A fragment of an incoherent closing speech

In 2020, I learned that great nations fail. 

I also learned a few smaller, more personal lessons. Such as, I prefer being alone and in silence to chatty video meet ups. There are a very few exceptions to that, but not many. Also, I am late in discovering podcasts. And for the most part, after two or three episodes, I am absolutely sick of hearing the caster's voice. 

Much of what we are is inane and disappointing, I can't help thinking. That's not news, I know, but I have been confined with this knowledge. I have been left here to smell myself.

I'll get off right here, I tell the driver. Speak to me in a foreign tongue or let me alone. Leave me now to walk down unfamiliar roads. Let all this repetitious marketing of fakery and shite fall to rubble. I don't want to see your faces influencing anymore. I am bone tired and soul weary of your amazing. This and the propaganda "news" networks are quite probably what caused Nature to rise in shame and annoyance and smite us with this plague.

It's not China, friends. It's hubris. 

So let me stand outside these prison walls and feel the cold edge of the wind against my skin. Let me hear the true voice of my own heart. Let the new day rise and burn away the falsehoods for evermore. Let us bellow righteously, "Vaccinate these poor bastards!" 

And, in closing, let us evolve into something more closely resembling humanity.

Trying to photograph the moon with my phone

You come into the house with cheeks red and ears stinging after a brisk walk on a December night. The clouds running between the full silver moon and you are the tail end of a buffalo herd. Their stampeding hooves hold no malice toward we unfortunates caught beneath them. It's Nature that drives them on, half mad with single minded urgency, the meaning of which is completely hidden from us. The same Nature drove the days of this year, now almost passed, which savaged us so. She holds her secrets dear. And her beauty is terrible. 

Tidings

A few incidents of unexpected good fortune have come my way this year. I am grateful for them. They made me feel lucky, happy, even blessed. For a few minutes I felt seen, appreciated and loved. So why are those things so hard to sit with? 

In no time at all my internal process was able to twist those good feelings into something else. I felt undeserving, like it should have happened to someone else, ashamed, like a fraud. The blessings felt misdirected and strange. My instinct was to shake it off. 

I've come to identify with lack and want, with feeling passed over, deprived and mistreated. I've become someone who does without. I've come to believe I am that person. Any message from the outside world that challenges this identify is deflected or rejected. 

Perhaps you should look into that shit. 

Side effects may include imposter syndrome

The moon is big and bright tonight. The Cold Moon. The Cancer Moon. I thought I might go out for a walk and bathe in its light for awhile but I fell asleep right after dinner. 

I think I'm feeling a bit extra tired after receiving the first dose of the Moderna vaccine at work this morning. I can't be sure if the shot had anything to do with it. Other than the tiredness though, I feel alright. 

I wasn't expecting to get it so soon. Thought I'd be in the second of third tier. But I've been on a temporary assignment this last month working on a geriatric psychiatry unit. There was a Covid outbreak there a few weeks ago but it was contained pretty quickly. Someone's looking out for me, I guess. I should feel lucky. But I feel guilty.

There are so many others who should get that shot before me. Then again, in big picture terms, what's important is getting as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible. So, in that sense, I guess I did my bit. 

From a great height

I put a headboard on my bed last evening. No blood was shed, nothing was smashed in an impatient rage, and I finished the task without storming out in frustration. It's not exactly building a log cabin by hand, but for me it's a real step. That mattress and frame sat unfinished for many years. Now it's a full fledged bed. 

- - - - - - - - - -

During the night I woke several times, and again this morning, remembering the physical sensation of love. And by that I mean that beaming, radiating, streaming feeling from the center of the chest in the vicinity of the solar plexus. 

I remember fumbling trying to show you this new thing and failing to adequately describe it. Was this the heart chakra I've heard people talk about? You and I made it funny because it was serious. We called that spot my Deepak, after Deepak Chopra, because it was mysterious and a mystical thing.

But I knew what it was and I was afraid. The power was beyond my ability to contain or project or control. I understood it meant annihilation. I would drown in it. Be crushed by it. Be vaporized. Instantly. 

It wasn't a choice. Not something I summoned or flexed or willed into existence. Something opened inside and it just came out. Or through me. Like I was a conduit.

You came to me one night. The feeling was, at first, something like a buzz. A warming at the center. A glow that steadily radiated through my entire body, getting brighter. And then it projected out from my heart. A stream of invisible light, beaming. Stronger and stronger until it started coming out through the palms of my hands too. Streaming outward until it became a torrent. 

Glory.

How many times in a life does one know glory?

Christmas

It's 7 a.m. and there appears to be no sunrise in the plan of the day. I've been listening to the rain and wind for the last couple of hours as a warm front roars through. Christmas in Massachusetts. They predicted close to record high temperatures today, nearly 60 degrees. That is unless the sun has other plans. 

I'm on my own this year. Trying to avoid spreading this virus to loved ones. 

Not too long ago, I wished for a break from Christmas. The stress of it - the commercialism, the repetition, the debt. Just a reset, not a cancellation. 

The witch did say I was a powerful manifestor. 

Sorry about all this. 

Hangry

I'm in the seventh day of a sort of diet that focuses less on diet and exercise and more on habits and behavioral changes. Let us first say that I despise routines, but I've managed so far to be vigilant. I've been weighing in every morning, logging my food and water intake, counting my steps, logging whatever other exercise I get. I get an allowance of 1400 calories a day and am encouraged to eat less calorie-dense foods. Last night I became hangry for the first time, and am feeling twice that this morning. My breakfast of almond milk-oatmeal-strawberry-banana-kale-greek yogurt smoothie followed by a chaser of two Krakus ham slices didn't help a lick. 

Oregonian

We went in without a plan. At least no plan the others let me in on. It was a police station filled with the corrupt cops who had previously tortured and humiliated us. Now, we looked like some sort of uniformed paramilitary law enforcement ourselves and we weren't about to let that slide. 

A slow motion Hollywood gunfight ensued. One of them threatened to blow my head off. His eyes were big, he stood in a crouch, and his hand was already at his hip. That cued me up for one of the coolest lines in the scene. "I'll shoot you twice before you get the chance." He drew his pistol, and I did shoot him twice, as promised, with my lever action carbine. Someone shot me in the neck though. And as I crashed to the floor, trying to hold in my essence with the palm of my hand, I felt slighted. 

Working from home today

A dream interrupted. Five-thirty AM arrived, the alarm went off, and I was warm and dreaming. Outside it was cold and dark. Later, I thought, and reset it for six. 

There is something chaste and suffocating to keeping a room clean. Routine is confining. I'm trying to work through that though. Time to step on the scale and take a walk. It was too cloudy to see my son's Christmas Star last night.

- - - - - - - 

But at 5:15 PM I took another walk and could see my shadow under the light of the half moon. The Christmas Star was visible too. The two planets no longer appeared to be aligned but beside each other.  I think I saw Mars as well. Reddish and to the left of the moon. The night is bright and cloudless with a bracing cold breeze. An owl called from the darkened pines down lower in the valley. It all felt still and sacred like the middle of the night and it was only 5:15. 

Saviour

Tonight will be the night of The Great Conjunction. I've read that an event like this hasn't happened since the Middle Ages. Jupiter and Saturn will appear to align and their combined light will make it the brightest star in the sky. My youngest boy refers to it as The Christmas Star. In his mind, the last time this event occurred, Jesus was born unto the world. 

What will happen this time? Will he return? Jack isn't sure if he believes or not, but I can see he's waiting to find out.

Nice

The place was a public market with rows of shops and stalls and places to eat. The sandwich girls were arriving for their shift. One of them knew me by sight. She told me that I had some tissue in my hair then reached for it helpfully. She removed a dusty tangle of hair. That's not a tissue, that's  a hairball, I said. Some passerbys were now watching with amusement. A poor old fat guy fading away, the sandwich girl said to them. 

Journaling

Last night I traveled to France. And before I had my bearings, a French woman fell for me. I would have liked to know her better but I had to travel on. 

And then this morning, just before waking, I was walking somewhere in the Southern United States with a beautiful young lady looking for a particular seafood restaurant. She had ordered a drink to walk around with, which turned out to be Miller Lite in a gallon-sized glass jar. She handed it to me, and I saw doubt in her eyes. Once in the restaurant, we were seated with a party at a long picnic table.  She was given a chair and seated behind the rest of us. She'd have to hold her food on her lap. This wouldn't do, and it made me anxious. I woke up trying to solve the problem.

Missed opportunities and crossed signals seem to be the theme. You know what though?  My bedroom is clean. All is well. 

Saturday, already. The boy is coming here for the weekend. We've got homework to catch up on. We'll watch a movie or two together. We'll endeavor to stay out of the reach of this bug. 

Last year, I was in Texas for New Year's. I set a few goals for the upcoming year and then abandoned most of them before January was out. The one goal I managed to accomplish was writing every day. Just about all of that writing is here in the form of blog posts. 

Next year, I'm hoping to submit for publication. Instead of writing off the top of my head, like I'm doing now, then moving on to the next thing, I want to spend a little time developing and editing. I'm thinking about posting less frequently - maybe two or three times a week - in the coming year. 

This morning's too cold for the birds. I poured the last of the black sunflower seeds in the two feeders an hour ago, and not one has come. I've woken up cold like that many times - thankfully, not in quite some time. But I remember. It's bleak and it hurts. It makes you feel loveless and forsaken. Show a little pity for the birds and the wild things and the people. Give a little help. 

Message

"Gently steer him back to us." 

I woke with these words in my head. 

Evidence of another world? 

Maybe that's where I really live, and this is just the place 

I come to sleep. 

Underneath

Today, I moved the bookshelf, with all of its books and all of its collected dust (which weighed just about as much as the books), out of my bedroom. I also cleaned out all the drawers and donated most of the contents. Mostly gym and running clothes that no longer fit. 

I dusted off and cleaned the mirror. I'm not in love with what I saw looking back at me, but at least I can see him clearly now. You've aged, brother. You could use some repair. It's gone well beyond maintenance.

I found a letter you left for me one one of those nights you came and got your things. And a card commemorating our first Valentine's Day together. I could hear your voice when I read the words. You spoke of us, together. I let that ring inside me for awhile. 

When there were no more words to read, I read them again. Your words reveal you in glimpses. I wanted them to continue. It doesn't matter which words you choose, or what you have to say. Just let me read them. Let me hear your voice again, my friend. 

Reading those words from the past made me realize how dry I've become without them. I hate that I have no news of you, no contact with you. It feels so absolutely wrong. 

Here She Comes

 

Snooze

This morning I hit the snooze button after arriving at an over zealously set pre-dawn wake up. In the ten minutes that followed, I dreamed I was in a discussion with a gentleman about the hidden supernatural significance of the plot of Apocalypse Now. I was eating guacamole. My discussant let me know that I was, in fact, Muloch - a critter highly placed in the demonic pantheon. And that the guacamole I was devouring was actually human souls. I raised the bowl to my lips, tipped it up, and drank the remaining contents with relish. 

Victory enough

Today I removed from my bedroom the accumulated dust and nasty of several years. I didn't write my essay, but I did do that. 

Write it

Trying to write an essay about people who have to work in the world during a pandemic. People some are calling heroes. People who don't have the option to work from home or to not go in to work. People whose job it is to show up when things go wrong. And people who ignore science, common sense, and human decency and put their alleged heroes at perpetual risk. 

I said out loud that I'd write something. Now, it's stuck in my head in some kind of anecdotal tangle. 

Lights

A friend of mine in a Southwestern state, who lives primarily in her imagination, asked me what kind of Christmas lights I had up. My reaction was a sort of mild nausea and creeping shame. None, I had to admit. I have no Christmas lights up. I do not own any Christmas lights.

Some years ago, during a Lazarus episode, I bought two strings of small LED lights and hung them inside the house. I had a frequent visitor then, and the lights added something. Warmth. Cheer. There were two Christmases like that. 

I have hung those lights since but they didn't have the same effect. They became a memorial evoking sweet memories followed closely by sadness and the immersive, bottomless experience of wallowing. 

At some point, one of the strings, carelessly stored, became tangled. And the other, at least 25 percent burned out, made me hopeless. So I threw them away. I've not replaced them since. 

My friend in a Southwestern state wanted to see a snowy New England winter scene, warmed and cheered  by inviting multicolored lights, in her imagination. I'd probably enjoy seeing that too. 

Maybe it's time.

 

Operator?

In the dream, I was attempting to dial some sort of payphone loaded onto a tablet. I was dialing with my right hand. I know it was my right hand because I was holding my penis in my left hand. And my penis was detached. The tablet had a protective case over it which made it very difficult and time consuming to align and punch the digital keys properly. Anyway, I had detached my penis with scissors because it was troubling me and I needed to focus. While trying to focus, I became distracted and time elapsed. Too much time. I noticed that my penis had dried up in the areas where medical professionals would have been able to reattach it - my original plan. The realization that too much time had elapsed to save it dawned on me suddenly with equal parts panic and relief.  

The Kiss

 

Key

You've got the key. I was thinking about that today. I wanted you to have it, and you respected my wish. Today they gave us the all clear at work. Seven days and no new case. Of course it would go that way. I make the best of a bad situation by developing a fetish for nasal swabbing, and then they cut me off. Cold turkey. No taper. Now where will I go? I've gotten experimental at home alone with my own Q-Tips, but it's just not the same. Yes, I released you again. But that doesn't mean I don't remember things all of a sudden. A memory happened today at work. I can't recall it now. But it made me smile, and I nodded my head.

Go

You know what your problem is, the guy in the movie asks. You cling to the past.

 

Interesting timing. It's not hard to make such a diagnosis of someone else. It's even easier to tell someone not to do it or to stop doing it. But have you tried to actually do it? Let me know how it's going, will you?

I only know one sure fire, tried and true method for getting that done. Burn it down. Kill it. Turn your tender feelings into rage and your love into hate. It always works. Allow yourself to feel betrayed, used, rejected, fucked over in some way. The particulars are irrelevant - just be wronged. Swallow the pill. What bubbles up inside is so caustic that it dissolves what would otherwise make you pine. Now bury it. Paint over it. Seal it over. 

Then you spit on the ground, get in your car, and drive away. You don't even think about looking back in the mirror. 

That's not really the story with this though. I rejected that method. I want what there was to remain.

Get over it. Move on. Let go. Release her. Heal and move forward whenever you are ready. You can say it harsh and blunt or empathic and sweet, but none of these have been the magic words that actually make it happen. 

I've tried to do so in ceremonies and by ordeal. I've hibernated and served time. Indulged and abstained. Moved frenetically and sat still. I've written about you and to you. Someone told me I do so in the hopes that you'll come here and read it. 

Yes. 

You've gotten over it, moved on, let go, released me, healed and moved forward when you were ready to do so. Good. That's the way it should be. You're not coming back to me. That still hurts a little to say. Ridiculous, I guess. But something in me still hopes in spite of reality. 

So we're here at this place. I'm releasing you, again. This time though, formally and in writing. All the windows and doors are thrown open. The bird flies out.

Where the rubber meets the road

Laughing in the hallway with the nurses who do the Covid testing. I ask them how many times I can be tested in a single day. The nasal G-spot joke has gotten around. I tell them that they've liberated me. 

Meanwhile, I witness personality capitalize on uncertainty to create chaos. This is not helpful. Be steadfast. Help them settle down. 

The witch told me it's a little easier for me to manifest things than it is for most others. She said that could be a good thing, but it can also be a very bed thing. Look at your thoughts. Be intentional. She said something about being a light worker. About wearing white. I get a picture of  Colonel Sanders without the facial hair. There are some things I need to release, she told me. 

One of those things is you. 

Rest in peace, Harold Budd. Thank you for the places you helped me get to.

 

Feeling better

The temperature hasn't risen above freezing since Saturday's nor'easter. The trees are still encased in white from top to bottom and strained by the weight they must bear in silence. Limbs and power lines are still coming down. I bought a bag of peanuts in the shells and put some out this morning. Within minutes there were more than a dozen blue jays on the scene. I added suet and black sunflower seeds. Chickadees, tufted titmice, cardinals, mourning doves, woodpeckers, and four very rambunctious grey squirrels joined the fray. It's bedlam out there. Christmas time. 

Tarot

The Mexican witch reads my cards, notices a feather, the moon, intuition, touch. She tells me things I've long sensed but never had confirmed by anyone. The obstacles she identifies for me are real. I feel them in my life. The changes that need to be made are practical and within my capacity. I imagined it would be entertaining, but it was true. 

A place to wait

Yesterday's wet and heavy snow turned to cement, broke tree limbs all night. and knocked out the power. It was cold getting up this morning and it sucked digging out. This is winter in New England. That's how it is. But I've been reading about someone traveling through Russia. Yakutsk. The people there would be in speedos here, tanning. There was a story about when prisoners in that hard frozen part of the world planned an escape from a work camp, they'd enlist one of the more innocent minded political prisoners to come with them. The political prisoner having no idea that he was to be the nutrition for the others when the going got hard. 

After shoveling, I drove down to the city 10 miles from here. Up on this hill, everything is heavily encased in frozen white, and the temperature didn't break 32 degrees all day. Down below, there's a few inches of snow, the trees are bare and everything looks normal and easily managed. I find a place, order food, drink some beer, warm my bones and let the shoveling sweat dry on my back. Time passes. Football games on TV screens. Local people fill the place - with social distancing measures taken by management. 

I don't know any of them personally but I do know their faces. Most of them look like Irish descendants or mixes, like me. I've seen these sorts of faces most of my life here. They still talk the same way. They still say the same things. It's fine. But it makes me want to go away. 

A little at a time

In the morning...

It's dark when I wake up and I'm listening to rain. I'll sleep in, I think, and then do. When I open my eyes again, it's the moment when the rain is changing over to snow. The snow is falling in long streaks. In place of the usual flakes there are clumps. I go to pee, put water in the kettle, and turn the burner on. In that short time span the ground has gone from brown to white. I'll likely stay here today. 

Snowed in, I remember. There was a time when I loved those words.

The phone that rarely rings, rings. They want me to come and get tested again in an hour. Let's go. 

In the afternoon...

The re-test was a let down, barely registering as a sensation. One of the patient's tested positive last night, and some of the staff I talked to today are less mentally prepared and resolved than the ones I talked to Wednesday and  Monday. That's what happens as time passes and situations escalate - euphoria and innocent good intentions evaporate and resolve erodes. Anxiety sets in. People get resentful - why do I have to? 

It's still snowing at 4 pm and it piled up here fast.

In the evening...

You typed that line above and a Led Zeppelin song kicked in in your brain. From an album that came out around 1980, you think, but cannot be certain. It's the one on which they started using synthesizers leaving you feeling betrayed. They'd left rock behind for pop and given you another reason to be mad at the world.

I started to doze a little while ago and heard these words in my head as I was waking up: "I don't need you, I have my truth." Great. Thanks. That's good to know. 

A young person asked me earlier if I believed in fate. I didn't want to say too much about what I believe and don't, nor did I want to lie. I told her I believe in the possibility of fate. She talked about people coming into your life for a reason. 

I don't like to contradict or even comment on people's spiritual views anymore. They're often fragile and hard won. People frequently suffer greatly to achieve them and hold them tightly. It used to be something to argue about, to discuss and debate. Philosophizing. 

Now, I figure if it keeps you upright, it's ok with me. 

What do you believe now? It's been awhile since I took inventory. Let's see. 

You're on your own here. You deal the best you can with what happens. You're not here for long. Everything is tentative. 

This diagnosis is provisional, of course. 

Meanwhile, the wet and heavy snow breaks an agonized pine bough and it falls to the ground with a crash just a few feet from where I'm typing. 

Just the news

I've never eaten fried chicken in Nashville, Tennessee but I'm just this minute recovering from a hell of a craving to do so. Is this a symptom of Covid-19?  It was weird and hit me out of the blue without provocation. Am I having a stroke? I think what compounded the intensity of the craving was the fact that I can't drive to Nashville right now to satisfy that craving without being an irresponsible dick. 

The first snow is due in tomorrow night. Up to ten inches in this part of the state is predicted. Someone said it'll be the wet and heavy stuff. Time to put the old cardiology to the test again.

A couple more positive tests at work. Seven now, plus the manager who has to quarantine with his infected fiancee. I have to go in for a second swabbing tomorrow. The last one I had done was conducted with such thoroughness and vigor that we might have discovered my nasal G-spot together. 

A friend told me some places are paying nurses $15,000 a week to come and work with Covid patients.

Out

There are robins about eating those fermenting red berries from the trees. That doesn't seem appropriate at this late date, but then it's 2020 so you oughta expect things to be out of whack. Walked in the woods for an hour today and carried heavy stones part of the way just to try to reverse some of this accumulated atrophy. 

It's good to move a little. It's good to have those clouds out of my head. It's good to feel exertion and clarity together for a change. It'll be good to feel sore tomorrow.

I'm lucky to live close to this boy scout reservation. There's a lot of woods and trails out there with almost no one ever on them. I feel the solitude of those trails as a great gift. 

When I was a cub scout, at age 9 or 10, I spent a few nights out there in a tent. I remember I didn't have a good time but nothing else really. Right now, there are something like 90, 000 alleged cases of sexual abuse by the leadership of the Boy Scouts of America against the boys which the institution tried to silence and bury. All those little boys out there at camp afraid of the dark. 

It makes me wonder when they'll have to sell all this land off to pay for their defense. 

Around 1980, a tornado blew through the area. I remember the damage. All those trees blocking the road just a mile from my house. It tore through the scout camp too, and while the boys were camping. Two of them perished.

I remember thinking of them as martyrs or saints after that. They were a sacrifice. To what, I couldn't understand. 

Hospital

The holiday followed by a weekend. People like to get together. People don't like to think about pandemics and precautions all the time. Sometimes those same people work in health care during a pandemic. One of those people comes to work then goes home not feeling well. That person tests positive and notifies the boss. A round of testing is ordered. Three are positive, but none of them are patients (thankfully). 

By the end of the next day, the total is five. 

The unit closes to new admissions. What this means is that now five health care workers are unable to take care of an increasing number of sick people for at least two weeks (if they themselves don't get very sick). And this particular hospital unit, to avoid an uncontrolled outbreak among existing patients, has to say no to the growing number of patients stuck in Emergency Departments who are becoming increasingly desperate for care. 

We're talking here about what occurs over the course of just two days on one hospital unit. If we fail to contain it, do you see what happens? Play it out. Think bigger. 

The number of sick people goes up - fast. At the same time, the number of people and places able to cope with and care for those people goes down. It's not long before things get really shitty. Local, state, then national. Soon, there's no cavalry left to call. They're all in the fight. 

At work, they issued better masks and put in place rules for gearing up when in contact with patients. The staff more than rise to the challenge. They've been anticipating this. They have a plan and they roll it out. They have the gear they need. No one's complaining. There's some joking and laughter. They ask each other if they're ok. 

Time for me to get tested. The ED nurse manager is there supervising the gowned and shielded nurse doing the testing, so the test I get is LEGIT. She goes way up into both nostrils, just about to the edge of my brain, and swirls with real vigor. My eyes close tight and tear a bit. 

"Now that's technique!" I tell the nurse. There's no telling if she's smiling behind her mask and face shield. She just tells me who to send in next. 

May I come in?

 

Work from home day

7:30 am

My dreams gave me a hard time last night, showed me strangers, disconnections, missed cues and no satisfaction. I woke frequently and aborted my plan to get up at 5 am. Some biting insect found me in my bed too. Four itchy bumps on my right buttock. It's December, right? I'm going to take a walk. 

I take a walk. 

It's a humid morning that feels more like late May or early June - like Spring - than it does  the first day of December. In the aftermath of someone else's tropical storm which ushered through strong winds last night, the Western subdivision's residents will be picking up their toppled and scattered Christmas displays this morning. Their enormous inflatable Santas and snowmen are shrunken and strewn about the lawns and driveways like a massacre. A mother and daughter pull out of their driveway in the family's compact SUV and eye me warily. Their eyes move in unison. A stranger - from around the corner. 

A boisterous German shepherd mix sprints out of their driveway behind them, runs a half-circle and returns. It's tongue is wrapped halfway around it's head, mouth wide open in what looks to me to be a smile. The dog has a particularly frolicsome bounce to it's running. The jubilation of transgression. I recognize her as an escapee.

She runs up to within 20 feet of me and then away when I acknowledge her. This continues as I walk the crescent. Each time she comes in a little closer. And each time I get a little more animated in my response. She's cautious at first, as am I, but within three repetitions we are in play mode together. I'm starting to wonder if she plans to come home with me, when another family's compact SUV makes it's way out of a long driveway from a secluded house to the street. The dog stops, tongue lolling. The driver calls her. The dog looks at me as I'm starting to fade into the distance. 

Go home, kid. That's where you belong. I'm just a hobo, honey, a pobresito, see? All you can hope for with me is dry store brand food and maybe a Hostess cupcake at Christmas, if we're flush. Go back to your palace, princess. I'm no good for you.

I walk out onto the main road alone then take a left up the hill into the Eastern subdivision. There's a pair of toddler mittens on the roadside. A couple plays with two dogs on their tidy green and leafless genetically engineered lawn. I imagine walking up and talking to them about some of the things I've been reading lately like Leave the Leaves, an article making the case for pollinator habitat and against ornamental and essentially lifeless lawns. That's not me though. I don't do things like that. 

I walk another crescent. At the last house before returning to the main road, three dogs assemble at the edge of the fence to bark wildly at me. They are apparently restrained by something invisible and electronic because no physical barrier exists between us and they seem to harbor a collective will to tear me to pieces. 

When the first dog started barking, the one with the deepest voice, I felt self conscious. Spot lit, like a cat burglar caught in the act. When the other two joined in - three different breeds and sizes and their resulting cacophony - I felt the roles reverse. 

I'm not a freak, you fuckers. You're the freakin' freaks !!!

Back on the main road, my nerves are a little jangled. A dump truck blows by just a couple of feet to my left. The next time I look up, my eyes come to rest on a human form. A lovely human form. She is dressed in slippers and wearing an ankle length satin robe. She has come out for the morning newspaper. I have never seen her before. She waves shyly, not expecting to run into anyone. Her dark eyes are soft and warm. Direct. I feel a slowness take over me. 

I am not moving or speaking. She holds her hand out to me. Now, I can move again. I walk the few steps until I am beside her. We are holding hands now and walking slowly toward her house. It doesn't feel at all like the first day of December. It feels like Spring. 

Later...

At home, I was feeling like something of a man. I decided December 1st was exactly the right time to clean the gutters. I fetched the 40 foot ladder from the side of the house. The ladder, like me, had been lying on it's side for the past two years. I managed to raise it, only stepping on the rope and cursing twice, without major incident. The gutters were jam packed with fermenting pine needles. The little bit of liquid at the bottom must have been turpentine or gin. There were thick stalks of weeds that had since withered and toppled. And several varieties of saplings I thought might require a saw before I could remove them. 

I started at the back of the house and made my way around to the front, which is a little higher. I felt no fear or apprehension climbing up or working at the top of the ladder which was unusual because I've been afraid of heights all my life. Almost had to abandon my car on the 59th Street Bridge once, but that's not happening today. 

I saw my silver hair and the bags under my eyes reflected in the picture window as I climbed past. Neither of those particular attributes were as pronounced the last time I passed this way and saw that reflection. But I was pretty impressed by the surety of the man's steps as he climbed. His work boots completely masking his rank amateur status. 

At one point, nearly finished and standing at the top of the ladder, I stretched far to my left to get the last handful of organic matter. The ladder slid an inch or two in that direction too. Just then, the volunteer ambulance happened to be passing by. They slowed  down to watch me. I could see the two young EMTs, probably hopped up on Rock Star energy drinks, watching me like vultures with broad white smiles from behind their black paramilitary shades. They were undoubtedly betting on what kinds of fractures they'd be treating me for five minutes from now. But that did not come to pass. 

Piddly

Early morning:

A new work assignment this week, filling in for a social worker on maternity leave on a geri-psych unit. A change of pace. Change is good. Been awake since 4 am after having crazy dreams I can no longer remember. Might as well get at it. 

Early evening:

Let me rephrase that. Some change is good. Sometimes change means the transformation from a brilliant intellect to a man who knows only his first name in the span of two months. Perspective. My troubles are mostly optional. And miniscule. 

Sunday with another human in my house

Morning:

I wonder if these morning birds bouncing off the bedroom slider are actually a demand to refill the feeders. Eat the cracked corn, you bougie bastards. I'm all out of black sunflower seeds. My son spent the night here. We took a walk in the woods, ate a meal, did homework and watched a movie together. He's got a lot to do today, and it's time to get started. 

I read something that's been rattling around in my head since. Have I already seen you for the last time?

Evening:

The moon is full and bright enough to read by tonight. I saw my son watching it rise through the car window and felt proud that he pays attention to such things. We saw Saturn and Jupiter appear to be moving closer to each other in the night sky. Soon they will seem to converge into one very bright planet for the first time since the middle ages. What does it portend?

Black hair

 

Feedback

A lady told me not too long ago that maybe I was in love with loss. Reading that made me bristle, which might mean it's not far from some kind of truth. Someone else called me fickle. That stuck in the back of my throat for a week or so. I could neither cough it up or swallow it down. Fickle to me means indecisive. Like I said before, a frivolous need to nibble every bon-bon in the box because one cannot make a selection. I asked her for clarification. By fickle she meant that what I seek in relationships is the want not the satisfaction of the want. I thought of the Nick Cave lyric in From Her to Eternity.

The desire to possess her is a wound and it's nagging at me like a shrew

But I know that to possess her is therefore not to desire her

So then you know, well then you know, that little girl will just have to go...

Both of those formulations kind of hit the nail, but not quite squarely, on the head. In any case, the eventual outcome is probably not good health. 

Not my black friday

The thump of a bird bouncing off the slider wakes me from a dream in which I'm trying to make improvements in a residential program I haven't worked in for 15 years. Yesterday, the settler's  holiday here in New England was comprised of some text messages, a video conference call with my mother and siblings, reading about traveling through the former Soviet republics and sleeping. In my family, Thanksgiving has always been a holiday in which everyone makes an effort to come home. There's a good feeling attached to it. For others, the day is called the National Day of Mourning. Some people you know scoff over that. Other people you know feel it deeply. For me, it was a quiet day, just upbeat enough to stay afloat. 

More quiet today. 

More time spent watching the song birds get pushed out by the jays that get pushed out but by the squirrels. All of them somehow finding a way to eat. 

Unplanned

Dinner was turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce (the jellied kind that has the rings from the can stamped into the end slices). I substituted in coleslaw for the prescribed butternut squash (which still makes me gag, even in mere contemplation). The meal would have been too expensive at half the price, but I ate in good company. The waiter was a friendly guy. He's planning to spend the holiday with family after receiving negative Covid results a week ago. He feels like now his loved ones have some measure of protection. Personal voodoo. Later, strange stories were told, and my spirits were unexpectedly raised. 

Eve

A waitress woke me this morning by saying my middle child and I looked just alike. He'll be 20 before long. Waking on that thought gave me a taste of something like holiday blues. I've had them before. Lots of times. Like that time alone and drunk in a Tijuana Denny's at about my son's age. One strategy is denial - just make it an ordinary day. Sap it of sentimentality. Press on with ordinary activity or lack thereof. Or you can do that sort of holy thing, reviewing memories, sending love out quietly by yourself from the back booth while picking at your huevos rancheros. That waitress kept the coffee coming for as long as I sat there. It was just another day at work for her. Like a lifeguard.

Reflux

The fake president and his confederate dunces have apparently conceded. Voter fraud, of course, being just the next con in a long line, wiping clean the memories of those that came before. Bigger and bigger lies. A circus of ever increasing absurdities. I'm not sure the people of this country will ever share the same reality again. 

Maybe that's the purpose of the emergence and proliferation of this virus. A reality check in slow motion. It's real when it comes through your door, puts you or your loved one in the hospital, on a ventilator, in the ground. "It's real," we say then soberly, chastened. Both feet suddenly planted on the unreliable earth. Eyes wide and humble. "Please be careful,' we say earnestly, as though we'd never heard of the last eleven months and their twelve million American cases. 

It's still dark here as I write this.

But for a longer reach

She, with those brown eyes, rests in a small apartment in an Albuquerque complex. She's raising a kitten there. The kitten is her whole world right now. She's been sick lately and missing her Mom fifteen hundred miles away. New Mexico has risen to fourth on the list of states with the highest number of daily new cases.

One state over from there, someone has stolen the package I sent to raise the morale of a friend and her son for Christmas.

Further to the East, an old friend considers painting his Winnebago black and heading out into conspiracy fractured America. He will bring his telescope, guns and drones with him. I suggest psilocibin to add a spiritual dimension to the voyage. 

I find myself ready to embark. 

The morning begins with rain. The rain stops. The sun comes out. A wind rises and then settles. The sun sets. Others have bought up the black sunflower seeds my bird and squirrel and chipmunk friends now eat at a startling rate. Naps nip along the course of this abbreviation. Make coffee. Later a sandwich. Read and write e-mail. Initiate a phone call. Become complicit in a mutual misunderstanding. Do something gauche, regret it, and withdraw back into solitude.

I read about a man who writes about a land blighted by night, blinded by white, where the roads run on forever, and all of your well formed plans are transformed into steam and freeze upon the window glass. I can feel the buck and sway of the train car and the widening void of lost directions.

Wash 'n Wait

There aren't too may laundromats that I'd consider life affirming. That is, in my limited experience. In fact I can only remember one. It was called Soap and Suds, if memory serves, and it wasn't too far from the back gate of Camp Geiger in Jacksonville, North Carolina. You could wash your clothes there and drink beer, and somehow I was able to do that at 18 years of age. There was a Ponderosa Steakhouse down the street with an all-you-care-to-eat salad bar for cheap and also  a theater that ran horror and kung-fu movies continuously 24 hours a day where you could crash for a few hours without shelling out for a hotel or having to go back to base. Sometimes the usher would kick you out, but we were often surly and not worth the hassle, so they mostly let us sleep. Sometimes a creep would approach you in the dark, but you learned how to deal with that. That laundromat was a bright spot though, I had some laughs there. Not like in this one, with it's unmatched broken office chairs for furniture and the sickly green walls, where I'm waiting and barely remembering. 

Everybody's got a hungry heart

Is fickle the right word? 

I always thought an example of being fickle is someone who nibbles every bon bon in the box rather than selecting one to enjoy. Even the sound of the word evokes an image of someone trivial and unserious. 

Is being fickle a permanent disposition - a character trait? Or is it a temporary condition - momentary uncertainty? 

A heart doesn't like to be accused of being fickle though. Especially when it's starving.

I can't wait to get on the road again

In West Texas, I used to go to one particular restaurant several times a week for dinner. The dirt lot was always crowded with plus-sized pickups and the restaurant itself full of oil field workers just coming off the job. One could describe them as scruffy I suppose. I'd park my subcompact rental car and go inside. Dressed in business casual, I'd stand there by myself waiting for a table, drawing long looks from some of the other customers. It was a little squirmy at first, but that dissipated after the second or third visit. 

There was another place outside Shreveport. I was the only white man in there and it was packed to capacity. I received a few similar long looks there, but within minutes the waitresses were joking with me and I felt comfortable. I didn't belong there, I guess. But nobody told me that, and I enjoyed the whole thing immensely.

Last night I ate at a diner about five miles from where I live and about twenty miles form where I grew up. It was busy. All the customers were white, most have likely been here their whole lives, and no one gave me a second look when I came in. There was that excessive volume people use in bars when they talk. Exaggerated canned laughter. A harsh female bartender voice blessed with the regional accent pierced my ears. This is my home, allegedly. The place where I belong. 

What the hell am I doing here?

Come here my love

 

Setting up the morning.

Yes. Affirmative. Today I'm going to will into existence a productive day. I'm going to get shit done. The coffee is made. I've read the e-mails to prepare for parent teacher conferences this afternoon. I know when my three phone conferences are today, and I have a list of priorities to accomplish beyond those. 

This morning is the first really cold one - single digits. I forgot to empty the cement birdbath yesterday. Ice can crack it. Need to get a shallow plastic one and put a little water in every day. It ain't easy for a bird in winter to find water, or to do anything really.

This morning I washed this pretty stoneware dish you intended to hold my sponges and things next to the kitchen sink. You brought it over in the days when we'd unsealed my tomb, cleared out some of the dust, bought some new bedding and imposed a little order on my apathetic chaos. That dish is a beautiful detail. A symbol of a thought for me and an effort you made to pull me out of the muck. I treasure it. 

Harsh conditions. Remember that? It's almost as cold as that this morning, but I've got plenty of oil this time should you come over at 3 AM. 

The rituals I practiced - leaving the outside light on, making sure things were shoveled out and not too icy, leaving the door unlocked, keeping candles at the ready, hoping you would be standing there when I opened my eyes.  Magical thinking. Magic of the best kind. 

I miss you happily today.

I hope you are well and not working in the proximity of this Covid monster and the ignorant mask-hating population every day. There are blue jays out there this morning. I'd like to be frying us some eggs. 

Universo De Amor

 

Unsound

She spoke of needing healthy connections. That made me reflect. When did I become something else? 

And another lady, acting as a friend, illuminates something for me. Bitterly, I joke that all she has to do for me to fall in love is become inaccessible to me. She recommends that I think hard about that position. It's a place without hope or happiness, without even the possibility of those things. 

Yes, that's right. 

And if I cannot have those things, I cannot lose those things. Is that the truth I'm living?

Virtual magic

The bruja entered my mind as I was falling asleep. She came in the form of a silent blue cloud. Somehow I recognized her immediately. She didn't knock but neither did she force entry. She simply found me open and so entered. She was responding to my initial signal. She had come to authenticate it. Preventing that from taking place would have been like trying to stop water or smoke with my hands. 

Tonight, I looked for the Mexican witch but couldn't find her. She did not come into my mind. But she did send an icaro. A simple song of thanks to the ancestors for their medicine, to the spirits and the angels, and to other beings with beautiful names that I could not understand. A meditation of breath and flame. A special candle surgically filled with meaning and intentions unknown to me. The singer's voice itself was medicine. The rhythm of the candle flame.

Proof of life

After a weekend of sluggish procrastination, I woke at 4 AM and put in 12 hours of productive, self- directed work at home. I crossed things off the list, delivered deliverables, checked boxes, met or exceeded expectations - I hustled. I didn't feel too drowsy or too foggy. Activity is a good thing. Let's feel good about all that for a minute. Breathe. Look around you. Eat some dinner. Before you go looking for another reason to sink back into that muck. 

Just let it slip through your fingers

7:30 am

Is this tinnitus? That tone, like the far end of a hearing test. Except for the waitress yesterday, and the bald guy who dropped his cash when he took his phone out of his pocket, I didn't speak to anyone or hear anyone speak. I spent the day listening to silence and found myself frustrated by that interfering tone. Is that what silence sounds like to the human ear? Or is the experience sullied by some kind of damage I carry?

11:15 am

Trying to catch up on work I didn't finish during the week. I've yet to start. But I ate, and the girls at Dunk's screwed up my order and ended up giving me two coffee drinks for the price of one. This town is very white. Whenever I interact with anyone here, I think trump. I saw a house this morning with a flag over the door proudly proclaiming VETERAN. Below it was one of those porch statues - a footman holding a lantern - and it looked to me that his face had recently been repainted a glossy black. Am I seeing what I think I see?

I went home. 

Have I ever told you that your spontaneous use of the word whimsical broke my heart?

9:41pm

I needed to change the title. So at least I accomplished that much today, but very little else.

If I'm going to be with someone, I don't want to feel lonely when we're together. I don't want to feel far away, misunderstood, or like I'm watching her talking to me on a screen when she's right there in front of me. 

I don't know how not to feel that way. 

It wasn't like that when I was with you. Was it? I don't think so. Or is that just a trick of my memory?

Diwali

A festival of light - a time for overcoming darkness and for new beginnings. She sent a message asserting her wish to do just that. I was relieved. 

Later, a breakfast of coffee and bloody marys and a good omelette made with goat cheese, spinach and Canadian bacon at a table for one. I got sad watching the young siblings and their hula hoops on television and tears came. 

She was good to me. Smart, honest, beautiful, funny, spirited, unique and ready. It's that last one, I just couldn't match it. There's a wall inside me. 

Become inaccessible to me, and I may fall in love with you. 

I'll light a candle tonight too. 

I've got a feeling I just can't shake

 

Sun

Driving on a cold grey rainy day

I remembered you looking at me carefully

You said you liked my freckles

The ones on my shoulders

Hearing that felt better than it should have

Like a warm light coming on

Inside the surprised man

A small boy looking down with

Reddening cheeks, an involuntary smile

Inside the stunned boy

Seen now, gently,

A new warm orange glow shines

- - - - - - -

You are all through me today. The cardinals are here, arriving at dusk to feed. It's chilly, and I'm thinking of tea for warmth though I rarely drink the stuff. The green tea bags you left behind so long ago remain in the cabinet, and I smile as I prepare one wondering at what point tea becomes old hay. This signals another train of memory to wind it's way out of the tunnel. And just then the organ that opens "Push the Sky Away" kicks in.

Emergence

My head goes hollow and rings

Then the downward elevator feeling

And I've got to sleep to clear it out

The drive to Boston in

Pandemic sifted traffic

It felt good to be moving

Locked inside the place

The frightened face of paranoia

One-eyeing me from behind the door

She talks to me as if they won't understand us

How it's not a safe place to work

A man threatening her with an undetected knife

I take my notes, listening

Watch the people doing their daily work

Ordinary danger, never too distant death

Chester Siesta

I can hear wind stirring the trees and rain falling out there. Something tells me a cold front is moving in putting an end to our Indian Summer. I didn't get outside at all today. Worked from home, got a little done, and now I'm ready to sleep again prematurely with some kind of buzzing sensation under my forehead. 

I read the headline of a Covid study today which said something like 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 people infected with Covid end up with symptoms of mental illness. They mentioned depression, anxiety and insomnia. What about hypersomnia? I can't stop sleeping. I almost always want to sleep. 

Something is whispering below the buzz, "Why don't you find something to wake up for? 

"Shaddap," I tell it, "Shaddap."

Peril

Pompeo seems like just another pederastic used car salesman. Today he's making statements that seem designed to provoke a reaction which would justify a crackdown. We are imperiled by these people. 

There's something better than Fox

Magical thinking versus rational thinking - man, I can relate to that. I'm a magical thinker too. For instance, don't tell me love boils down to a body's reaction to oxytocin when I know damn well that it's my soul taking flight. I know what soaring on wings feels like. I'll take poetry over science six days out of seven any week. 

But during a pandemic, poetry is better read and written wearing a mask, and science is a worthy source to tune into for hearing about what's going on out there. It's not really about practicing one to the total exclusion of the other. But I do understand your attraction to the magical. Hell, I know for certain I wouldn't have gotten this far without it. 

But when the magic you conjur up comes down to conspiracy theories, QAnon, angels intervening in earthly elections and trump as some kind of savior, you should really ask yourself if that's the best you've got. I mean, if you're going to practice magic, why not practice the good stuff?

Another wake up

 Excessive sleep last night and still tired enough to return there. The sun is rising. The weekend was a warm slow dream. Indian Summer. 75 sunny degrees in November. Burnt and browning orange and red reflected on the surface of the reservoir. 

Jitters

Poor sleep last night. Repressed anxiety bleeding through. A dream of having to shuck an oyster quickly and flawlessly in front of world leaders - it had something to do with a Corona Virus cure. There was no time to practice. I began to worry about whether the oyster within would be dead or alive. That was a critical piece of this whole thing and I had no way of knowing. There was no one to consult. I started to spin but fought it back, knowing that to think about falling is to fall. 

It's a beautiful Indian Summer weekend. I'm going to meet my son this morning for a walk near the reservoir. 

Results

I don't know about you but I voted to depose a despot not really to elect my favorite person. This was a matter of survival for the national character. A contest for honor and decency. This is something that had to happen now while there are still some of us able to remember what those things are and why they matter. 

Mr. Biden, may you do better. 

Echo

Sometimes I wake up with the chorus of that Lenny Kravitz song playing in my head. 

All of my life, where have you been? I wonder if I'll ever see you again.

I'm not a fan exactly, but it captures the sentiment. 

I enjoyed your profile

She was an over-smiler, that was clear. I showed up out of shape and very casually dressed - just as I happened to exist in that moment in time without adornment, camouflage or effort. We ordered drinks. 

I'd consumed half of mine before she'd even touched hers. She asked questions and I answered them. When I spoke, she over-smiled and seemed to close her eyes completely in the process. To me, it appeared as though she were grimacing in pain. Crohn's disease or something else abdominal maybe. I fought back the urge to ask her if she was alright.

Maybe she was trying to mask a state of extreme terror. I reminded her perhaps of some past trauma or absolute horror. Maybe it was something surgical, some acid peel or botox procedure that hadn't settled yet. Or some new beauty trend, like those crazy eyebrows, that had come into fashion while I was institutionalized. I couldn't be sure. It was disconcerting though. To say the least. 

Frankly, I didn't want to be there. I couldn't be sure if I was interpretting her facial expressions accurately so began to doubt myself savagely. My confidence began to erode. Insecurity crept in. 

I asked her a question about her educational background. And as she responded through an exceedingly tight seemingly forced smile, I pretended to cough, brought my hand to my mouth and inserted four alka-seltzer tablets. I followed that with a generous sip of sparkling water. Then I stared at her blankly for a moment, widened my eyes, and began to tremble visibly. I let my eyes roll back and allowed myself to trust fall off the back of my stool. The alka-seltzer was foaming at this point and someone shrieked. Someone else called 911. A young waiter cradled my head in his lap and placed his wallet between my teeth. 

I just stared at the ceiling with my back arched burning calories with forced muscular convulsions. I didn't look in her direction, not once, but experience had taught me that if I just stuck it out for a few seconds more, she'd be gone. 

Georgia

The work of black women - stepping forward, speaking up, organizing, and following through. Making change. In the South. Making me believe.

Meanwhile, my little white town voted trump down by less than 200 votes. People that look like me - white men - were the bulk of his support around the country, regardless of their level of education. Is it their unearned status they're afraid of losing? I can't figure it. 

The balance in Pennsylvania just shifted. Philadelphia - black people - had something to say about that. Same was true in Michigan. I hope people hear the message. Show up and it can happen. Sit it out, and they'll run away with it. 

Regroup

I've got something in me that makes me tired more often than I should be tired. There's little motivation to write anything right now. This election is disheartening in that it illustrates this massive division we seemingly have here. And yet there are other things to celebrate like the largest voter turnout in something like 120 years. A trans woman was elected to the Senate. All the officials elected in New Mexico were women of color. AOC and the Squad were all re-elected. 

Have you noticed all the inspiring people as of late have been women?

Anyway, change doesn't often come in a wave and happen over night. It takes sustained effort, new energy, and clarity of vision. It happens by slow degree. Keep the picture in your head. Everybody counts. Everyone deserves a seat at the table. Call out those who say otherwise. 

Don't quit. 

The house of Mitch the treasonous ghoul

I'm sick on your behalf, Kentucky. 

South Carolina, you too. 

Maine?

What the fuck is wrong with all of you?

Listening to the chimes

Brisk out there today. I took a good hour's walk in the woods this morning with some short uphill running and a little rock lifting. I got stuff done today. Feeling less lethargic. Not much to say. 

Will tomorrow be the first day of the second American civil war?

Some things do

 

It begins

It's the first of November and the oaks are the last trees holding the thinning remnants of their golden orange leaves. This morning it was just under 40 degrees. Grey clouds move across the sky and a cold, light rain falls. The trees are getting close to that stark, bare look that gives me a feeling of empty austerity and hardship. Winter here, when you're feeling low, is like having an ice pick pushed through your heart over the course of five months. This year it started early. I felt the initial prick of it against my skin today. It's merciless. It gets on top of you, looks directly into your eyes (it's own face completely devoid of expression), places the point against your chest and begins to apply pressure. The pressure is constant -unbearably slow and relentlessly steady. And it keeps on until some day in late March, maybe April, or most definitely by early(ish) May. 

Then again there are the snow bunny types, the holidays, snowboarding, skiing, the festivities and the warm glow they create. All you have to do is find them and join in.

The kid at the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru window looked like the actor Adam Driver in a surgical mask. He asked if I did anything fun for Halloween.

Woke up wishing for fried pork chops or something

Fried pork chops with gravy seems like the right thing today. 

I'm missing the South. And you. I really only have two fried pork chop memories. 

The most recent came from a place called Brother Orlando's in Shreveport, Louisiana. It was a small, busy place. I noticed the staff, despite their hustling, never stopped joking, singing, and interacting with the customers and each other. It was a good place for a stranger to walk into, take a seat and eat a meal. By the time I'd finished eating, I didn't want to leave. The fried pork chops were juicy on the inside with hot crispy batter on the outside. The chef gave me an extra soup bowl of gravy and I drank up every drop. I wished hard that day that you were there with me.

My first noteworthy fried pork chop memory was the one where you and I found a roadside trailer selling soul food after your competition in Connecticut. You were famished. It gave me such pleasure to feed you that night, to find something you desired and to give it to you. I always loved eating with you. 

I ate some pretty decent fried pork chops at Cracker Barrel on my own today. It happened to be the Saturday special. They tasted good. They filled me up. But they didn't hit the spot.

Humble pie guy

The Emergency Department nurse was attacking me in a feigned attempt to bite. My job was to disengage, not get bit, and exit the vicinity. Not a problem (it's just practice). They teach you to shuffle away,  to maintain your center and your balance, to keep your hands raised. I guess I was feeling kind of playful after the tenth repetition and instead of shuffling back I kind of pirouetted. I wear a size 14 sneaker. They apparently became tangled in one another. I went down fast with a room shaking crash. This was my first bonafide  fall as an aging man. It would have certainly earned me a fall risk bracelet had I been a patient. Think about that. Not a slip or a stumble, when you catch yourself and recover, but a-full-on-bust-yo-ass-fall. Humbling. Yes.

Another young ED nurse - after she realized I was alright - dryly said,  "I think she won."

Love and limits

As a boy, he killed out of misdirected rage, sometimes out of malice or morbid curiosity, and sometimes as an expression of joy (just for fun). He doesn't do that now knowing how stacked the odds are against breathing things, how hard they struggle just to exist a little longer. 

Now, he coexists fairly well for a guy who lives alone. A couple of nights ago it was a lady bug attracted to the lamp in an otherwise dark house. Bonjour, Madame. Stay as long as you wish. 

And there was a daddy-longlegs who lived upon the bathroom ceiling all summer and fall completely unmolested. Bienvenido, Senior. Mi casa y su casa. 

However, a mouse ran across the top of the stove when he turned the kitchen light on this evening. Tonight the first snowfall is predicted. These folks wasted no time upgrading their digs. I can't lie though. Watching little homie run across the stove gave him a feeling of revulsion and the "kill it" voice returned. 

Thank you for your service

Today we practiced managing aggressive behavior aimed at health care workers. If you're one and a patient, visitor, coworker, or civilian comes at you with a stick, knife or a gun - I got you. If that ungrateful person grabs you, bear hugs, bites, punches, kicks you, pulls your hair or chokes you - we got something for that too. You came here to do this work because it pays pretty well and helping people seemed kind of cool, right?

Persephone

 

Sorry, pal

In the foyer of the auditorium is a life size statue of Jesus mounted on the wall. His right hand is extended as if to do one of his magical blessings. Someone snapped two fingers off and there's just a bit of metal left protruding there. The look on his face is one of helpless surprise. All too human.

Foggy night

 Dear World, 

And by that, this time, I mean the world of ghosts. The world of memory and the limits of memory. Of people and things and feelings departed. Of God and Santa Claus and stories. Of hope and meaning and the way things used to be even if they never really were. And of the final fading into absolute darkness when it passes from all living memory.

You're my home, if I have one. The place I come to sleep. The foggy grove I stroll through when my time belongs to me. I just want you to know how much you mean.

Love, 

Lemon is good

My youngest turned 15 over the weekend. We spent some time together, went out to eat, had the waitstaff do one of those "yeehaw" birthday tributes they do in front of a minimized pandemic audience. We went shopping for masks for in-person high school which begins on a limited basis tomorrow. We got a lemon flavored birthday cake. He passed on a haircut again which he's abstained from since quarantine began back in the winter. He plans on shaving his head when the restrictions are finally lifted. Sitting in the driveway today, he told me that if he becomes famous he'll bring people together in a way that's not offensive to anyone. He talked about Robin Williams. He said people today are very divided. Things change I told him. It was the only thing true I could think to say.

Good story though

What a woman doesn't want to hear is a story about another woman, even if it is a funny story. 

You had called me unexpectedly. I was in a bad place, feeling very low, having just left a local hotel. You invited me out for a drink with you and a friend of yours I didn't know. I declined claiming I had something to do. You asked what that something was. I said I had to return a vacuum cleaner. You asked where. Walmart, I answered. You asked what kind of vacuum cleaner. A Dirt Devil, I said. 

"No one uses Dirt Devils anymore. Just come out."

How could I not? 

Retelling the story made me smile. 

The woman I told the story to turned her back to me. She wasn't smiling. She said I was in love with you. She said I'd probably always be. 

Tonight

I can sense a panic just beyond my range of feeling. The numbers of infected are about to explode. Tonight I'll have sushi and focus on what's in front of me while avoiding the crowd. 

Trying to stay centered

It was 70 degrees today and changing over into dark October colors.

I saw five furry bumblebees piled in around a single cluster of small flowers. 

How far do they go? How long do they last? Does winter kill them off? 

I'm ashamed to know so little about them but delighted to watch them work

Bees mean hope, even though I try not to put much stake in that word, you know?

Do the work of today is what I try to tell myself and let that be enough

But to see those pollinators holding the circle together feels good

Then I went to the store for ham and cheese and milk and apple cider

Deviled Ham was on sale so I bought two cans of that

The plaza is located near a major intersection and there were probably 

Thirty of forty cars parked on the side of the road

Lots of blue flags in pickup truck beds

trump flags

A little rally, a couple of horns blaring their support

I've  always felt that this particular town was fucked up

Since childhood it's been wrong 

Maybe lead poisoned

I don't even like to drive through it

I'm an American, how can I vote for that asshole?

This is not meant to be a poem by the way

I just couldn't figure out how to change the alignment

 

Leaving meaning

 

Disclaimer

No, I have not come to that point and I'm not feeling that way. It's fiction. Or fictional. It's what was there when I sat down to write something. Actual events mixed with imaginary events into something that hopefully becomes a story of sorts until the inspiration runs out.

Hardly worth a mention

A nondescript day... 

What a fucking shame. 

Although blaming doesn't help- that's on you. Ok? 

Alright?

Look closer. Go deeper. 

Wake the hell up. 

A lady with a walker asked me for a dollar for something to eat while I was on my way into the post office today. I told her I'd see her on the way out. She muttered something. On the way out, I checked my wallet. I had two twenties. I gave her one. She said, "Thanks, hon."

I bought fifty pounds of black sunflower seeds and some suet bricks at the hardware store. 

I tipped the barista five dollars at the coffee drive up. 

I bought my son a down jacket and my daughter an electric blanket on line last night. 

I texted my oldest son after reading the headline of an article about a naked teen found covered in ranch dressing who crashed into a Kansas gas station. I haven't seen him in a couple of weeks. 

A man fixed my computer, but I could not log in to what I needed when I got home. 

I sent someone an e-mail advocating suicide risk screening in primary care doctors' offices. Research tells us that most suicides see their doctor within a month of their deaths. The patient almost never says it out loud. The doctor almost never asks. "Let me stop you there..." 

On average you get eight minutes of face time per visit with your PCP in America. That's what I've heard from the professionals.

I don't have one. I can ignore myself professionaly and I don't even bill for it. 

The man on my music player is chanting, "Why am I on this earth?" 

You should be careful what you're feeding yourself. 

Blink

Got up at 4 am to do work. Good on ye! The sun rose at about 7 am. I took some phone calls and committed myself to a couple more projects. I took a long walk in the woods at around noon, then made arrangements to get my work computer fixed and drove it to the place. Then I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner as one meal. And then it was dusk. Already the shortened days. 6 pm and I'm ready for bed. 

Soles worn thin

I think I've probably told a few people in my life that I'm worried about them over the years. It was certainly true. But it's jarring to hear those words spoken about you. 

Am I not alright? Relatively speaking, of course.

I'm eating bitter dark chocolate to shrink my grandiose prostate. I got a flu shot a few weeks ago and learned that my blood pressure was the same as it was when I was 18. I wear a mask in public. I'm going to vote this morning against that infectious disease in Washington. I'm paying some attention to my health and well being and maintaining some connection to and engagement in the world.

What probably isn't healthy is this hangover. It has nothing to do with alcohol. It has everything to do with allowing myself to go to the place I went yesterday morning - beside a sleeping somebody who may or may not still exist as I remember her and who moved on from me quite decisively years ago. Going there is easy - just relax, remember and glide. I glide through memory, the sound and feel of wind, trying to find a very particular feeling again. I get so close to it sometimes but eventually have to descend.  A long gradual downward slope. When I touch down, when the earth is firmly under my feet, I have no idea where I am. It takes time to get my bearings, to identify the time zone and the language spoken. Then I start walking all the way back to the present, feeling parched and hollow, where nothing is waiting when I arrive.

Rain this morning too

Whole days of necessary rain. Just one more like this  accompanied by wind  will transform the view and the state of mind. Bare stark trees against the grey sky. A November sight that bores it's way into you. I'm in no hurry. 

I wake with a clear head, rested, with no desire at all to get up. With my eyes closed, I revert to thinking of you sleeping beside me. Is it the cool temperatures that bring those thoughts and memories? That desire.

Did you trust me during those times? Did you feel safe beside me? Did you fall asleep in love the way that I did? And have you thought about doing so since then ? How about now? Would you consider it? Nothing else has to occur - no talking, no explaining, no filling in the gaps. I will have no questions waiting for you and I will keep the path to the door clear. 

Just come here, slip into bed beside me and find a comfortable position in which you can rest. I will move closer to you. Maybe you will move closer to me. Then we will find  again that place that for me was like heaven. And I will remain in that state of restful but alert stillness, feeling your breath deepen and your body relax. Feeling the heat of you. The miracles of your skin and hair. 

That music inside me starts quietly, sweetly. And the longer I am able to remain awake and receptive to you, the higher it builds. Soaring, swirling toward a crescendo and then descending again slowly, taking me regretfully toward sleep. The symphonies you inspired in me - just sleeping there - that you never got to hear. 

Toothbrush

There is a lot you will have to shed if you are to be out there connected to the world again. There is a lot you will have to pick up too. For now, it's strange dreams, poor sleep and a toothbrush.

This might be the birthday month of your daughter. Already, I've lost track of the years. I think she's three now. Three is about the age she may have been when I saw the two of you together in a daydream long before her conception. Walking hand in hand, her confident little steps. Both of you with the same black wild hair. I imagined it then as a possible, beautiful, but unlikely part of my life. That's not the case now, but it's something to know that she is part of yours. I wish I could see how she looks at you, if it's like the way I dreamed it. I hope it is.

Love letter

 

Dispatches

For the third morning this week I pick up an empty out of the driveway projected by a probable Canadian-American racist alcoholic. He seems to be targeting my Black Lives Matter sign. There aren't that many of those out here in this town. Homeboy drinks Molson and Bud Light. I'm imagining he's not too bright.  It's a pretty good bet he's flying a trump flag.

I'm also imagining staking him out, locating his residence, and emptying the contents of a dump truck - preferably rotting food waste - in his driveway. Return to sender.

A book arrived in my mailbox today. A collection of short pieces, something like what I write. Except these are about something and good. I don't know how the sender got my information, but I guess we're not so hard to find these days.

I left the dating site last week and feel a general sense of relief. But I kind of miss the habit of checking and returning messages. Stimulating correspondence is nice but it can become a lot to manage. When I talk to too many people - even via typed message - it's not long before I feel diluted, over exposed, and kind of stressed out. 

The old fashioned way - a letter arriving from overseas that took a month to find you - was best. You waited. You remembered. You imagined. You wrote down your thoughts. You tried to write down your heart.

There was silence between letters and time. Time for anticipation and yearning to develop. The waiting was so much of the experience. The distance created the agony and the desire. 

Bane

Just finished watching a documentary featuring a band and a young man I knew 30 years ago. He was a kid working on something back then. I remember him stalking the floor of the practice space talking to an imaginary audience. Now he's talked to millions of them face to face and around the world. He had something of his own which he beleieved in and developed and it blossomed and he happened in the world. I'm "moved". I don't like that word, but tears came out, so it fits. This little encapsulated life suddenly feels very small and almost joyless. Who chose this?

His children

At 4:30, I woke to the uncommon sound of rain and laid there listening to it in the dark. A car drove by and the periphery of it's headlights entered through the window and moved quickly across my bedroom ceiling. I remembered laying in the dark in my room at about age 6 wondering if that movement of light was an angel. Specifically, if it was my dead father in angelic form. You are left in the wake of a sudden death with sickness, disorientation and the things people tell you - he's watching over you from heaven, he's with God now. You learn to pray, honest and direct, out of fear. You speak directly to God, beseeching him. He doesn't answer so you start interpreting passing car headlights as maybe a sign of his love for you.

Screw it

I wrote a short story in a dream last night. 

I'd been working in this place for a long time. A place with hard floors, shock resistant boots, hearing protection and repetition. Alcoholism, loud marriages, marijuana, football, methamphetamine, a new truck, oxies was how most of the others seemed to kill the remaining time. For some it was church and family occasions- always some kind of celebration, something to dress up for, a million cousins. For others it was an ankle bracelet, a room, and white knuckles. 

I don't know what Anthony did with his time off the floor. I do know that he didn't use many words, and when he did use them, they were always arranged in the same way, spoken in the same manner, like a recording. Sometimes I'd mouth the words as he said them. 

I know that much about him. I also know that he farted. Anthony farted all the time. He lived in a perpetual mildly noxious cloud. And the smell was always exactly the same - never a shock to the system, never a "whaaat the fuck is that?" Anthony was consistent. He definitely was that.

This morning I was distracted by a head full of the kinds of thoughts I don't know what to do with when I happened to walk into his cloud. The smell was bland, vaguely like potato chips, insulting. 

Nowhere. Nothing. This. FOREVER. 

I stabbed him twice with the screwdriver right where I'd imagined his kidneys would be. He leapt in the air, yelled something, then fell to the floor.

He moved around down there in a spontaneous way, like he wasn't too sure what he was supposed to do next. I was walking quickly and I was feeling that way too.

Floor

A pale thing of the forest floor beneath the damp fallen leaves and the smooth skinned salamanders and the tiniest of brown toads. An ecosystem. A rainforest in miniature. Tendrils grow up and around me from somewhere within the moist mystery of earth in exchange for my essential chemicals. I wake at one point, startled for the last time, knowing I cannot rise. Wrapped am I and pulled asunder, gently, toward home.

Not peace precisely

Of course it won't happen in one jump. Last evening, before it was even dark, I sunk into this bed for another 12 hours or so and I could just go on sleeping and sleeping without effort. Is it a tsetse fly that's gotten to me? In the afternoon a fog moves in, behind my eyes, I think, though I can't really see it. It's palpable though. It has weight. I want to sweep it aside but it stays and settles down over me. I yawn and yawn. The dismal moors of my prefrontal cortex. If there is a chance to take an afternoon nap, sometimes the fog clears in an hour or less. Someimes I just keep on sleeping until morning or even later. Maybe during a pandemic this is an adaptive function. Keeps you out of the milieu.

Don't go back in there

What if all of a sudden it's as easy as opening the curtains? Deciding and taking a little action. It didn't work last time I checked but it just might now. I'm going to hire some movers to come and move me and my life out of this bed. Yup, I just might pick up that phone. Could be. It's possible. Yes.

Sleeping against me on a boat to an island

I live alone, so in the case of a pandemic, and it's requisite limited contact with the outside world, there is no one here to turn to. Or to turn against. And I am very thankful for that last part. If you and I lived together during these times what would it be like? Would you have come to hate the sight of me, the sound of me, the smell of me? Would we be sleeping separately? That's how I got to thinking of this, by trying to sleep separately from you. And remembering, as I so often do, you falling asleep next to me. And I falling asleep next to you. I remember far less about actually waking up wih you. You were always in motion, busy, maybe that's why. But when you'd fallen asleep, I could be with you without interruption. Feel you breathing. Hear the music of everything.

Lean

I kept waking up with sore teeth. Clenching. There was a moaning in the trees behind the house. A new sound. I imagained a calf, a sheep, a bear cub. In truth, it is that broken tree leaning on the others. Their relationship was altered by yesterday's supercell. You are just waiting to fall. They say, "We've got you". But they're just waitng too.

Advance

The heat kicked on this morning. Sunrise is later and sunset is earlier. The yellow leaves and orange needles fall steadily around the house. You can feel the pace increasing inside of 24 hours. I found and rescued a honey bee drowning in the birdbath. Made me wonder what it was thinking and if it had any change in attitude since then. I've been listening to a thunder storm approaching for about 15 minutes. Feels like something big.

Alibi

Spoke with my good neighbor today. He ventured across the street while I was taking some trash out. We bonded in mutual hatred of the other neighbors with their dirt bikes and leaf blowers, the current president, the speeding traffic, Covid-19's resurgence and socializing with humans in general. He's got a license to carry. And he recently got internet access. There's no longer a need to leave the house. Why are we this way, I asked him. Why do we avoid contact with people in a time when everyone craves it? He blames trump for dividing us. I wish that explained it.

Story

He's published now. I remember him in college being a little older than me and very focused on wanting to move on from his job in construction to becoming a published writer. He asked today about certain moments. The ones that stick. He wondered aloud if they're all we really have. I think so. I do. That's why I try to hold on to them, to remember them, to write them down. A family bible, a photo album, your own personal mythology. I retold myself a story today of one of those moments thirty-something years ago beside a frozen Lowell canal in a merciless, early winter wind. How she felt inside her long black coat, the warmth of her body against mine, then a kiss that stopped everything inside and outside of me.

Not my turn

What trouble do I really know? I learned today of a friend who's teen son is involved in a murder. In just the last couple of weeks a friend who lost a lover to suicide and a coworker's son's anniversary of a fatal opiate overdose and a lady friend's daughter is found safe in a jail cell after being missing for several days. We are trout trying to swim up the firehose every day. Right this minute, I am only watching.

Vitamin D

The package arrived yesterday. I've got enough Vitamin D now for a total body suntan. Inside of a week, not only will I be euphoric of mood and Corona proof but I shall occupy a bronzed, salt and pepper topped, Dad bod. Yesterday we watched trout struggling mightily upstream and uphill to get back to their hatchery. Basically, it's like trying to swim up a firehose. My son has not had a haircut since the pandemic began. He was talking about how good it felt to be in nature. Discovering for himself that humans are better when they are experiencing that connection for themselves. I hoped he could store some of that feeling. That the sun light and the colored leaves would top of his Vitamin D storage tank and show him a way forward.

Change your heart

Change your face

The actor, Mickey Rourke, sent me some advice yesterday via You Tube. Sure, it wasn't addressed to me specifically, it was an interview, but it spoke to me. He answered vaguely questions about early experiences that shaped his inner world. Things like the loss of his father at age 6, familial alcoholism, a step father and his unacknowledged violence. He didn't use too many words, but his pain was apparent. The interviewer talked about his success in Nine And A Half Weeks which pushed him to the forefront and made him the leader of the Brat Pack. A respected actor and a sex symbol. Very soon after acheiving this status, he began the work of throwing it away. When he had burned all his bridges, he returned to boxing for a few more years of punishment. Then he paid a professional to rearrange his famous handsome vulnerable tough guy's face with what soon became known as one of the more unfortunate plastic surgery mishaps. Mr. Rourke illustrated how no matter how high you fly, how many accolades you receive, how much you win or lose or suffer or repent, you've internalized the belief that the person looking back at you from the mirror is not worthy of love and should be destroyed. I understood that and remembered a lot of broken mirrors. He talked about the love of his life in similarly few and painful words. They were two damaged people who recognized each other, he said. The interviewer suggested that he'd never gotten over her, and Mickey agreed that he'd likely never feel that way about someone else again. Another example of how the mirror mechanism works and another resonance.

As it is, not as it's supposed to be

Unrecognized. Who is this, I think, looking at myself from outside. And her, a foot away, as if through a screen.

How is it that you cannot recognize and appreciate a gift when it is dropped upon you? What is this reluctance? Why this turning away? Your time here is almost up.

I come in peace

The air changed overnight with the arrival of the rain. It's chillier now, less humid, more like the September in your mind. You think maybe you are singing along a frequency the mushrooms will understand. You keep remembering a band of them growing on the trail and imagining they had a message for you. What if you missed it? The call that would have changed your life. 

She said if I stood still with seeds in my hand they would sense my peace and come. This morning I stood holding a bowl of sunflower seeds while the chickadees and a titmouse fell upon the feeders. I got to within about a foot of them - one edge of the platform feeder to the other - before they became too apprehensive to land. 

I held the cup of seed out until my arm started to tremble and my shoulder began to ache. I remembered times holding a rifle out that way, and heavy lead x-ray tech vests in both hands with arms outstretched to the sides while gagging on bite-wings shaking hard and bleeding sweat, and other similar things I inflicted upon myself in the service of preparation and purification. I remembered the sun dance, chest pierced, leaning back with my weight against the rope under a pale hot sun trying to transcend. Tension, will, sacrifice, endurance. Trial by ordeal. I don't know how that relates to peace. 

But the birds couldn't find it either. 

Sorry ass

I didn't swear an oath this morning and as a result some time was spent in procrastination. Maybe more than some. But I did get out of bed and stayed that way. Went out for breakfast and saw way too many Trump flags on the drive home. That filthy rotten symbol of everything that sucks is debating a plain vanilla nowhere man tonight over the fate of the nation. Yeah, I'll vote vanilla, but the times call for something stronger. And I don't mean the weak and poisonous prick who's in there now. I scrubbed out the birdbath and refilled it with clean water today. Lots of thirsty birds and squirrels appreciated the effort. I stood for awhile among the feeding chickadees trying to put them at ease with my presence. Not yet. Not entirely. Scrubbed and put away the hummingbird feeders for the Winter and wondered if they'd return again in May, if I'll be here then, and if there will even be a here or a then. I paid the phone and the internet bills and took out the trash. I participated in some conference calls, made coffee, went out for a jug off wine, wrote the minutes to a meeting and made a plan to get up early tomorrow to do the rest of the work I had planned to do today. This time I'll swear that oath when I wake up. I swear.