All of us bent on getting something right, which means all of us scared of getting something wrong, which means all of us confused about what it means to just be. Well, I, too, spend hours sitting on a zafu through end-of-night dark and then the half-light of dawn, counting my breaths, visualizing the open heart of Buddha, and pretending that I’m not fantasizing about fucking you in the barn, or writing this or that essay, or baking this or that cake/loaf of bread/et cetera. Whatevs, as the kids say. A soft light in which horses move as through a mist and it’s all okay and always was. If you ask what softens, you’ll get a kind of answer that may or may not facilitate softening. The eroticism of removing our shoes because of how it means everything else is coming off soon too. That dance and no other. Blue jays are hectic in the early morning in ways that I specifically am not, but one should not draw any conclusions thusly. Show me before and after – bring it forth clearly my dear – lest I die of thirst in a country where the people have no word for water.