Flu Season

Tolerance is one of your strong suits. Barring that one week in the year when you have a cold in the head and all bets are off. In this bleary-eyed time of cough and sniffle small things trigger disproportionate consequences. The clanging of the garbage truck, the stain on the tablecloth, the stack of junk mail. These trifles and many like them, stir intemperate impulses. The leaking faucet and the sales call seem expressly calculated to destroy your happiness. The traffic jam, a sink full of dirty dishes and disagreeable weather are taken as personal insults. You have fallen out of the world’s favor. And the future that stretches ahead of you is unspeakably bleak. And yet, as it has happened ever before, it will happen ever again. The fog in your head will gradually disperse and the world will grow bearable by slow degrees. Your life and its importance will recede like the tide and you will remember to take a genuine interest in others. Gratitude like a migratory bird will return to your heart. Twig by twig build a nest in its branches. And at night, driving home you will catch sight of a crescent moon suspended in a dark sky . A ghostly punctuation mark that will catch your breath and tilt you from low grade wretchedness, headfirst into love.