Try

Try to have a good day today, wherever you are, whatever you do, whoever is near, if no one is near. Try to be happy, because you may not see tomorrow. There is someone this morning, who didn’t wake up, who will never see this day. Try to feel lucky that this is not you.

There is someone who is in a jail cell, has been for many years, who never committed a crime, who is being punished for something s/he did not do, would not ever do in her/his wildest, most barren and feverish nightmares, who cannot see the sky, will not hope to see the sky, for to hope for this is too sad to think about. The sky is too much to ask for, and may possibly be until the end of her/his life.

Try to be kind, because there is such a lack of kindness everywhere, and if you could generate just a little, it would mean everything to someone else. You may never know how much it would help, because we cannot measure the amount of joy we give one another. Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else’s life forever. You never know, which is both beautiful and maddening.

Try to understand, that someone today is waking up, and realizing he is married to a man, and he is reeling in disbelief, because he is a man, and he and this man are in love, possibly in a way you never have been but someday wish to be, just like in the movies, where love is solid and sure, without questions or doubts, just there, hanging in the air, like love is supposed to be, and he is looking at his husband, fast asleep next to him, and he is afraid to make a sound or move, because he is so happy and he will not shatter this perfect moment for all the world.

Try to feel good, because there is someone who does not feel good, has not for some time, who knows that the days of not feeling well are numbered as the pain mounts. The frailty of the body is an unavoidable fact. If you have the good fortune to have strength, to get out of bed, to walk, to eat, to laugh, to kiss someone else uninvited yet nonetheless welcome, then you should take what you have been given, even though you might not realize it is a fantastic gift.

Try to be grateful, because someone else just reached for someone they loved this morning, only to be reminded, that they are no longer there. Just a cold space between the blankets and sheets remain, and the habit of reaching out for them has become a terrible one, like putting your hand in a fire, but a million times worse, because the depth of the pain not only hurts in its shock and immediacy, it reminds them of what they have lost, and will not ever have again in the same way. Those interrupted dreams, when they are forgetful of the present, still sleeping in the past, because sometimes it takes dream time a long time to catch up to real time, are a terrible thing to reckon with, and if you do not have to wake up to that today, count your blessings.

Try to put your happiness before anyone else’s, because you may never have done so in your entire life, if you really think about it, if you are really honest with yourself. If you are not selfish, at least a little, if you do not put your own desires first, take your wishes and put them on the top of your list, can you really live at all? How can you know who you are if you never allow yourself to want and have what you want and do not allow yourself to have? How can you know anyone else? How can you make anyone else happy? You will only placate them until you are finished with the days, the dawns, the dusks, the sky, the moon. Don’t you then deprive them of the experience of you? Don’t you then deprive all the world of you, your glory and magnificence? Show yourself. We need to see you. You need to see you.

Try to love someone who you want to hate, because they are just like you, somewhere inside, in a way you may never expect, in a way that resounds so deeply within you that you cannot believe it. This communion, is the true lovely sweetness of the nature of humanity, that really, when we remove all the artifice, the posturing, the reactions, the politics, the assumptions, the rage, the grudge, the hypocrisy, the prejudice, the lies, we are all the same, like chocolates in a heart shaped box, soft in the center.

Try. Just today, for yourself, for everyone. Today, this is all I have to give. Can you try for me in return? Most importantly, try not to forward this shit to anyone. I am just kidding.

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