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.