Roll the Bones
A year ago to this date, I was standing here with a pain in my back. Something salty was in my mouth and I spit out a marble-size clot of blood into the sink. The first thing my wide eyes saw when I looked up was my reflection in the mirror, telling me it was time to call the doctor.
Most of you know the rest of the story.
That was just one year ago. Exactly. I can walk again. Baby Jake can walk for the first time. Grandma's in the ground. Kilimanjaro's snows have melted under the hot Dubai sun. There's white cat hair on the bedroom curtain and the earth whirls around the sun.
I was lucky the clot that broke free from my ankle ended up in my lung and not my brain or heart. Luck. Wasn't it? How much of life is luck? You never get a peek at the exact ingredient list of your fate. It could be worse. It could be better. That's the hazy gray sheet we drift off to dreaming under every night. Granted, with hard work and perseverance, you can Frankenstein together your own limited version of Lady Luck. But even that needs some luck.
How much of the good and bad in our lives is luck? Those who have more than us are just lucky. Those in bad situations, well, that's they're own damn fault. We draw that line with a broad pen and firm hand for others, but we tend to point to the letters that make up the words telling our own story. We've worked for and earned everything we got. That which we don't have, well, that's just bad luck. Where does will win over fate? When does sincerity circumvent circumstance?
We could have been born in a Bombay slum. We could have won the lottery. Grandpa could have decided to linger one second longer at the soda stand and not run into grandma outside the store. Think of everything that has to go right before we're even born. Now follow that Mobius strip of DNA, wrap it around an infinite timeline of choices twisting all the way back to a bored deity drumming his fingers on the blank slate of the universe. Coulda. Shoulda. Woulda. Mighta. Oughta. Luck rules the day and luck always has. Luck is God with dice.
Now that your brain is at that fork, which way do you go? Do you live in despair because there's so much beyond your control? Is it "que sera fuck all sera" from then on in? Or does it give you a sense of wonder that you're even here; a feeling of being blessed for what you do have? Do you hedge your bets with virtue and good deeds? Prayers and sacrifices? Why bother when it pisses down on the just and unjust alike?
Why? Because we don't know what we can affect and what we can't. Even Luck doesn't know. So we keep trying. Why not? We have plenty of time. Well, maybe we do. Whether this world is the end game or just some cosmic rest stop, logic points to making the most out of the fiction we call time.
So while God may play dice, he doesn't use loaded ones. Which means there could be a reason I'm still alive. If so, what is it? Will I ever know? Will an invisible and all-knowing hand descend from the heavens and straighten these question marks into exclamation points over our heads?
That's what we wait for, standing in front of mirrors, hoping our reflections have a better view of our lives.
At least, that's what I'm betting on.
10:17:25 PM 
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