The Other Lives I Could Have Lived.

Do you ever wonder which path you would take if the whole book of your life had been refreshed? Sent back to that first word on page one. What if your whole life's narrative suddenly all went blank? You got to do it all over again. Restart. Relive. Redo.

I do. 

Hamilton

I seem to imagine these avenues where I find myself lost in the other things my life takes light within. The other things I could have been. The lives I could have lived. I live them now and again, in tiny moments, but, as a spectator. Set away and apart, at a distance. Able to enjoy but not influence. Absorb but not immerse. Be, but not be included within. I wonder if I would have been happier there? Would have had a different outcome? Would have been a fuller person? Lived another life in the same canvas with a whole different set of trimmings to set the stage and act the part.

Color and music. I would have done a whole lot more with these two. Maybe a fashion designer? Draping sumptuous silks in jewel tones with operatic bellows to inspire me as I work. Sopranos to swallow me into.

I could have left the bleach washed walls a hospital requires and have been a street artist. Playing a harmonica in the subway watching the world rush by to their cubicles and plastic potted plants. Making money by predicting the tides and hedging the cortisol surges of a gambler playing with other peoples monopoly money as stock broker on the floors of ticker-tape scribbles. All adrenaline and dollar signs as the carrot promising a life of caviar dreams and champagne stained yachts.

A humanitarian rushing off to a foreign land to protest human rights violations and expose the cruelty no one wants to acknowledge. The Audrey Hepburn/Lady Di cupping starving faces in their coiffed manicured hands with smiles of false optimism for a more stable and safe tomorrow.

Droog Shelter in Alexandria Ukraine. April 2022

A gardener praying to a seedling with the umbrella-like healing palms over the verdant shine of the two cotyledons who carry so much promise in their two tiny appendages reaching upward for the sun. The caretaker to natures bounty among the war for food by all the other beings who seek to profit from the seeds sown by others. Find my place in the balance of sharing resources and not taking more than the earth can balance. A silent partner to the provisions the seasons dictate. Spend every moment of everyday the observer. The Cicada listener. The observer to the flashing color of the hummingbirds, the butterflies, and the flowers they dance between. The deep breathes of the grass as I walk on her carpet of cosmic energy. The goddess of all that is green in a forest that emits only the crickets and the buzzing of the beings far smaller than I and yet so massive they drown the rest of the world away.

Wren in our rock garden

Is it possible to live all of these lives in a profession that requires all of the time that my eyes are open within? That I don't know. I live in snippets. The opportunities between the sick calls. The place where I can steal a few minutes to walk outside. The seconds between lunch (I never eat) and the next scheduled appointment to hold Seraphina and press her into my face. She is a muted galaxy of greys and gold. A tangible downy gosling of fluff emitting a halo of feathery hair. She is my time out in the middle of the endless chaos that is a work day. Hamilton, the paralyzed ginger kitten who belongs to Autumn now. The kitten thrown from a moving car window thrown away like a piece of trash. Brought here for a chance at mercy and now one of ours. He is so perfect in his purpose. He simply wants to be held while he purrs into my chest. Alters the rhythm of the blood coursing through his symphonic blissful lullaby. I painted the vet clinic staff bathroom hot pink/fuchsia. The one place the door can be closed and the color can envelope me whole, half naked to the world that exists on this side of the tsunami treatment door. I put up 1930's advertising prints. Who else has $150 artwork in their work bathroom? I also added a mirrored make-up table and a crystal chandelier. it's handicap accessible per MD state law and glammed to my alter-ego. 

Hamilton

I struggle to fit fashion into a workplace graffitied with urine, feces and anal glands on an every-single-day-of-my-work-day-existence. It might just be a pair of bright cartooney socks. Or some vibrantly-glittered Begdorf eye shadow to add a hint of glimmer to the disposable day scrubs.

But the reality is that I chose this one. This life, This path where the road is not full of whimsy, trends, public performances, and striving to be a house of notoriety in this label conscious crowd. I am a small town vet working my ass into a dust trying to save this most recent disposed of kitten who without us would face a world intent on consumption. I am the force of nature determined to hold back the raging bull wearing expensive shoes in the phone booth, and I couldn't be anything else. No matter which door I had chosen to open; pick the hidden prize behind, I would have ended up here. The heroine in my own set of Herriot novels. Still sweating under urine soaked scrubs with turquoise socks stenciled with cats in Santa hats feeling like I make a difference even when there is no audience to applaud, and no orchestra to bow to.