How Are You?

One of my beloved friends in England

read something on my blog that

prompted him to send me an email,

asking pointedly, "I repeat:  how are you?"

Last weekend, I called a friend in New Mexico,

and he, too, asked directly,

"And how are you?"

Another friend, here in town,

asks me every day in an email,

as a separate subject or line item,

"How are you?"

I'm NEVER prepared for that --

for anyone asking me, I mean.

And certainly I never have an answer.

I struggle to respond.

I guess I could practice by asking myself, huh?

Life as Art:

instead of creating a page, a piece, a painting, a poem,

create the ability to articulate how I feel,

in the moment.

Look in the mirror more than a few times every day,

pose the question,

"How Are You?"

LISTEN FOR THE ANSWER.

Maybe that would start to balance the obvious

conditioning I've experienced in being asked,

perhaps,

but without the chance given for response

or

(mostly)

not even being asked.

And with practice,

asking myself,

maybe I can overcome my conditioning that

"they" (or I?)

don't really want to

know the answer.