Say when

Perspective and attitude make a profound difference. It is the classic argument over the glass; is it half empty or half full? So much of my intent in life and definitely in this space is to shift my natural tendency to see the glass half empty to the being amazed and delighted that the glass is half full. Furthermore, I want you to notice the contents of the glass, the actual glass, the surface it sits on and the way it might taste if you were to take a sip. I like to think about who or what filled the glass to start with and why a glass?  I simply adore the metaphor of the glass to life and life’s circumstances. It is all in the perspective.

But what if the glass is overflowing  or bone dry?

The semantic discussion of too empty or too full borders absurd when the genuine problem is the actual glass. When the glass is simply too small or whomever is bartending serves with a heavy hand….the shit starts to get crazy. And in the real world, there is no limit. The bartender does cut you off. And dilution can make it worse. No one takes your metaphorical car keys and calls you a cab. They don’t offer to drive you home. How could they while your sloshing everything all over everywhere? No, they watch you struggle out the door and think, “Damn. I am glad that ain’t me. I hope they get home okay.” Your only choice is to push back from the bar, call it a night, apologize for the mess and wait for evaporation.

When your glass is empty, a millionaire would easier beg a second fortune on the corner by the Kangaroo gas station. When everyone else has their half-sies, they’re cool, they ain’t offering to share. And while that fool with the mess overflowing everywhere has more than they could ever finish, it seems better to just sit tight and deal with the drought. You don’t really want any of that libation…it may result in a 500 year flood.

Everyone fears too much or too little.

But then again…it is all perspective. If my glass is literally overflowing; I cannot contain it. But while everyone around me jumps back fearing the slosh will splatter their fine shoes, I can lean forward giddy and slurp from the edge. I loved playing in the rain as a child. The overflow can be a silly escapade like stomping in puddles and playing tackle football in the muddy rain. I can also be grateful that I have the experience of the abundance of life, that life hands me so much that I literally bust at the seems. It don’t have to follow a budget or pinch pennies in days like these. Once sated, I can start canning the stuff and put it in a cool, dry place for later. I have learned the lost art of canning and storing. While a beefy, vine ripened tomato still warm from the sun, served with balsamic vinegar, fresh pinched basil leaves and buffalo mozzarella is a tomato at its perfection, opening a Kerr jar in January in the dead of winter that is filled with the sweet aroma of marinara sauce is a delight. You can smell the sun. The overflow of life can be canned and stored, and will be a blessing in the arid days when our souls are parched and our hearts crack like baked earth. And isn’t the drought even partially welcomed when you know you have a pantry with a few secreted jars of canned abundance you can pop open and scoop out? Abundance can be wasted, left to rot in the fields. It can be shared. You can open the fields and offer it freely to whomever, but often people will snub the notion, fearing they might look desperate or impoverished. The humble and the hungry no longer care what others might think; they will come and pick through the overripe and perishing for a chance at a full belly. The drought will mean no standing water for mosquitoes to breed. It means no mudslides. The weeds die off, too. The next growing season will be on a much cleaner slate.

The lamentation of half-full, half-empty, too full, or empty….for me….is not the point. For me, it is the spectacular existence of the glass.

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