<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><p class=""><span class="">Relax</span></p><p class="">Bad things are going to happen.<br class="">Your tomatoes will grow a fungus<br class="">and your cat will get run over.<br class="">Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream<br class="">melting in the car and throw<br class="">your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.<br class="">Your husband will sleep<br class="">with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling<br class="">out of her blouse. Or your wife<br class="">will remember she’s a lesbian<br class="">and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat–<br class="">the one you never really liked–will contract a disease<br class="">that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth<br class="">every four hours. Your parents will die.<br class="">No matter how many vitamins you take,<br class="">how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,<br class="">your hair and your memory. If your daughter<br class="">doesn’t plug her heart<br class="">into every live socket she passes,<br class="">you’ll come home to find your son has emptied<br class="">the refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,<br class="">and called the used appliance store for a pick up–drug money.<br class="">There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.<br class="">When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine<br class="">and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.<br class="">And two mice–one white, one black–scurry out<br class="">and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point<br class="">she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.<br class="">She looks up, down, at the mice.<br class="">Then she eats the strawberry.<br class="">So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse<br class="">in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,<br class="">slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel<br class="">and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.<br class="">Oh taste how sweet and tart<br class="">the red juice is, how the tiny seeds<br class="">crunch between your teeth.</p><p class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Ellen Bass</p><div><br></div></div></body></html>