, and it bears no resemblance to our gothmance. It is a better field for life than any version of death that walks.

The blank canvas is an opportunity. You may have painter's block, not because you have nothing in (your) mind, but because there is an uncountable number of directions that you could go. Where to begin?

In the woods. A wild and pathless wood. It is fractal, openings that become more openings, where every step forward presents you with two new options – this way or that. A choose-your-own-adventure forest where the further you step into it, the more rapidly the body of bypassed options behind you grows. When you began your woodland walk, you had two options – this way or that. Now you are several steps in with a thousand thresholds behind you. You want to turn back but you

-don't know-

which point to return to,
how to go about figuring that out,
which ideas in that canvas of yours you should be listening to,
or even how to begin beginning.

Actually no, I'm going to start over –

This moment after which something has fallen down – fallen away – fallen apart has left a continually-fraying hole in the seat of my pants and I am more exposed all of the time. It is embarrassing and unsafe. I am vulnerable. 

– no – that sucks – I hate that – it's too embarrassing to continue, though not embarrassing enough to delete – 

Some of the order in our lives may be disorderly. What if we didn't think of order as some version of things being "in shape" since that probably causes us to think of good-ness? Just take out the in. What if order meant something more like shaped? "In shape" suggests that I or some Thing is ordered – arranged – formed in a way that we judge as good, whereas "shaped" simply suggests that I or some Thing is, in fact, ordered – arranged – formed. I can certainly imagine a room in my house where everything has its place but I don't like how it looks or feels. I also know that I can fill my day with activities and still not feel good about it at its end. What if ordered meant that our bodies or our minds had places to put their belongings and did so, but whether that arrangement was good was a different kind of consideration?

Sometimes things fall apart and there is nothing that we can do to stop that. Then what? Do we go this way or that?

I have gone through the experience of losing a job for which I was grateful and for which I was well-suited twice in my adult life. The first time I was laid off; the second time I was told that they felt it "just wasn’t going to work out". In both instances, something Tookish woke up inside of me. But it would be irresponsible of me to tell another father with grown people expenses and mature problems to consider their unwanted unemployment as an adventure. To be unemployed in the sense that an economist means* means** chaos. Disorder. It is not automatically good; it is only possibility.

Ok, I am feeling good enough about that. Let's start there.

Don't be careless and say things to people like, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Some things that don't kill us put us at very serious risk of becoming possessed, hateful people, crashing through the world with our negativity, pessimism, and cynicism. We can become crushers of other peoples' dreams. We can become saboteurs of other peoples’ order (the goodness or un-goodness of which is about> ^0% our business). We can move through the wildwood of every day like a hippo in the ICU because our thinking is ordered by beliefs like
“Well, life’s not fair!” or
“People suck” or
“I’m only human”,
and thereby justify our rough treatment of other peoples’ business (which is still about> ^0% ours).

What doesn't kill us has probably disturbed or upended our order, and that may be good. It might also be bad. But it is may-or-might. I am sure that there is no automatic it-will-be. That part is largely up to me.

The first time I lost my job I had young children and a wife, had bought a home just 5 years earlier, and had finally really settled into the work in which I was very well received by both colleagues and clientele. But money is a scarce resource, and 2009 hit us in the privates right there on our quiet street,
under those hundred-year-old trees,
tucked in among generational folks,
down the street from the wild ones kept behind bars and fed twice a day –
named, admired – 
kept for the enjoyment of busy folks at rest and other folks busy at rest,
precipitating a change in trajectory.

We need to decide which way to go.

Becoming unemployed was the older, fuller kind of terrible. But thankfully, I chose to not dwell on institutional mismanagement of resources and dishonesty in communication, both of which caused this event to sneak up on those of us who got hit with the whiffle ball bat down there.

The second time I lost my job, most of my children were grown. My wife and I had grown apart all of the way and I had grown anew. After an extended period of purposely not working, I finally became unemployed. After a substantial hunt came an opportunity. After a substantial inspection came an offer. After a substantial investment in beginning well and with oomph something changed. I became unattractive and was never told why. I went from good unemployed to bad unemployed in two weeks. I was back home with uncountable options,
mid-hill between driveways –
wanting to be Underhill –
where deer observe you leaving from work at the edge of the path as you pass, and Ona^ surveys then secretly visits, her shadow passing over the bell –
near the water bowl –
on the picnic table –
hard to catch, ever gathering, where the trees are less old, but still imposing, and each leaning a wrong way,
precipitating a change in trajectory.

This was another experience of being kicked low, where communication was again dishonest, where I could have been embittered, carrying and reproducing cynical judgements, planting corrupted seed through my discharged thoughts, leaving others carrying the burden of my bitterness. Pretending to father understanding of the "real world", saying,
"Don't get too comfortable;
"it's only a matter of time;
"people suck".

I don't ever want to go that way.+
Growing Smaller is another way for me to go.

Everywhere there is this pathless wood. Unrealized relationships with every stranger everywhere always. We have not yet made plans, argued, or told each other secrets. Yet even realized relationships with every kind of acquaintance are islands of order among unrealized potential. Possible plans, arguments, and secrets that we haven’t yet.

These islands grow on the back of the diluvian tortoise from the muck in the hand of the muskrat. You’re a muskrat.

This art emerges when you speak, hovering over the face of the canvas. You’re a Little Word.

When things fall apart –
when they haven’t yet begun –
that may be a (chaos that I need^) in order to be reborn. There is no guarantee that it will be good for me, but neither is it a mystery. The challenge is to decide which way to go.

Thresholds behind and before. We are pathfinders who sometimes need a little chaos as long as our understanding of chaos is ordered just so. There is, of course, chaos which it is disordered to desire. Namely, that chaos we force.

*able, wanting, and looking for work but unable to find it
**double means meant