An Essay A Day For A Year
By Roe
Day 54, February 23, 2012
***
I remember a very distinctive night when I was in my twenties, on my multi-year trip around the world. Even though I was exhausted from riding my motorcycle all day, I couldn’t sleep because of one single cricket that was annoying me. Normally the sound of crickets off in the distance at night is soothing, but on that night Mr. Cricket was so close, and so loud, that he was annoying me. I decided that either he or I had to go, and I had already paid my $3 for my Latin American traveler hovel, and Mr. Cricket didn’t pay or register, so I decided he had to go.
If there would have been a hidden camera, and if it were played on Candid Camera or Latin America’s funniest videos, I would have been embarrassed. That night I was just plain mad. I moved every object in the room 12 times, and I looked up, down, and sideways, in every possible place I could. It was as if Mr. Cricket was following me, and as if he was at the same time invisible. It didn’t dawn on me that the clever bug was in fact on me until I went outside with my hammock to sleep, and the chirpy-chirpy followed me. I was in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico, and it was chilly, so I was wearing my long sleeve riding shirt that had a hoody. Mr. Cricket was inside my hoody, and whenever he had room to move his wings, which was randomly, he would chirp. I would then spin around and head behind me in the direction of the noise, and on and on it would go. Duh.
Even though I was beyond frustrated and mad, I reached in and aided the giant, ugly thing out of his hiding place, and he just sat there looking at me. No doubt he thought I was a giant, ugly thing, I thought. I’m sure that I was more afraid of him than he was of me. Since I had already hung my hammock between two trees, I just sat down to watch him below me in the dirt. He hopped over to and inside my smelly traveler’s sandal, and returned to his nighttime sonata, not giving a chirp that I was there. What a selfish, arrogant little bug he was, I thought. At least he could be afraid, or respectful, or alert that I was there. I could display to him my formidable prowess as the very likeness of God himself, I thought, and squish him, or not. That was the moment when I began to laugh with my funniest videos audience. A bug with green goo for brains just made a fool out of the king of the world, and his reaction was to not even notice that I was there or care. Huh!
It was at that moment that I realized that I was in a world where God was a very clever and self absorbed cricket! I was hanging between two robust and over fertile avocado trees, and so no doubt I was in a world where God was a fat, ripe, avocado! I mean no disrespect to the God fearers, even though fearing God is an oxymoron. My point is that if you are in fact a point, then God is in fact a point! Even though I didn’t believe in God, and still don’t, I was sure that no God could be conceited or arrogant, or self centered, so then all creatures and objects must have their own God, or be God! What an epiphany. I was sure that even epiphanies have their own Gods.
The notion that God could or would make any creature or thing in His eyes or form, and not in everyone or everything else’s eyes or form, is self serving hallucination, I thought. I imagined the American and Soviet arrogant bullies finally nuking us humans to oblivion, and Mr. Cricket wouldn’t give a chirp. He would just continue on calling his mate, and believing that he was made in the eyes of God. And now he had proof, since he survived nuclear Armageddon, and the giant, ugly humans simply vaporized. The whole idea made me feel so insignificant, and so powerless, and I thought that God was insignificant and powerless too if I was him or her. The entire flora and fauna of our planet wouldn’t care if we lived or died. As a matter of fact, Mother Earth would be more successful at healing herself and restoring balance if we did all die, I imagined. I thought if there was a God or Goddess or lots of them, they would be fair, and just, and true to all things living and seemingly inanimate.
I realized that day that if there is a God or Goddess, then all we creations have the same humble value and precedence. It wouldn’t be fair at all if Mr. Cricket was king, and therefore I must not be king either. It wouldn’t be fair at all if the big, fat, overripe Avocado was God or Goddess, for the little baby mango right across the courtyard deserves the same importance. I remember hanging out with a bunch of fellow world travelers at the ruins of Palenque, Mexico, where the infamous, large, magic hallucinogenic mushrooms grow. While on a trip to the Gods and Goddesses in his brain, a self proclaimed shaman-in-training announced that a trillion years ago some aliens visited Earth to mine for radioactive fuel, and while they were eating their alien sandwiches, a one celled bacteria escaped. “A trillion years later, here we all are on this fucking amazing mess we call life on Earth man!”, he said. A huge philosophical debate ensued between a dozen mushroom travelers, and I wondered if some bible would be written of that momentous birth of truth that night.
That night while I was watching Mr. Cricket I thought of that whacked out traveler, and I realized that one celled alien sandwich bacteria’s must have their own God’s and Goddesses too. If there is a God or Goddess or lots of them, then we are all them, I thought. All of us are God’s and Goddesses. Just like the amoeba. Mr. Cricket and the magic mushrooms live and die, come and go, chirp us and take us to alien gods in our brains, and they don’t give a chirp or 'shroom about the notion of anything but Life. Maybe Life is God and Goddess I thought?
Maybe that fermented pineapple moonshine that the old woman who rented me my cricket room gave me is the problem! That’s it! “Guaro” must be God and Goddess and lots of them. Maybe I’ll figure this all out if I mix the magic mushrooms with the guaro! That is the last thing I remember before falling asleep in my hammock. In the morning I found myself on the ground under the hammock as usual. Gringo’s aren’t designed to sleep in hammocks. I looked around for my sandals, and I found them inside my room under my bed. My riding shirt with the hoodie was draped over my motorcycle, and I had a headache.
I still smile thinking about Mr. Cricket. Whether I dreamed of Mr. Cricket as God, or whether I was in fact the God dream of Mr. Cricket, that is yet to be determined. I remember hearing in Spanish from across the alley when I arrived at the boarding house, “she is a witch, don’t stay there or drink her moonshine!” I remember thinking in the morning that homemade pineapple moonshine must be the nectar of all Gods and headaches. As I packed my things in the morning, the “witch”, as she was called, made me a breakfast of crickets fried in oil and lemon juice, a delicacy of Oaxaca, and a salad with huge avocados, and baby green mangoes. I didn’t eat breakfast. The old lady just smiled at me, somehow satisfied.
As I rode away on my motorcycle I looked back at my very weird, epiphany producing boarding house, and I laughed. “La Chapulina” was painted above her door. “The lady Cricket”. Me and the Gods and Goddesses have never been the same since.
See you tomorrow.
yourpersonalmuse@gmx.com
No comments:
Post a Comment