I Swear to God, Virtue Is Its Own Reward
Two things make me feel good. One: doing what I’m supposed to do. After I complete the stultifyingly boring/annoying errands on my list of things to do – like paying bills, or getting my oil changed, or other things involving pieces of paper and machinery – it makes me feel good. Y’all already know this feeling, I’m sure.
But number two is helping people. It makes me feel good to do that. It doesn’t happen often, but if I can help someone else unexpectedly and without needing anything in return, and if it makes that person grateful and happy, then that’s a high I can’t get from anything else. It’s like the inverse of a control freak high – of what some people must feel when they have someone else in their power and then they abuse that power. Sometimes, there is a situation that I can influence. Sometimes, I use my powers to influence that situation for the benefit of someone I deem deserving.
That power is super-heroic. I am Superman. I am Mother Nature. This is your proof that I deserve to be Supreme Empress of the World – I am benevolent.
Also, living your life in such a way – in a good way – means that no one can have anything on you, ever. If I were to run for president tomorrow, you could point to me and say a lot of dirty things. You could hire a bunch of bitchy old men to call me trashy, slutty, or indiscriminate in my choice of acquaintances. They could tell you that I’m conceited, selfish, godless, or inappropriately outspoken. But no one can ever point to me and say, “When Gwen had opportunities to help people in need, she just sat on her ass watching TV, or else she engaged in a bunch of schemes to make her rich friends richer while the middle class got poorer.” No, not me. And of that fact, I am proud. I don’t have much, but I have my integrity, right here, intact, in my hands.
Strongly Felt Sensations of This Morning
The parking garage here is like a video game. It takes skill to apply just the right amount of pressure to the gas and the brake, swirling up and up, reflexively avoiding the pedestrians, the unseeing SUVs that reverse into your path, and the stupid cell-phone-conversation-having Volvos that fail to yield. The hard robotic bass throbs in your ears as you kick this game’s ass and then park to collect your high score. Wait… there isn’t one. Oh, well.
Outside it’s beautiful and green. If you don’t like warm Marches – warm Februaries, Januaries, and Decembers – then you probably shouldn’t have come to Houston and I won’t listen to you complaining anymore. No. While you whine your mantra, “I miss snow I miss seasons I miss Kansas Toto,” I silently give thanks to all my gods for the green and the warmth. Thank you, Sun. Thank you, Spring. Thank you, God. Thank you, Equator. Thank you, Green. Thank you, Virgin Mary, who I have never believed to be a virgin. Thank you, Houston. Thank you, Plastic Baby Jesus with the chipped-paint smile, underneath the Christmas tree, here where it’s warm on Christmas.
When I come inside, it’s into the beige womb of a mean, cold, money-grubbing mother. The deeper I go, the more the walls of this place filter the sunlight into a dusty, spore-ridden, asbestos-y substance that burns my contact lenses and bleaches/leeches the life right out of my face through my quickly drying skin. Will lipstick help? No. Will a coffee break help? No. Will Monster.com help? Not so far.
When I have the opportunity to courier important pieces of paper to my betters, I linger in their doorways and use their windows to see that sky. I joke with myself in my mind about running and crashing through those windows, not to fall twenty stories to death and rescue, no, but to shake off the glass and fly away. A medium-sized black bird flying over the grass and fountains to the vine-webbed bayou that’s right there for me to see, for me to be wild in. It’s holding the trees that will hold me when I sing. I see the other birds going there now. Wait for me, y’all. I’ll be out of here at 4:45.
Tomorrow, me and my baby birds are are going to fly to the beach. Sunday, we’re flying to the park. No matter what happens inside all the beige walls, it can’t make me stop loving Spring. And I strongly suspect that it loves us back. So there.
