July 18: Bestirred Herself, the Future, Twice Upon a Time

Now that the broken egg was buried, the air cleared and the barn smelled good again.  The afternoon passed, and evening came.  Shadows lengthened.  The cool and kindly breath of evening entered through doors and windows.  Astride her web, Charlotte sat moodily eating a horsefly and thinking about the future.  After a while she bestirred herself.

This passage is quite reflective.  Even Charlotte seems under some kind of spell.  The future looms on the fringes of the sentences like shadows in the Zuckerman barn.  I don't think Charlotte is nervous or frightened of what is to come.  She's moody, hungry to take charge of Wilbur's fate.  In a lot of ways, Charlotte is the architect of everybody's lives in the book.  A little gray god sitting in a cobweb.

It's really easy to fear the future.  The unknown is scary.  I would prefer to have a map of every moment.  That way, I would know what to expect.  I would have known that I was going to have to get a new job.  I would have expected not to be hired full-time by the university.   My brother's death.  The brake job on my car.  My sister's broken wrist.  None of these things would have caught me by surprise.  I would have been prepared.

I am here to say that I'm trying not to be afraid of the future.  All the time I've taken to submit my poems for publication, find publishers for my new books, and enter writing contests, those are investments in hope.  I have things to hope for, and hope is a pretty good antidote to fear.  Sure, I'm still nervous about the coming school year, my new medical office job, my teaching at the university.  But, right now, I'm optimistic about my chances for happiness.

Once upon a time, a young poet made a wish on a falling star.  "I wish," the poet said, "I knew what was going to happen to me every day."

The poet woke up the next day and ate oatmeal, went to work at the local apothecary, came home, ate some leftover mutton, and went for a walk by the lake where he saw a falling star.  "I wish," the poet said, "I knew what was going to happen to me every day."

The poet woke up the next day and ate oatmeal, went to work at the local apothecary, came home, ate some leftover mutton, and went for a walk by the lake where he saw a falling star.  "I wish," the poet said, "I knew what was going to happen to me every day."

The poet woke up the next day and ate oatmeal, went to work at the local apothecary, came home, ate some leftover mutton, and went for a walk by the lake where he saw a falling star.  "I wish," the poet said, "I knew what was going to happen to me every day."

You get the idea.

Moral of the story:  oatmeal is good for you.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after, and after, and after, and after...

Be careful what you wish for...