 and my mother told me to not tell daddy that she bought new shoes, I felt profoundly sad.
I will do anything to avoid confronting my feelings head on. the anxiety is the hardest, and when I close my eyes for hypnotherapy I get so focused on the feeling of my eyes trapped under my eyelids that I give myself a panic attack. my old therapist begged me to sit with my anxiety for awhile, but I was either too concerned with striving to be the best – scared of unravelling – or simply much too afraid of what it felt like.
sometimes I really feel like I've lost a game that I didn't know I was playing. that a perfect life was something I could win – as if stardust isn't a real thing that real researchers study, or as if my fingerprint isn't the only pattern like it in the universe. but on the other hand, we like to think that we're now too smart to panic during a meteor shower, while the white hot matter of stars fall toward us in a terrifying coup. where do they go? we can sigh and thank god we were spared this time.
I don't know anything about god, but I do know how to peel a tangerine. the other day, you asked me if I like Descartes – I think therefore I am. my immediate answer was no, but I haven't articulated in a long time why that is. maybe it's because I'm more of a romantic, or maybe I'm not skeptical enough of existence. I'm skeptical of all the 20 something year olds that are, by assumption only, "doing better than me". I'm skeptical that purpose can be found within capitalism, that life is about maximization and building your career, and that I am also meant to feel bad about myself throughout the entire process if I'm not having as much fun as the next girl. when I look into your eyes and I sink into your gaze, red and warm like a supermassive black hole, suddenly I don't know anything. so I melt like a shooting star.
"the whole cosmos has come together in order to produce this wonderful miracle, which is a tangerine. and only with mindfulness and some concentration, could I recognize the miracle of the tangerine." - thich nhat hanh