questions mark these times; times marked by questions.

Question mark question mark question mark.

Oh the punctuation that hovers like no other!

Where will I be living in one week?

Where will I be working in a month or two?

Will I get the job for which I interviewed last week?

Will Stacy with the rental room in fact call or email me back?

Will I be able to be out of my current place in four days?

These are but a handful of questions populating my life … blanks to be filled in … unknowns to be revealed … points of fear and uncertainty mixed with cautious hope and watchful wise jaundiced eye.

People aren’t who they appear to be.

If there’s to be a train wreck, it’ll be the 6:18 PM from Denver to Destination Unknown and the one I’m on.

If there’s a rug to be pulled, it’ll be the one under my feet … a cliff to cling to, the one under my gnawed fingernails, one swollen with paronychis! …a season for all things, well, the Winter of 2008 has persisted long enough, damn it!

How unpredictable is life and rapid its changes. Why, 24 hours ago, I entertained a possible choice of two rental rooms.

Now I wonder whether I’ve got one! And the new addition of whether she who approached me only yesterday with a likely offer will in fact now return my call.

I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know. Like sand through the hourglass, these are the words of these times!

I feel …

like a giant ragdoll held by an unseen force at the ankle being swung and smashed against walls over and over.

Hanging upside down in midair, I barely catch my breath before WHOOMP! wall in my face … breath … WHAP! ouch! that’s my radius! hey I needed that bone! … SMACK! SMUSH SMUSH!! … so much for backbone and shoulder blades!

I grew up taught that we control our lives, direct our paths, move forward on our own volition, advance by self determination and intelligence.

What a crock!

We know nothing of what life might deliver! Might be a beautiful bouncy baby boy or invasive ruinous cancer … a bag of glistening gold coins or impoverishment where daily food is a struggle … a humongous gray boulder to be shouldered alone or iridescent light jewels in all colors of the rainbow that adorn and express dignity and soulful royalty.

We are feeble mortal creatures … insects held by gravity on a giant blue ball floating in space.

We are at the whims of others and the mercy of a divine intelligence … we are butterflies caught on an airstream to be tossed and tumbled like socks in a dryer … we are eagles, but a brushstroke by the windful master artist.

And with four days remaining this month, I still know not where I will be living.

That is fear, that is anxiety, that is worry, that is but one of a thousand question marks …

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