Thanks

Maxfield Parrish, "Ottauquechee River"

You know you don’t deserve this, right?

So, that’s why you’ve got to be grateful for every single instant and instance of it, including even the part where testosterone and the internal combustion engine combine to make things a little scary along the busy asphalt you generally eschew when all by yourself but are delighted to have the opportunity to experience efficiency upon while in a group of two-wheeled miscreants.

It’s easy to feel overwhelming gratitude for the Maxfield Parrish version of the Chinese handscroll painting done by nature’s own Bob Ross as you gaze through the overhanging willow branches perfectly framing the waxing gibbous moon shining brightly on Jupiter and Saturn across the sky.

Besides its own intrinsic beauty, you just have to remember that our fellow living creatures in hotspots across the globe like Haiti and Afghanistan and Dixie, California and on and on and on have the same view of the heavens, but theirs hasn’t been arrived at via bicycle and also doesn’t include simultaneously getting to immerse themselves in the weightless wonder of warm and enveloping lake water while staring up at it.

So it’s okay that the intended parking garage view is inaccessible and that surely some other possibilities aren’t entirely maximized; any misgivings are just gilding the lily, so to speak; any imperfections are like those intentional “kill holes” in the bottom of traditional pottery that not only lets the soul of the dead pass through but which also, I’ve been told, is so that the work won’t offend the gods by challenging them with a perfect human artifact.

Because honestly, whatever it is that makes everything happen could not be more generous with its grace than it is, especially to such undeserving subjects as all of us everywhere are, so what else is there to do than cry “halleluiah kyrie elaison allah akbar om namah shivaya fucking-A baruch hashem thank you Jesus Goddamn yessiree wowie zowie lord have mercy amen.”