19

I sometimes wonder what will come next.

There are times when I know what will happen next. Out of habit, out of planning, out of anticipation. Sometimes you can predict or intimate what is coming, or what is awaiting.

But there are times when I seem wholly unconnected and clueless. Almost as if I've been dropped into my life by aliens, like some bad "B" sci-fi movie, some lost episode of Star-Trek.

Today is one of those days.

The whole world seems foreign. I feel just slightly detatched, separated, yet wholly in-the-world, just slightly removed. Skewed. Isolated.

Today I got to hold a baby. My office was filled with folks ogling two babies and women! Suddenly the place was teeming with energy and life. Little Ellie was gurgling and smiling and grabing my lips, my nose. My face proved to be a great geography for her to explore. For minutes I was the focus of her universe.

There are at least three reactions to what-comes-next: anxiety and fear, the terror and dread of the unknown; delight and enchantment, the rapture of discovery; and a kind if indifference, a nonchalance, a disregard or disinvestment, a lack of engagement.

And as I write this, I look over at my two parakeets, who are hunched and huddled over each other, nodding off, their eyelids slowly closing over their black eyes. They have found a new position in the cage, and a new position toward each other, and in this very moment they are as beautiful as any two beings could possibly be. I do not know what they feel, or what they intend, but in their evening drowsiness they are as lovely as anything I've seen only two feet away.