[Image: “El Dorado (Twentynine Palms, California),” by John E. Simpson.]

From whiskey river this week:

There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind—you are the one who hears it. If you don’t understand this, you will try to figure out which of the many things the voice says is really you. People go through so many changes in the name of “trying to find myself.” They want to discover which of these voices, which of these aspects of their personality, is who they really are. The answer is simple: none of them.

(Michael Singer [source])

…and:

The Weighing

The heart’s reasons
seen clearly,
even the hardest
will carry
its whip-marks and sadness
and must be forgiven.

As the drought-starved
eland forgives
the drought-starved lion
who finally takes her,
enters willingly then
the life she cannot refuse,
and is lion, is fed,
and does not remember the other.

So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.

The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.

(Jane Hirshfield [source])

Mood of the moment: dark, dark, dark… for the most ridiculous of reasons: an inability, so far, to acquire drivers’ licenses in our new state.

The first Catch-22: NC law says that you have 60 days after moving here to get a driver’s license. But you have to go to the DMV office to get it. So, fine, there are lots of DMV offices around… except if you just go there, unannounced, you’ll be at the end of a room full of other people waiting to do one thing or another. But good news! You can make an appointment for a specific day and time— But wait, no, that’s not good news after all. Why? Because the earliest appointments available at ANY of the offices are 90 days or more out.

In the meantime, here are a couple of things you can’t do here without proving NC residency (via driver’s license) — things which we need to do sooner rather than later: vote, and take things to the county landfill, and confirm to the postal service that we do indeed live at this address. We’re almost afraid to ask further.

So, yeah. Not a happy place right now. I know there’s metaphorical gold to be had, without going far at all. But for now I’d just settle for a damned DMV appointment.