The small white cat sits beside me on the desk, sipping the air with her nose, lightly testing the various scents I could not even begin to guess at. She slips into a quick drowse, as only a cat can do. I know that with the least startling move, she will jolt awake, tear across the desk, ripping holes into the random bills and the fabric of reality. As only a cat can do.

Each day is composed of the moments like these, moments that string together like popcorn garlands. Each small kernel a host for something similar to that which we all share, yet it pops with delicious differences, coated in some facet of our own making. Our own spice. A little sugar, perhaps. We wash it down with the sleep between, soft moments of space for thinking, for dreaming. Today the sun is full on, blinking brightly in a blue sky, while fog teases the edges of light. Cool and crisp, it’s a Sunday in Autumn in San Francisco – a day for which my heart beats love and joy.

Construction work continues in the other room; woodworking the walls into some semblance of “home.” It’s punctuated by the sounds of radio and laughter at some song or saying. To say that Sunday is lazy is not to be in my house. Dishes done, clean and put away, laundry complete, cat content. Work has continued though the time when rest reigns. The time for completing that which matters seems to only be the weekend. Do we all cherish the weekend so much because we feel it’s the only time we really accomplish?

I tend to explore life’s journeys, not the results of the specie that I receive in exchange for my time, my knowledge. I’m rarely concerned with the past, sometimes worried about the future, and usually lost in the moment – for good or bad. Every once in a while, I have that flash of insight that it’s all just a silly game. None of this really matters, not in the end. So why not play? Why not live in color and error and mystery? Why not live in joy or sadness or love? Even hate is worthwhile if it teaches you something, if it teaches you to move beyond. Having that moment to just cut loose, play like a child with the abandon of a free mind. Perhaps it is in those moments that we find out who we really are.

I am what I am, as are we all. Something so simple seems so hard for all to accept. If we could be different, we would be. Brian Greene, in a recent interview, said (and I’m paraphrasing, so forgive me), that matter is made of particles that have a constant state. They are what they are, and they cannot be other than they are, at least in this universe. They have consistent and constant properties and act in consistent ways. They have a range of parameters and ways of being – they do not extend beyond those parameters, whether we can predict it or not. We don’t have ways to measure it all, not scientifically – not yet.

We think that because we have “choice,” that we are all living with freewill. We make decisions based on our own input. We control our own reactions. But do we? If we, humans and all other life in the universe, are made up of those same particles, then we cannot be other than what we are. We have a range of predictable behaviors, based on our own configuration. Psychology – isn’t that just the science of predicting what the human mind might do? How it reacts? It’s an attempt to quantify the parameters of how the brain, made in a certain configuration, will act. But, we cannot be other than what we are. We can understand and perhaps test the limits of our own “parameters” but sometimes, we cannot. We are what we are. My body is not built for ice skating or gymnastics. Through no fault of my own, I am limited by the particles which make up my being.

They say that acceptance is the first step. Laughter coats my throat.

It’s Sunday. In San Francisco. The sun is lightly dancing across the damp sidewalks. The radio laughs. I write. It’s my life and a journey. Pain, pleasure, and all – I couldn’t be happier.

–TDD