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Stress

     I have a canoe that gives me therapy my insurance won’t cover.

                                                                                               —Chen Chen

Some of my most stress-ridden moments have occurred during therapy.

One thing about being homeless in California is the amazing medical insurance.

It pays for everything in that area, pretty much, and was the only perk to being homeless.

At least that I can think of. And I can’t think of much during that period.

Because there’s a thing called trauma and a thing called PTSD. These can affect memory.

And when one has as lousy a memory as mine, almost anything can eliminate it.

Or hide it, as the case may be.  Which is why I write.

I can’t begin to tell you the number of times I found msyelf overwelmed with joy
or some other emotion (sometimes not a favorable one) upon reading something I

wrote that had me remembering.

I do not think of this as a problem. What I think of as a problem is forgetting

things, whether inadvertantly, intentionally or in some darker subconscious

manner.

I could elaborate on why I believe remembering/memory is so relevant, but won’t

at the moment.  I will mention, though, that I discuss this at length quite often in

this very poetry project.

Granted, there are getting close to being 3,900 poems in this project, so there is

always the chance that you’d have to pilfer through a bunch of poems that would

potentially not be to your liking before getting to the ones about why I think

memory so important.

But what if the more you read them, the more you enjoyed them. Not likely, but,

still.

Why would YOU want to know why I find memory so important, anyway?

I have had a few stressful extended moments whilst canoeing, as well.

Please notice that I have not dicscounted the potential positive benefits one might

get from canoeing or therapy.

That last sentence sounded like a disclaimer, and indeed was one. Did that come

about because I’ve been thinking a lot about lawsuits?

I wonder why I might be thinking a lot about lawsuits lately.

I’m just kidding. Almost joking. I know why I’ve been thinking a lot about lawsuits

lately.

In an effort at some engagement of late, I've been asking direct questions to any

potential readers, should there be any. Although I realize it’s a poetry device that

is used on occasion without the author or anyone else involved, fictional or real,

expecting to get a response.

Nevertheless, I’ll note here that it’s not that I expect a response, because I don't.

It's just that I would like to have a few responses to my direct questions to the

folks who may be reading these poems, should there ever be a soul or two

reading them.

This poem has been a send-up or an homage to Chen Chen, whose latest book I

have just begun reading.

That book is entitled Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency.

I have a small, coffin-shaped apartment that offers me extensive therapy that is

not paid by any insurance.

I am soon to move out of this home, for which I am grateful, having lived here for

over four years now.

That prospect makes me very giddy and to that I say the sooner the better.

True or False: Therapy is a digging oneself out of situations that we either brought

upon ourselves or the circumstances arose unexpectedly in such ways that the

fault(s) cannot be attributed to us or else they exist due to some combination of

both.