Rather Suspect

When I feel anxious, I have just one goal: to stop time.

The job seems an easy one at first. I see the sun taking its familiar walk across the sky and so I simply stand up tall and get up on my toes. I reach my arms up and I grab the sun between my hands. Got it! I hold the sun there for a moment, then two, hold it firmly in its place. It burns my hands but I grit my teeth and continue to hold it, to stop it from its path.

But it’s not the sun that’s moving, of course. It’s the planet under my feet that’s rotating and so I try to hold that still with my toes, bracing my body against the sun. But how can this work? It’s like trying to hold back every mountain, every river. It’s like trying to stand on the coast and shove the Pacific back from the shore. Impossible.

And so, at the last possible moment — not by choice, but because I’ve reached my breaking point — I collapse, I fall in a heap to the grass, hands still burning from trying to hold the sun, muscles aching from contorting my body. I lie there for a moment, defeated. When I look up, I see the red cardinal standing before me, cocking his head.

I didn’t like how things were going, I tell the bird. I was scared. I just wanted to stop everything.

You fool, the bird says. You think your job is different than it is.

What is my job, I ask the bird. I’m struggling. I don’t understand where I fit.

The sun shines on your head, he replies. The wind blows across your face. The grass grows up between your toes. All this is because this planet is turning, rotating, dancing — endlessly — for you, you fool. For you.

Why do you need to try to fit, the bird asks. You already fit, in every possible way. This is all yours. You are home.