When I die will I be able to revere myself?
Will I amble down a mid afternoon sidewalk among old rooted trees, poetic sooth sayers, and recall ahhhhhh?
Will I stop and receive my soulful flower playing hide and seek finally revealing its beauty in extraordinary ordinariness?
Will I stumble and mumble over thoughts of lost, overwhelming, depressive and anguished time?
Will I be able to sit in the cathedral I built, a shrine to the sky in all its towering uniqueness and bow down?
Will I look at all the labyrinthine roadways and offramps with endless wayfinders beckoning toward hope and salvation?
Will I open the cellar doors of my heart and descend into my coddling darkness feeling my body dissolve with each step?
Will I "let be" all the moments I stood powerless like an icecube waiting to melt and rejoin my ocean?
Will I re-remember the girls I didn't kiss, the bosses I didn't say no to, the wife I avoided, the family I left... the child I locked in his comfortable sanctuary?
Will I have the courage to gently remove my designer victim glasses gently and feel the morning sunrise tickle my cheeks?
Will the perfumed chicken and goat filled Guatemalan buses revive my senses like bacon, hashbrowns and eggs slowly frying among coffee whisps?
Will the chance meetings of wonder and eternal awe reappear like the meandering whaleshark beneath my flippers or the expansive manta ray hypnotizing me or the unassuming Vietnamese Zen doctor showing me how a clay face changes with every finger or thumb stroke?
Will the unexpectancy of my son's arrival by c-section allowing me to touch, sing and behold this yellow miracle for the first hours of his life stand in equality to this moment sitting on my couch, feeling the pillows beneath my back and enjoying the bareness of my barefeet?
Will the steps in my life, the grand staircases and the dirty muddy ditches refuse to normalize or equalize but instead harmonize as ingredients do in our family's favorites peanut butter chocolate chip oatmeal cookies (crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside)?
Will my tattoos of abandonment and rejection shine with the same grandeur as the gifts they gave birth to, nurtured and cared for?
Will my friends lost, friends devoured and friends to be discovered remain more like a box of chocolates - some remain forever within me while others do not?
Will the financial woes of making it in this world and my beautiful lizard brain find a comfy rocking chair to settle in and admire the benevolence of staying alive as long as possible not out of fear but to find , really find this moment?
Will I remain in the hearts and minds of others or will I rejoin them, hug them, share an aunt quilted blanket, have popcorn with dill pickle topping and find timelessness again?
...before I die?