I feel like I don’t need to build a swing. I’m already on it—this pendulum of confidence and doubt.

To Build a Swing

You carry
All the ingredients
To turn your life into a nightmare—
Don’t mix them!

You have all the genius
To build a swing in your backyard
For God.

That sounds
Like a hell of a lot more fun.
Let’s start laughing, drawing blueprints,
Gathering our talented friends.

I will help you
With my own divine lyre and drum.

Hafiz
Will sing a thousand words
You can take into your hands,
Like golden saws,
Silver hammers,

Polished teakwood,
Strong silk rope.

You carry all the ingredients
To turn your existence into joy,

Mix them, mix
Them!
– Hafiz

Choco, the Mixologist

I’ve heard this kind of thing before, and I tell myself this kind of thing a lot – you have everything you need.

So, I guess this is a reminder. To you. To me. We are mixologists. We have everything we need. Sure, there are messages that tell us we don’t—that we absolutely do not have what we need, and there is one company or another that will supply us with what we need for a small sum; there is a church that will give us what we need for our tithe.

Forget about that shit. We have everything we need.

I Can’t Imagine It

The thing I struggle with—Imagining Joy when I’ve already mixed my ingredients into what seems like a nightmare.

But the thing is, maybe it’s not a nightmare. Let’s think, for a moment about baking a cake:

1. The ingredients of a cake—whether they are in your cupboard, or you have lined them up on your counter top—do not resemble a cake in the slightest. In fact, if you’ve never baked a cake, it’s nearly impossible to imagine that flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cocoa, eggs, water, oil/butter could possibly become a cake.
2. I suppose that beating feels like a nightmare.
3. I suppose that being in the oven for 45 minutes at 350°F feels like a worse nightmare.
4. I’m not sure what is more joyful than cake.

So. Here’s to carrying my ingredients and mixing them into joy.