Month 8, Day 18: Is This Real?

I came across this little poem/prayer/song from the Pawnee tribe the other day:

Let us see, is this real,

Let us see, is this real,

This life I am living?

You Gods, who dwell everywhere,

Let us see, is this real,

This life I am living?

Now, I understand that this poem is supposed to evoke wonder and awe, to make us feel like everything around us is sacred and almost too magical to be believed.

I get that.

But the pessimist in me reads the poem in another way, the same way I react when every little thing goes wrong in my life—when the last piece of toast falls on the floor, when the curling iron breaks, when nothing ever seems to work out for the best—I say, “Is this for real? Is this really my life, this never-ending (pardon the expression) shit storm?”

I hope you read the Pawnee poem the opposite way, because it’s really kind of exhausting to view life the way I do.