F.U.B.A.R. at Shawshank with Peter Cottontail

Fucked up beyond all recognition.  It sort of defines me.  Or perhaps I define it.  No matter how you split the orange a piece seems to have gone missing.  More than a piece really.  All I seem to be left with these days is the bitter peel.  The juicy interior . . . the really good stuff . . . gone.  How did I get here?  Where did it all go wrong?  My life as it was at the beginning of this project seems a fragmented dreamscape that I only now catch glimpses of in the distant reaches of my memory.  Sure, I could ramble on in self indulgent prose for many a paragraph as I am oft to do.  I could blame it on societal differences and the WalMart quality of the yarn used to weave the American fabric.  And . . . I would be right of course.  There is some truth there, I am convinced of it.  In the end, however, it would all be a distraction.  Smoke and mirrors meant to blind myself from the truth.  I am lost . . . having taken  a wrong turn I find myself wandering the wood.  I look around and everything looks the same.  In every direction, dense and formidable forest. The kind that pushes out the light and plunges everything beneath into its shadow.

How to break free?  How to find the light?  Beginnings and endings.  Rebirth, renewal.  Something that has eluded me for sometime now.   Passion, possession, obsession . . . life.  What would the fox do?  Chew his leg off to remove himself from the trap of course.  It seems time that I start chewing. Figuratively of course, I rather enjoy my extremities.  So, where to go from here . . . think Jack, think!  Easter . . . resurrection!  It hit me like a bolt of lightening on my way home tonight in my beloved 206 er . . . Honda Fit (more on that later).  How does one bring themselves back to life?  To endure the beating that life often offers and find enlightenment from the lashing.  Save me the religious propaganda and bible thumping sermons.  Faith is too often a passive crutch.  Don't get me wrong.  I am not denying its strength or its necessity.  I believe, however, that while faith will hold you up when everything seems intent on knocking you down, YOU must propel YOURSELF forward.  And forward I must go.  Reluctant though I am to bear weight on a leg I recently chewed from a trap, it is time to limp on.  Get busy living or get busy dying.  Andy Dufresne and Brookes Hadley knew it, and I guess I know it too.  By the way, did you know that is how it was spelled . . . "Dufresne".  Even more interesting still is that the name comes from the French topgraphical name from Old French meaning "ash" as in Ash tree.  But where on Earth does that leave us then?  F.U.B.A.R.  Faith ultimately begets a ressurection . . . and as I look around the forest now, I see the mighty Ash and curse not the shade but stand in appreciation of its cover when the rain begins to fall.

Hang in there folks tomorrow is a new day.  Today ends the past, tomorrow begins the future.  I will see you all then.

Jack.