A Capricious Universe?

A story I told myself was that something bad would happen to me if I let loose and fully enjoyed being in my body. I don't remember when it started, but I have a long history of having physical fun that is halted or followed by injury.

Fun on a skateboard ending with a skinned knee. Fun at the beach ends with near drowning, or a grain of sand scratching my eyeball, or a major sunburn leading to skin cancer.

The occasion I remember most clearly, I was at a retreat out of town, and we got to singing together. I banged joyfully on bongo drums and my thighs, and soared into an altered state of consciousness. The result of my heedless pleasure didn't appear until the next day, when we took a walk and I saw some rabbits in a hutch. I stuck a finger though the wire cage, and the bunny nibbled at my finger. It tickled a little and was strangely sensuous. Then the beast bit down on my finger, drawing blood.

I felt foolish and punished. That my mindless pursuit of pleasure then and the night before had somehow racked up a debt that the universe had to repay with pain. Like I'd strayed beyond the safety of self-control into a hazardous world. Like my life traversed perilous depths that only self-control keeps me out of. maybe there's a bit of logic in this story I tell myself, but not a whole lot.

Sometimes I wonder if there's a way to inhabit my body without drawing retribution. Surely there are places and occasions where ecstatic pleasure is not followed by pain. Surely there is room for some pleasures that don't court punishment. Maybe there are ways to accept gifts of joy with enough gratitude and thanks that the universe will hold the books to be balanced, and I won't get clobbered again.

I have a similar dread of counting chickens before they hatch, because on several long-ago occasions (I learned this lesson early and have followed it assiduously) I rejoiced in some apparent or approaching victory or gift, only to have it snatched away before I could grasp it.

This dread probably started in elementary school, when some friends played an April Fool's joke on my by lying to me that I'd been chosen to be on the school's safety patrol - to wear a belt of white straps and guard a crosswalk. I got all excited before they told me that they'd lied. The letdown hurt unbearable, and I felt stupid for letting them fool me. I didn't plan to be that foolish ever again. So ever since, I have held off rejoicing until I have taken possession of the cause.