I Don’t Wanna Show Up. Now What?

It’s Day 3 of 2020 and I still don’t wanna show up for it.

Not for today, not for a BBQ tonight, not for rehearsal tomorrow, not for 2020, not, not, not…NO MORE!

I’ve not been in this place before.

It’s been inferred I am TOO PRESENT wherever I am. Too extra, too big, too much…filling up the space in the room and all the empty nooks and crannys and the all the silences.

Entertaining the masses so no one has a dull moment. That used to be true. It’s not true anymore. I tired myself out being a jester all my life. It’s time for a new identity. Ah, so what?

Meanwhile, now what!?

This is the third day of 2020 and since December I have not woken with the usual passion for life, for the day, for my favorite early time in the morning with my espresso…when no one is talking to me.

The recent news of a boy’s death has thrown me into a spiral, the family’s grief I can feel here in my dining room. Women of the Congo lose children in front of them on an hourly basis. But here in L.A., there’s no built in village unless you’re part of a Temple, a church, recovery rooms.

I have this yearning to be more apart of the Village per se, then an equal opposite reaction to resist joining anything.

I think I want to return to Africa, but is that really what I want? Hm. I want the village part — not the insect part. I want my cake and eat it too. (She never said that.)