So green

1.   It takes an opening, an offering, for life to return.

2.   Blue jay - cousin to the crow - drinks from the birdbath and knows I'm watching. Sunny in the 60's with the grass overgrown and everything so green. I thought I might seed the grass with wild flowers for the benefit of endangered pollinators - glorious bees and butterflies - this Spring, but I still haven't yet. I'm supposed to do my taxes.

3.   The girl was there, with her bashful brown eyes glancing over the top of her mask, working beside the boy I imagine is her short but muscled and protective brother. She wears a chain with golden marijuana leaves. You realize now, in the harsh light of afternoon, that saying anything to her other than the name on your order and thank you would be creepy.

4.   I was cheering in the audience when they announced you'd won the contest. You leapt in celebration into the arms of your coach, wrapping your arms and legs around him. I kept cheering and whispered to myself.  "It's not about you." Is it loneliness, that sinking feeling, that sudden zooming out across distances into nowhere? Swallowing all that and crawling back across that span is  diagnostic of love.

5.   I guess what I want is to be silent, to read, to take naps, to watch and listen to the birds. I've got to go out for a few hours to feed the people. Yesterday, I got mad at a young man who didn't know the address he was at, the one he ordered food delivered to. He told me he was coming outside, to watch for him in the street, wearing his Pokemon pajamas.

6.   I'm a white man. I'm not sure what to do with that about now.

Not

Ambivalent attachment, I've been doing a lot of thinking about that. About how it shapes a life. And how, even on the far side of your middle years, you are still that child, the world is still not safe, and your needs will not be met by others.

The trick is to stop expecting it to be otherwise. Peace. Empty peace. 

Power nap

The birds sing and the sun feels nice and the breeze is gentle as I tip my seat back for a 20 minute power nap while a virus ravages the human population of the Earth and white police in ugly America murder yet another of the darker variety of us.

The sky is changing right now. Is it just getting darker or is a storm coming to clean the air? We are so sick now we cannot help ourselves.

Scale

I saw a meme today on Facebook with a rank ordered list of the 12 astrological signs according to how hard they are to love. Yours was number one, the hardest sign to love. Mine was number twelve, the easiest, or at least the least difficult.

Ain't that some shit?

Faint

The lilacs are in bloom. I've seen them for two weeks now in different places, depending on the elevation. Until today, I couldn't smell them. This evening I did, only faintly, thankfully, and even that was enough to twist my heart. Lilacs are still connected directly to you and to the hope that you might still, someday, appear at the foot of my bed at 3 A.M.  

Dusk

She seems a creature of habit, walking along the airport road for exercise at about the same time every night. I've noticed her noticing the changes of Spring. Tonight she had a robin for a companion.  It bounded along in short hops in front of her. She had a smile on her lips and her eyes looked down in nearly secret amusement. A fairy discovered. 

I like to capture romantic moments from a distance but, in truth, I am a misanthrope.

There was some talk I picked up on a couple weeks into the quarantine about the unusual dreams people were having. I was furloughed, sleeping a lot, but wasn't having any dreams of note.

Early this morning I strangled a man to death with my hands. It took some serious time. My grip strength nearly gave out more than once, along with my resolve. There was a lot of time to think, for rage to abate, to suffer anticipatory remorse, to second guess the justice of the act, to doubt my motives, to fret about what to do with a dead body in a public space in broad daylight. Then there was his face, the colors, the weird way his eyes stared, and the shape of his head shifting to weasel-like, twisting wildly to slip out of my hands.

When it was done, I felt ill, wrong, dismal. And I woke up with that feeling. It was first light. The feeling lingered, and I couldn't get back to sleep. It mixed with anxiety about my divorce, how my children have been affected, the fact that I never really took any pictures. A stain. But finally I did sleep, for a minute...

Then, an insane clanging and ringing of wind chimes in the doorway. A squirrel pranking me, pissed because it still hasn't managed to gnaw through the duct tape I reinforced the baffle with, and probably because I ran out of corn to put in the defunct birdbath bowl. I jump out of bed and charge the glass, running him off.

I am thinking of killing and eating them now. I am thinking this is what happens when you extend a hand. I am googling wrist rockets.

During the course of the week, changes occurred. Fiddleheads unfurled into ferns arching their backs to feel the sunlight on their flat symmetrical green bellies. Full leaves came into being on the trees and I cannot see the neighbor's house for the green.

I was in the city yesterday. The cars moved too fast. The people made too much noise.

Affirmative

A raccoon came through last night to eat in peace. I switched the light on for a second and then off and left it that way.

The squirrels are like stimulant driven engineers. It didn't take them long to disarm the baffle I installed. Yesterday I went out and put it back up, reenforcing it with duct tape. They made a racket this morning trying to defeat it, but were ultimately repelled. They'll be back.

There are four of them out there now. They seem to live together. Chasing each other playfully.

Last night, while delivering spinach and artichoke dip and some sort of decadent chocolate brownie sundae at 11 PM, a young man called me through the app. No one does that. He had what sounded like a Mexican accent. He seemed shy, spoke slowly and softly. Asked, "Sir, are you the driver?" I assured him I was indeed. He asked very politely if I could leave the food on the stairs on the left side of the house and not the right. Apparently other drivers get it consistently wrong.

I made him a blood promise that I would do exactly that or die in the attempt. I knew he was feeding his love dessert and wanting things to go right. I could see the soft light of the room in my mind's eye, feel the quiet peace of love.

I walked the food to the top of the staircase on the left side of the house and left it, very quietly, outside the door. There was a sacred feeling of ceremony.

When I got back to the car, I called to let him know the food was there, not wanting him to wait too long and bring her an offering of cold dip.

She answered. She too was polite and possibly Mexican. There was something more formal, less humble, in her tone. I imagined a dark eyed princess wearing a sparkling tiara. She said her boyfriend had gone down to get the food.

I wish I had lined the staircase with candles.

Not bad

Drove again tonight for six hours. There's something about making the deliveries I enjoy. A concrete task with a definite end maybe.

I'm also developing a fetish for protective masks. Not the mask per se, but the eyes accentuated above  it. They've always been what draws me.

I misread a street sign tonight as Manic Frost. Did some reading in a brightly lit parking lot with the windows down and a cool breeze blowing through after ten when it slowed down. 

Summer

Driving around the city last night, eighty degrees, more people out - I felt far away from it all.
I don't think I want to come back. 

Been here before

Such a beautiful evening. Gentle. I got home just in time to see the last red light on the Western horizon. I missed you.

Turkey Witch

Small victories. I got out there again last night and did a little exercise on the trail. Jogging the flats and the downs and walking the ups. Pressing and squatting some rocks. Enjoying being on the trails at dusk. Startled a wild turkey who took sudden flight into the tree tops. There is something witch-like about them when they fly. Dinner was a recently expired can of beans and a soup made of chicken broth, small dried fish, and dried mushroom. Adding the fish was a bad idea, but I ate them nonetheless. Went to bed early, still red faced from running, and dreamed of hugging the lesbian detective from The Wire.

Sad dark eyes

30 minutes a day

It still seems foreign to me, like something they'd make an adult male devoid of empathy or an at-risk middle school girl wear for a week to get a taste of what it feels like to be pregnant. I've made small bellies before, and they've generally gone away on their own, without much conscious effort. This one's hung around, quite literally, for awhile now.

It makes running difficult. Not to mention trying to breathe while running.

That fucking guy at work is a non-stop talker and, even worse, a know it all. I've been there a full week and already I'm having to force myself to appreciate being gainfully employed.

Nah, but things are good. Generally speaking. I kind of like the guy.

The Corona's got me thinking, "Today is my whole life."

Because it could very well be the entirety of what you've got left.

I try not to mope.

I'm not climbing Everest, or bedding Raquel Welch in the 1970's, or attaining enlightenment. But I am trying to keep my eyes open and do the rest of this time awake. 

A little something

Spent some of the afternoon watching the hummingbirds at the feeder. The male hits it and runs. When he sees me sitting there, he won't even come to rest. He drinks on the hover, probably burning more calories than he's taking in. The lady is different - I noticed that in years past too. She's curious. I think she likes my attention too. She shows me her face from various angles. She lingered so long once that the male came down out of the house and ran her off and back home. She's ok with me.

Mileage

I went to get an inspection sticker today on a car with nearly 300,000 miles on it.
The owner of the garage is a kid I grew up with. He's suffering back pain today.
I watched him walking gingerly across the lot. He's always been strong as a bull.
Looks like an old man now. Like me, I'm guessing.

She said she was the only one left. She said the others were all dead.
Thankfully or tragically she mostly forgets what happens pretty quickly.
She's got that disease that takes everything from you in reverse order
Starting with what just happened and working back until you can't swallow properly

Or even breathe.
Covid-19 took seventeen people in her house in a matter of days
Including her roommate. Now she's positive, doing her puzzles,
Not remembering that she's fearing for her life.

light song

Gone

I'm avoiding a whole stack of things so
I play a game with myself and say let's just take a short nap
Then persecutory laughter jars me awake before the alarm can
And something about that sound triggers a memory of the
Last morning.

The hotel with it's luxurious white pillows and sheets again.
I am trying to find that place but it's taking too long, and you notice.
I'm trying to come on but it's not happening, and I'm waiting past the urge
to panic, waiting for the magic to arrive, the synchronicity, the groove, the music -
the touch of such love. It's still here, just wait a little.

You roll your eyes
Slowly. Loudly. Endlessly.
While the light withdraws
And the whole scene cracks
The sound of flapping wings fading into distance

Started strong

You with another face.

A long time ago. A humid summer night. We ran from the car, crazy and overheated, to the swimming hole just as the sun was going down. Right there on a large flat rock in a few inches of warm water. Not a thought or a care for who might see. Something so very close to free. 

Geri

Back to three hours a day in the car, but the traffic isn't bad with much of commerce and life still shut down. I'll try to savor that part.

Yesterday was comprised of about 60 computer based training modules as part of my new employee orientation. I did not actually make it to the unit. Today will be the first day of that. Back to the inpatient psychiatric pace complicated by all the things that come with getting old and COVID-19.

They are no longer a distant they. I am just slightly over a year from meeting their eligibility requirements.

English

Awakening with words in my head from an old English poem at 4:54
Come live with me and be my love
From Christopher Marlowe's  The Passionate Shepherd To His Love
You have many faces and one I fear I'll never see
I'm lonely for you at first light
An owl outside gives it voice

Good day

Coming out of retirement in the morning. Managed to get tulips for my former wife and my current mother despite an attempted hoarding. Saw my boys after an absence of several weeks. The younger one has grown taller and thicker. They both said I looked small and laughed.  The oldest claims to be six four. Took more than 13,000 steps while waiting for new tires and a ball joint and, later, two orders of Thai food. Watched the people in the parking lot get snippy because they had to wait for their take out food. I walked laps around the building and noticed there was one only woman working the kitchen and one young man taking the orders and running the food out. They remained steady and calm, joking back and forth. Watched a black cat in her forest, perched prone on the horizontal section of a bent trunk, watching the birds feeding at dusk on the ground below.

Priya

It's a cold starry night, and there's snow woven into the new grass. There's something out in the trees behind the house making desperate sounds. And now that I'm listening closely, it's gone quiet.

Tonight I made deliveries. A woman in a black dress with a bird's fragile body. Chinese students. Most people I don't see. I text them when I arrive and leave the food on the front step as instructed.

The last one was in an apartment building about the size of a city block. I parked in back, but the entrance was in front. I walk three quarters of a block, mildly annoyed, and I call the person to let her know I'm leaving the food - contact free - by the front door as per her request.

I see her silhouetted in a fourth floor window looking down at me. We wave kind of tentatively, at the same time, and she speaks my name into the phone. There's a moment of unexpected intimacy I feel all the way through.

Going without contact, staying alone, heightens something. Increases it's value.

Check

Even though I was elsewhere for about three quarters of the winter, I still managed my annual feat of  running completely out of heating oil and gumming up the works in the furnace.

I did what I knew how to do - shut it down, bleed the line, restart it. This failed to have the desired effect three times. It likely means the sludge at the bottom of the tank was sucked into and clogged the filters. So I have to call for service on the eve of a polar vortex.

"Stupid should hurt."

I read that on the back of a tee shirt in a West Texas bar a few months back. I would have to agree, generally speaking. But in my defense, this was not a matter of oblivion. I knew full well for a month that it was getting low, but I procrastinated. Okay?

Procrastination is a form of sloth, a demonstrated lack of rigor. Avoidance, because it makes me tired just thinking about it.

There's a little ice in my brand new bird bath this morning. The gold finches are not bathing. I'm holding off too.

Pretend that you're retired

The Governor has wisely mandated the wearing of masks in public, beginning today. I've been pretty good about staying away from people and public spaces, but today I have decided I must obtain a birdbath. Yeah, I know, white privilege.

The first place I go has curbside pick up only, and I'm not sure of exactly the type of birdbath I need, so I press on.

The Tractor Supply store sells many things but not birdbaths. I manage to buy a pair of work gloves, 20 pounds of dried corn for the squirrels, 20 pounds of black sunflower seed for the birds, a squirrel baffle - to set some boundaries, and two bricks of suet. The magazine and book rack offers to teach self-reliance, rural living knowledge and skills, Prepper conspiracy theory, bug out guns and Jesus Christ.

"Good morning, Doctor" another customer says.  A commentary on our surgical masks.
"You ever burp in one of these things? It's a whole new experience, let me tell you."

On to the Super Walmart, cousin to the one the City shut down because it had 80 something infected employees. No bird baths here. No 20 pound dumbbells either (an after thought). So I pick up a couple of frozen dinners, cottage cheese, milk and a pleasant lemonade-iced tea combination beverage.

There's a nursery open on the way home. They happen to carry a wide variety of cement birdbaths. I select one with a smooth, shallow basin for easy maintenance.

I drive home, set it up, and call it a day. 

Go

How the world has changed. This sudden sharp turn toward a different unknown. I've been walking these trails lately - North, South, East and West. In any direction, I just want to keep going. 

Walking

Eight mile walk on the trails. I didn't cross paths with anyone. Startled a woodchuck. Stopped twice to watch bumble bees crossing the forest floor looking for the blossoms that have yet to arrive. How perfect they are. 

Every day, this time away from noise and tension gets better and deeper.

Get outside

The hummingbirds have arrived. Other birds have discovered the feeders too, like this yellow pair whose names I do not know. A crow must have heard about the peanuts. Beautiful day.

Sunny day

1.

It's of no concern to anyone at all, but it's a sort of victory to me. Finally got around to filling the bird feeders with black sunflower seeds. I bought peanuts in the shell for the squirrels and dumped some in the cast off bird bath bowl (they've since cleaned it out twice). Also filled both hummingbird feeders with nectar. Last year, the first guy showed up on May 1st, if I remember right. A pair of nuthatches found the platform feeder this morning. The squirrels don't read the signs, as usual. Fuck it, let em stay.

I fried eggs with olive oil, spinach, garlic and a few tablespoons of sofrito out of the jar. It was actually edible. Makes sense that I'd emerge from a depression during a pandemic. 

Laughter is life

The NP at the urgent care is a relative. He looks tired, but we laugh anyway. A tech comes in and takes my blood. He works as an EMT as well and he's tired too. I don't feel the needle pierce my skin, and the blood is slow in coming. Thick, I'm thinking. My tingling fingers are probably due to a small clot they say.  Take aspirin. My symptoms of the past week are classic COVID-19 symptoms. They're a little surprised it went so easy on me, given my age. I joke with the nurses that I'm working on a line of scented surgical masks. I tell them that stale-coffee-dog-breath is getting old. They suggest margarita scented. Flavored too, while I'm at it.