Do you ever get the passing crazies? Like something in the dark suddenly reached out and struck you, and then you feel a lava rock with its own gravity rocketing throughout your insides? I guess I’m saying that happens to me. I used to panic. It would speak and I would halt. Listen. Bow, and then, fall. Now I sit with it. We have tea, break bread, and converse. Sometimes I have the courage to ask what it is doing here. Sometimes it answers. Sometimes the answer is meaningful; other times, it is a raging mouthful of gobbledygook that needs to be swiftly shut down.

 It can be very pushy if you do not force it to sit calmly with you, or send it on its way.

Either way, it passes.

Sometimes quick and smoothly, like it was planning on passing through all along. “I knew I was going to be in the neighborhood and I just wanted to say hi and drop off this casserole.”

Sometimes it vacates too slowly, drawing out the last inch of your patience, sanity, and well-being. “This is my house now, motherfucker.”

For today, it remains my house. I dispose of the casserole, because I have seen the way that thing lives and I’m not willing to risk it. The speeding lava rocks slow and dissolve into piles of ash I brush into a dustpan, and the debris joins the casserole far away from where I dwell.

I finish business for the day, turning the momentary discomfort and terror into a simple success story.

The “crazies” it has always been, “passing” is an earned title, practically on par with a doctoral denomination.

I go on to be normal—I wrap it up and cautiously travel home, enjoying a slight but rather slippery snowfall. I am met by very few passerbyers during my shuffle. Eventually I entered my quiet toy house and was greeted by my tiny plastic cat.

Keith calls, and shortly after, joins me at the homestead.

We chat. We laugh. We offer advice.

And somewhere down the line, not necessarily today (although it was seen this day), I became the kind of person who would grind up a bit of top round to make ground beef for an overly stuffed tortilla crunchwrap with all the commercial fixings produced in some makeshift way. Before I am halfway done, I am begging Keith to take the other half. He refuses. Salmon King. The other half goes away. Passing other half. We watch tv until my bedtime (I don’t wanna be uprights no mores).

It is always worth trying to break free of those moments of agony that feel like they are never going to pass, no matter how long they have lingered. Sometimes, they move on, and when they do, you do.

Make of this what you will, and thank you for passing through.

^{January 28th, 2024}

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