Despite What They Say

I broke up with Salma in the summer of 2004 while I was working at the Army Navy Store in Dayton, Ohio. When I told her I wanted to date someone else, she punched me so hard my glasses flew across the room and hit the wall. I can't see a thing without them, so I felt around on the floor like a blind man—by the time I found my corrective lenses she was gone. I thought maybe she had cast a spell and what followed was seven years of bad luck. My signature Tarot card was The Hanged Man and the I Ching advised me, "Do not marry the maiden." One good thing happened during those seven years: I gave up smoking. Except for one or two gaspers every now and then. In 2012 I went down to Mexico and did a sweat ceremony with a Mayan shaman. He told me that the Mayan calendar is circular—there is no end of the world, even though the American news media had been forecasting the end for years. Despite what they say, creation keeps on going, one little bang after another. Trees fall, are reborn as houses and tables. Once the mojo gets going, it's hard to stop. After two hours in the sweat lodge I imagined a white jaguar was sitting across from me. Just last Sunday, at church, a woman in the first pew turned and looked me in the eye. When I see a tree I step outside myself.