Breakfast with Sylvia

The outdoor billboard declares: “NO MASKS OR VIRUS HERE!”

Finally, a place that serves a decent breakfast, minus the humiliation of temperature checks and forced sanitizing. No scraps of virus riding piggyback on strips of bacon; no waitresses sneezing Covid laced pollen my way. A pre-pandemic breakfast, the way it used to be. Great money making concept, I think to myself. Breakfasts of yesteryear!

The meal is perfect! A fluffy wrap of sunshiny yellow egg stuffed with spinach, onion, mushroom,and cheddar, with strips of crispy bacon, and a side of hot cakes drizzled with a sweet maple syrup that is to die for. I’m in breakfast heaven!

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The big one

The end of our world arrived on that day, just like the day before, during the early dawn, when the sun was a faint glow on the east horizon. We’d already packed our bags, just the basics: a few outfits, toothbrushes and paste, a bar of soap to share, medications, and one book each for me and my Mary—something to read while on the run. There wasn’t much else we could carry or had time to pack, not knowing the status of things from hour to hour. We’d find food somewhere, not a meal, but something to hold us over—if need be.

The big one was on the way, again. The message blaring over our smartphones; the whine of sirens; the emergency broadcast system counting down the minutes and seconds in high definition—repetitive instructions from a virtual voice and human appearing avatar, like a YouTube video in continuous loop mode..

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Our stories

“There are the stories we tell ourselves, and the stories we tell others. Some of them may even be true. But what are the stories which are storying their way through our daily lives and of which we are mostly if not wholly unaware?”
~James Hollis

The three stories:

1) The same old story that you assume is happening again. In reality or imagination, this is the all too familiar theme or pattern that seems to follow you like a stalker, recycling itself over and over, chapter after chapter, from cradle to grave. You whine and complain about its apparent return, playing its victim at times, but it is your Old Faithful, always reliable as an excuse or crutch when all else fails in your life.

2) The story of fulfillment and happy endings that you wish were happening. This is your version of the healing, heroic, romantic journey that you’ve dreamed about from childhood onward. The story evolves with the changing times and circumstances, but remains true to its original theme. You dream of it, hope for it, and search for it, but assume the low probability of its fruition.

3) The real story that is actually happening or unfolding throughout your life: A convoluted plot with characters and themes that appear, disappear, and sometimes reappear again, often without any apparent rhyme or reason. Creating one’s personal story from this bigger, more chaotic story, is a challenge without end, as the real world is in constant flux, without loyalty to what we’d like to believe about it.

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Butterflies and red flags

“When all you know is fight or flight, red flags and butterflies all feel the same.”
~ Cindy Cherie

The more you desire someone, the more you fear being ruined or destroyed by your vulnerabilities to them. Your early butterflies, slowly but insidiously, transforming into red flags. In the heat of your desire and need, your fear becomes exaggerated; and you make the decision to either fight the invisible enemies within, take flight from them, or do both. The irony being that either way, the fight or flight pushes away what you wanted or thought you needed, your fear being the real enemy.

Alternative version: Free verse

The object of desire is your greatest vulnerability; the path to your elusive joy or inevitable ruin: recycled and reimagined.

Early butterflies—slowly but insidiously—transform into the red flags of paranoia. The fear of loss and humiliation enclosing you like a vice grip.

In the heat of desire and neediness, you fight or take flight from the invisible enemies within: the delusions of demons who would steal your joy or facilitate your shame. And this will assuredly keep you separated from your object of desire; your fear and paranoia being the most crafty of enemies.

The enigma of fear

“…it is certain that the problem of fear is the meeting point of many important questions, an enigma whose complete solution would cast a flood of light upon psychic life.”
~ Sigmund Freud

The mind revises and sometimes denies our experiences of reality, deciding that we are better off not knowing some things, for the sake of self-preservation. When we attempt to know these things, fear—in one form or another—stops us dead in our tracks. There is no technique, therapy, or form of psychoanalysis that successfully outwits or penetrates this barrier of fear. The mind has its reasons for keeping secrets, guarding them as if our lives hang in the balance.