Sometimes I think the only way to balance is to chop up an onion and dice a chili and turn down any request offered to help in the kitchen. For the cooking can be a salvation, for me at least and the more I chop the more the stress that I construe in my mind evaporates and becomes a small entity that no longer matters or appears to matter.

But all the clouds in this place can come tumbling in and leave no sense of place or peace despite all the chopping and meditation. Especially on a rainy day when grey dominates and causes the tiny cube we live in to be twice as small. I try to keep my eye on Spain but it is still two weeks away. How incredibly transient we humans can be. Fall to the slightest pain. Cave in at self-doubting. Purse ones lips to unresolvable descent.

I try to see beyond the small walls. Look into the crevices for air. Dig into the soil for salvation. Cloaks of the past come floating by, big and black, hovering like bats. I try to ignore them but they are persistent. Pressing in on me as if to suffocate. No let up in June. No matter how hard I try. 

I voice my search for alternatives but none come back to me. The listening board is closed. I look at the others in their costumes and find that there is no answer. I am lost. Floating. Knowing my destiny but without a compass. I must find it now. I must find a resolution. Nobody will give it to me. And so I float like a piece of flotsam, lost in the waves, trusting the tide, knowing that if I don't try to change, it all will come askew and I will be flailing my arms about like a total fool with nobody to hear me. My hair tangled in seaweed. My skin bruised from the rocks close to the shore.