the rug

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My wife told me that a religious service will be held Saturday for her boss' daughter who died at 18 in a snowboarding accident. A friend writes that his aging mother -- who is suffering from dementia -- swings between her usual sweetness and calling him a fucking asshole. An internet chum writes that he went off to the same Zen monastery I flunked out of (and expressed my doubts about to him) and left disappointed two weeks later.

Everywhere, in one form or another and to one degree or another, the rug is pulled out from under us. The rug of expectation, the rug of love, the rug of education, the rug of health, the rug of wealth, the rug of family, the rug of employment, the rug of control, the rug of certainty ...

Not that having our equilibrium shattered or re-seen is always an unpleasant thing, but it is the bad news that gets our attention.

Given the concrete mountain of evidence showing that the rug invariably gets pulled out from under us, it does make you wonder in what way we needed to be standing on that rug in the first place.

On the one hand, who wouldn't like to have a flying carpet in life?

But on the other, who but an ignoramus would believe that a flying carpet was more than a delightful fairy tale?
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