"I can do anything I want, and so can you." - Frank in 'Donnie Darko'

Not a one of us gets out unscathed (to scath means to injure), or as Jim Morrison so eloquently put it: 'no one gets out of here alive.' Every one's basic trajectory: born, lived, died. Once you get past the basic storyline, all hell breaks loose, each and every one of us is a unique manifestation of energy that has never existed in quite this particular configuration before, plus the universe is expanding (improvising) time is moving, bending, shaking, we are unique, constantly changing, morphing; and so is the river. As Lewis Black has said, and my father has strongly endorsed: "WE'RE ALL SNOWFLAKES!" Of course, you become too different and then you become a subversive mother (thank you Woody Allen, HST).

So there's these broken dreams, broken bones, nicks and cuts, bruises and scars; we can hide and mourn them, or celebrate and brandish them. I'm all for celebrating. Glad to be (or aspire to be) a subversive mother (Frank Sinatra and Sid Vicious both sang: 'I did it my way'). When one of us dies (the mystics say life and death are the same state) it is like a star dying, or really a universe passing. And of course, since it's all energy, this passing away, this death is just another transformation of energy. We don't really know what this means, all the major questions of life will remain questions, probably because the question misses the point: Is there a God, is there life after death, is there a meaning to life? Projected answers: maybe, could be, and sure, but 'meaning' comes in a do-it-yourself kit, batteries are not included.

The universe is expanding, it's speeding up, the astrophysicists speculate that it will continue to expand, it will stop and freeze, it will collapse and everything will go in reverse. The universe begs the question (in some totally cosmic incomprehensible language), the only answer can be 'yes.'