MUSINGS

Even though pirates are accused of being hard of heart, the real essential nature of the pirate is a profound love of the fuzzy.

The meaning of the word fuzzy is fuzzy. The word can refer to both those wonderfully warm sentimental feelings and to a lack of clarity. The fuzzy word fuzzy originates from the Low German word which means loose or spongy.

Now, we all know that pirates are loose. But spongy needs some explaining, I believe.

Well, the wonderful thing about sponges is their fuzziness. While the unspecialized cells of most creatures can change to become specialized, even the specialized cells of sponges can change to become cells with different specialization. That is extreme cellular fuzziness. And these sponge creatures are also environmentally fuzzy. They have no defined nervous, digestive, or circulatory systems. Instead they open themselves up so completely to water flow through their bodies that it is the water itself which does their physiological work of feeding, oxygenating, and waste removal. They really go with the flow. Sponges are fuzzy creatures in both senses of the word. They are, ah!, so unclear.

Sponges are indeed pirate inspiration, giving courage beyond rum and reason in the search for the beloved fuzzy. And it is pirate belief that the human bodies we embrace, our own or other's, are loosely spongy and fuzzy, too. Really, I can find the fuzzy now anywhere.

Let me retell you a story from the ancient sea mists. After King Minos of Crete defeated the Athenians, he demanded that every seven years, seven unblemished Athenian male youths, and seven beautiful females as well, would be taken to the labyrinth to be devoured by the monstrous Minotaur. This would appease his appetite and spare King Minos' people. Theseus, an Athenian hero, decided to rescue Athens from this curse.

He went as if he were one of the young men destined for the sacrifice. With the help of a woman smitten with love for him, he negotiated the labyrinth and pummeled the Minotaur to death with his fists. He returned to Athens a hero. So Theseus' ship became a memorial, sailed only ritually, once a year.

As the ship of Theseus was memorial in the Athenian waters, over hundreds of years, there was the natural rotting and breakage of its parts. In time, every part of the ship was replaced. And now the beloved fuzziness emerges.

Is the ship with all parts replaced still the ship of Theseus?

And what about the paradox of the heap? Suppose we take a heap of sand and remove the grains from it one at a time. When is the heap not a heap? Are two grains a heap?

Is one? Or none? There it is again: beloved fuzziness.

And what of Loki, the Norse trickster god pirate? Have you heard of the bet he made in which he gave his head as collateral? When he lost the bet, he came forward without protest to give his head as he promised. But he warned that no part of his neck could be taken. No one could decide exactly where his head ended and his neck began. Blessed be the fuzzy: Loki kept his head.

Let my waxing narrative eloquence bring fuzziness to the fuzziness for you.

For this spongy pirate, the fuzziness of essential enduring identity brings that warm fuzzy feeling to a heart free, with no hard edges. I have become my beloved, the sea, granting her full access to my innards. And this sea she does all for me, even the most intimate firing of neurons, the dance of culinary innards, the flow of blood like airy winds, the seminal works wandering abroad, exposed.

And if this be pirate body, how much more fuzzy be pirate mind that generates pirate words? Pirate words can be naught but poem, extraordinary groanings that dethrone the ordinary, not by pummeling or decapitation or butchering. But rather by embrace into the fuzziness itself. Right now, really.

— Rx is the FloridaW eekly muse w ho hopes t o inspir e pr ofound mu tiny in all those who care to read. Our Rx ma y be wearing a pir ate cloak of in visibility, but emanating fr om within this shado w is hope that readers will feel free to respond. Who kno ws: You ma y e ven inspir e the muse. Make contact if you dare.