We’re asked to sit in a rolling chair and place our chin just so on a little pad and then to press our forehead against a brace attached to a contraption on the table. It’s a visit to the office of an eye doctor, of course. We know what happens next and it’s not exactly pleasant but we know it’s for our own good so we steel our nerves as best we can because here it comes… that puff of air hitting our precious exposed eyeball. First the right and then the left. Tonometry it’s called. And it helps assess the health of our eyes we’re told.
Puffs of air. Such seemingly insignificant stuff. Like the fluff of clouds that drift overhead threaded by the flight patterns of birds and planes. Barely noticeable stuff until the puffs gather and rumble and grumble with the weight of the water molecules accumulating inside them. What relief it must be when these tufts of fluff release the rain they hold, drawn earthward by that unseen force we call gravity!
Puffs and fluff and stuff. All around us, sometimes noticed but seldom given a serious thought. And why should we? We’re too busy attempting to slay the dragons we see and fear on the news or in our streets which sometimes surface in our homes. Addiction. Abuse. Depression. Food insecurity. Economic instability. Diseases seemingly defying medical advancements. The ugly beasts abound and although in our passion for preservation we gather and rumble and grumble, we might feel like we are wielding weapons of fluff against the visible forces of darkness and death. Is there anything of substance accumulating inside us that we can claim as we clamor for all that makes for light and life?
Stuff in the news and on our streets and sometimes sullying even our homes. Is it mostly fluff or are the rumbling storms ones we need to face? Can we roll from one unpleasant puff of this stuff to another and see anything that’s for our own good?
Daily the gifts arrive. How we handle them shapes the way we will survive or thrive. Puffs of air in our lungs. Fluff through which we thread our purposeful path as we move from one moment to the next. The stuff of substance in our heads and hearts and hands that steadies our steps and readies our action not only for our own good but also for the good of all. And at the end of the day the smallest of victories sustaining us as the shadowy dragons around us and within us are laid to rest.
Comments