In The Beer

The worst sin - perhaps the only sin - passion can commit, is to be joyless.

Dorothy Sayers
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Hello Diane
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Troublesome times are still floating in my glass of beer. Unanswered questions plague my heart. I can't bear being tricked.

I posed the question should I cry in my beer or laugh in my wine. The consensus of opinions seems to be that I should do both. The sound that you hear is me opening a beer.

We are now in the time of mid winter. This is and has always been a very grim time for me as it is for many people. The Farmers Almanac says that by February 5 I should have half of my wood still left and half of my hay. But it doesn't say anything about my spirit. As the song says "This weather makes a man feel old."

I try to think about the future. I don't like to think about the past or the present. The past is full of regrets and the future is full of fears. I carry with me every day all the passions of a reconstructed teenager. But with the added burdens of a life time of accumulated knowledge. I know better than to expect happiness and harmony every staggered step I take down the street. But I don't know myself well enough to know how to avoid the rocks and puddles of my own feelings.

Why have I removed my heart from my sleeve and left it out on the front porch? Why does my imagination which allows me to write and paint and dream also construct sorrowful scenarios to plague me like daemons? I hide, like Scrooge, from a wicked world, but without Scrooge's money. I take pleasure in small things but ignore the dangers in the bigger ones.

Inside this mortal lump of clay my passions bubble and foam, like the beer in this glass, for a pure and happy life, contentment, peace and certainty. And joy. I want, but don't expect them. I expect the opposite. Threats, shocks, pain, and trouble. And sorrow.

Why should that be? I know I deserve better. I deserve not to be cheated out of my joy. In all the tumbling I've done in and out of righteousness over the years I have at least learned to laugh at my foolishness and discipline my thoughts. Then why am I sitting here right now, today, in fear and sadness over things I can't control?

I don't know what the future is, who does? But I know I have one and I want it to be better than the present. Today I will hide in the bottle. Tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that I will face the pain and take the staggering steps necessary to make some brighter day appear, I hope.

DB - Vagabond
Never give up.
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