Tavern of Regrets

Depleted after two and a half hours on the trail under the backpack filled with water, I decide to go out for my evening meal at a place where I might also find a drink or two. For restorative purposes, you understand. I'm not exactly spoiled for choice in this town, so I go to the Tavern of Regrets. I refer to the place by that name because that's the emotion I feel five minutes after sitting down nearly every time I've gone in there. There's a dark eyed bartender who looks intriguing behind her mask, but that's the only redeeming quality. It's Friday night, so the place is full. Everyone is unmasked. Except the bartender, who is miles away, and the servers. India, I think to myself. 

When I'm in there, all things align to let me know with absolute clarity that I have absolutely no connection to this town and that I am in fact living in the worst possible place for me on this planet. This time the message begins with an unbelievably shrill woman sitting at a high-top with her friend about eight feet away from my table and my left ear. She sounds to me like a manic four year old girl on helium screaming through a bullhorn. She relents only long enough to startle me each time she resumes. 

It's like walking into a cloud of horseflies every time. 

I must be living in a simulation. 

This can't be real. 

Saigon cinnamon

I've got the words "Saigon cinnamon" in my head for some, or absolutely no, reason. Today, my daughter and I test drove a car together, I clutched the handhold on the passenger side door and said a quick little prayer for her safety. Later, we had dinner together and talked like two adults. Her childhood seems a lifetime ago, and I feel like a different person entirely. When I got home, I fell asleep early listening to the rain. When I awoke, From Her To Eternity was playing in my head. The song reminds me of another time, before even the childhood of my daughter, when I was yet another person I scarcely recognize now. The wounds are familiar, and the music makes me feel them, but little else is. I'm glad I didn't know Anita Lane but I'm sorry I didn't know her too. She seems like one of those women you don't get over. 

"From Her To Eternity," my next favorite Nick Cave song written by Anita Lane used here in a scene from the film "Wings of Desire."

 

RIP Anita Lane. She wrote the lyrics to my favorite Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds songs.

 

Two nights I remember smiling

You can lose your mind, as the saying goes, reading homepages. The violence of the world, you could say or scream or weep. And you wouldn't be wrong, only skewed. I know this because I saw the trees flowering and cardinals and gold finches. Skunk cabbage coming back green as anything. 

I woke up to thunder at about 2 AM remembering these two particular evenings. The first one, you had invited me to join you and your best friend, at the time, for dinner. She was not my favorite person, but I'd have gone anywhere to spend time with you. You told me later that she disapproved of my meager financial status, but that she could tell I really loved you. She was right.

Some time later, you invited me out again. This time your sister was there. She had a sense of humor and tested me for mine. She told you she could tell I was in love with you by the look on my face the moment I saw you. She was also right. 

We're just days away from hummingbirds and lilacs here. These things, for me, will always be you. 

Water weight

The pack contains bladders filled with water. I shoulder it, strap it across my belly and chest, and walk up the trail. This time I drive to where the trail intersects a road and park my car. For over a year now I've been walking the same few miles of this trail. It's time to see the rest of it. Today's march took me through a portion of the state park and past quite a few more people than I normally see. They seem suspicious or alarmed when they notice me on the trail. I greet them and keep walking. I want them to feel alright about walking out here and not worried or afraid. Straining under the shoulder straps feels kind of good, until it doesn't. Funny how the weather in your head changes as the discomfort increases. Anyway, it was a beautiful late afternoon. I was lucky to be out there in it. 

Half listening

This morning I drove to the hospital in order to try to force myself to get work done. It worked. I was productive all day completing several small work assignments that had been hanging and unfinished. Tomorrow, it's a whole day's worth of video calls after I go and test drive a used car vicariously for my daughter. 

While I was working in the hospital cafeteria today, I could not help but overhear this impossibly cheerful woman. She's Muslim. Wears a colorful headscarf. Indonesian, I think. Her conversation and her laughter, which never slaked for long, reminded me of several birds singing at once.

My usual impulse would be to think, "Jesus Christ, shut up already!" after ten or fifteen minutes. But it wasn't like that. She gossiped about her greedy neighbor whose poor husband works three jobs to support her. She discussed at length the proper way to prepare sticky rice. Her laughter was a pleasant trill. There was no malice or cruelty in it. 

Sometimes you run into someone good and it makes you wonder what's wrong with you. 

Life lesson

I often remember at this time of year a lesson you taught me as a child

Inside the cool shade of the small barn 

Small me exploring history and mystery

A baby black bird has fallen the ten feet from it's nest in the rafters

Onto a billowy cushion of sifted dirt with the consistency of powdered sugar

Orange beak, closed eyes, featherless

Moving, chirping, mouth open 

Seeking the source of its feeding

My assessment was that it was unharmed

Only displaced

So I ran to find help

Which should have been you

You walked into the barn behind me 

I'm running, pointing to the nest and to the baby on the ground

You picked up a long-handled square shovel from the corner

And without words hit that bird with the flat of that shovel

Depressing its body into that soft pillow of dust

A cloud, like smoke, rolled out in simultaneous waves 

From under the four sides of the shovel

You said nothing

Like some hateful zen master with a warning

Who somewhere got the fundamentals twisted

When you'd gone

I buried the baby bird

And I never asked for your help again

"Beautiful melodies telling me terrible things".

 

What the moon said

I could feel the moon last night - a waxing gibbous. That name still makes me laugh. Wayne Gibbous, Waxing's alter ego, is still on the list of aliases I plan to use when I get around to faking my own death. 

Wait a minute. I can no longer think of an urgent reason to take that step. I can't think of a non-urgent reason to either, unless it's to try on another name. I'm as obscure as Wayne already. No one's looking for me. There's nothing to take from me. There's no reason to disappear. 

So what are you saying?  I'm free?

Huh?

In my dream I was on a troop ship packed full of troops and others waiting in varying levels of discomfort to get underway. I was alone, and for some reason, had the run of the ship. Some of it looked like a hospital where they were preparing for an influx of patients. At one point a drunken man told me a story of a man he met in Thailand who had unnatural relations with a tiger in front of him. We were joking about what to say to get yourself out of that situation when the man suggests that it's your turn. Just before I woke up, I was repeating the story to a classroom full of children. Several people were trying to shush me. 

Spurn

Waiting for the water for my coffee to boil on the stove,  I'm standing at the kitchen window. A squirrel inverts his/herself on the trunk of an oak tree. It's looking at me. It twitches its tail. I wave back. It leaps from the trunk to the ground, stands up on its hind legs, shimmies its tail rhythmically. I start doing something similar with both of my arms. It moves closer. The two of us seem to have something going here. 

Then I shifted position. I noticed there was a second squirrel. The first one hadn't been looking at me at all. The two tumbled together in the grass and then chased one another back up the tree. My face felt hot. 

The kettle started to shriek. The day was shot.

4/21/21

There's a frost warning here tonight and here's me with these wild flower seeds newly planted. Thunder storms are moving through and are supposed to drag down the temperature about thirty degrees in the next few hours. Another short walk with the water pack today increasing the time and distance gradually. I was about to head out for a second walk when the thunder moved in. Let's give it a minute. Two mating pairs of yellow birds in the backyard. 

Feedback

We spent some time together. We talked about work and family. At some point I stopped feeling awkward. What sticks with me though is when she said I was someone who can't get out of my own way. 

It's good to be with people, sometimes. 

Yesterday, I seeded the little strip of backyard where I'd removed the sod with native wild flowers. Then I bought the only watering can the local hardware store had. I've lived here over 20 years and never planted much. Working in the soil, maybe the smell of it, reminds of growing up and hearing other words used to describe me. 

When you are alone, sometimes you find yourself using those words too. 

Today, I behaved better toward myself than that. I got work done, stayed engaged in the process, watered the flower seeds twice, walked around the neighborhood with twenty pounds of water on my back, saw the light of the half moon, heard the peepers, and met the first of the black flies. 

Good job, son.

Hem

Watching the damned thing was ill advised - that Hemingway documentary on PBS. Writers should be read not known. Their personhood, except for those parts revealed in their writing, should remain a mystery to the reader and to the world. Let it be something the reader wonders about but never witnesses firsthand. Up close and scrutinized, they cannot help but disappoint.

Salinger, anonymous in the grocery store.

Sunday note

1. Up early on a Sunday with a long anxious list of things to do. After this sentence and my coffee, we'll get started with the laundry, a little reading, and a couple of bags of top soil.

Some time

An April day in the 40s which I spent with both of my boys. It's been months since I last saw the older one what with school and work and the need for deep slumber when time allows. A trip together to a neighboring city and Chick-fil-A's drive-thru.

Back home

On the road by 2 AM this morning and we probably saw no more than ten cars, tops,  on the highway between Niles and Pittsburgh. There was an eerie feeling to that absence that we both laughed about. Some of the TSA employees at the Pittsburgh airport have lousy authoritarian attitudes. I've noticed this on other trips too. One was talking to the group of us like we were a bunch of military recruits or convicts. The advantage to wearing a mask is that you can vocalize your thoughts without detection. And I did so. The flight was uneventful even though I knocked my slumping sleeping head against the seat in front of me more than once. Landing in Boston was rainy with a Northeast wind blowing off the water. Up on the higher ground, I drove home into six inches of snow and slippery roads. A nap was the the right thing upon arrival. The house was cold because I'd shut the heat off while leaving assuming Spring had secured the beachhead. But you can't really ever be sure of that until about the 4th of July around here. I was glad to see I'd cleaned the kitchen before I left and removed the heap of accumulated papers from the table. It made it easier to re-enter. The silence of the place - the only sound being a continuous high-pitched tone in my ears - is not hard to bear. It feels almost right. 

The weird guy speaks

Another good day at work during which I interacted with human beings and enjoyed the experience. Striking a balance between interaction and seclusion is necessary for me. I've gotten accustomed to the latter. It's a little hard to break out of when I stay in there for so long. I must have seemed weird to them. 

Leaving the hotel at 2 AM for a 5 AM flight. Going to bed now. 

Sodom, Ohio

Spring is further along here in Ohio. Yesterday, in the afternoon, I felt myself excited by expanses of green grass. Excited like a dog. I wanted to sprint across them in zig-zag patterns, roll, and drag my face across the fragrant greening.

Today, another good day at work. Good, in part, because of the inspiration I receive from other people doing work that helps even more people. The real thing isn't something you can fake, and you know it when you see it. 

So later I have dinner with three of these people. We eat sushi and sashimi. We drink sake. My head fills with ideas and a healthy fire. I want to change everything. And as the conversation continues, I come to believe that we can change everything. 

Soon we say our goodbyes. We go our separate ways. I return to my room. I do not want to stay here. I take a walk to a bar in the mall complex that houses this hotel. I don't like malls, but it's close. 

The waitress who took care of us last night - the one with the natural laughter - is not here tonight. I sit at the bar. Fox News is on the screen facing me - Tucker Carlson's insanely punchable face. Immediately I feel hostile and distant from everyone in here - staff and customers alike. After awhile, I ask the bartender to change the channel. She hands me the remote. 

I click one channel from where it's set and say, "I don't care what's on, as long as it's not this asshole". For a minute, I want to fight. But no one cares enough to object.

The bartender is female, young and curvy. I happen to be sitting directly in front of her sink. So when she comes over to wash a glass she has to bend forward toward me. She is wearing a low cut top and she holds it in her hand each time she bends forward and averts her eyes from me. I want to tell her that I'm not looking at her like that and that I'm not just some creep. But then again, I'm thinking this now, so maybe I am.

Bukowski supposedly said, "Nature doesn't give a fuck." And that's probably true. 

So I walk back to the hotel. The trees and shrubs are budding. It's nature - tamed and pruned - but the natural re-birthing of Spring. I run the palm of my hand along the freshly trimmed hedges. And I lay my warm hands upon the smooth bark of the small and blooming trees. 

 

Current events

I let the shower steam take care of the wrinkles in my clothes made by the suitcase. I listen to the TV news talking heads talking about another unarmed black kid shot and killed by the police in Minnesota. They've got the grieving mother on there now. Is it so difficult not to point guns at people who are not being aggressive to you or to others? High definition commercial selling diamonds. We're on each other's team, it tells me. Followed closely by a long list of potential side effects read at an auctioneer's pace. 

Monday note

Flying to Pittsburgh tonight and then driving on to Ohio for the work week. I just discovered that someone switched out my premium laundry basket for a similar but weather beaten version while I was at the laundromat over the weekend. That was the only material possession I felt any pride over acquiring in the last few years. It was a Cadillac, when a Cadillac was still cool and luxurious, let me tell you. Oh well, may you enjoy the upgrade, whoever you are, new friend. I also found a band-aid in my back yard this morning. I don't wear them. And I live alone. In the country. What is this?

Next step

I bought myself a backpack some years ago - about 20, actually - with the intention of getting started in backpacking. I took it out of the box it shipped in for the first time today. I put a few light items in it, including water and snacks, and headed down the trail. 

Humbled again. It's going to take significant time and pain to prepare for this thing.

Training

I walked about eleven miles out and back on the trail in the late afternoon yesterday. I carried a little over a liter of water and nothing else. On the way out, I was worried about the time constraints of the pilgrimage I hope to do. I'll need to put in at least 20 miles a day, if not 25, if I hope to complete the entire route in a month. 

So I went out pretty fast (for me). Saw a reflection of my face gleaming with sweat in a brook's pool. Passed a short backpacker with a beard and huge calves on the trail and exchanged only a cursory greeting. After two hours of walking, I turned around. 

The return trip took longer. My feet seemed clumsier and I was not lifting them as high. Rocks, and roots and slippery oak leaves threatened. My head felt hollow and woozy. My mind wanted to drift off to somewhere else and not pay attention to where I was placing my feet. Or to the aching in my feet and the feeling of general weakness and energy loss that was overtaking me. Humbling. 

Lessons learned. Be prepared. Proceed with caution. Don't worry about speed and distance. Put one foot and front of the other and stay present. Bring snacks.

Let it be

I went looking for information. This is not something I typically do. When someone leaves your life, you just let them go. You don't try to see them again or stalk them on social media. 

At least I don't. 

But this time I kind of did, to a minor extent. Just enough to bring my image of the person out of the remote past and into the vicinity of the present. Just enough to move things around inside of me. Just enough to disturb my dreams a little.

The aftermath is this flat feeling. A dead spot. 

Detour

Going to help my daughter this morning after she had another pony shot from under her. She's alright, thank goodness. 

I noticed for the first time this year, just this morning, that Spring smell of the earth opening and greening. The birds and the squirrels are more active. The sun making its way up through the trees makes everything seem clean and promising.

I have enough energy to do the dishes.

It turns into a day of police report chasing, claim filing, coordinating and paying for towing and storage fees and renting a car. Tempers flare a little here and there but we work it out together. She does most of the talking and I try to help her think it through and hang back. After it's all done, she thanks me for being there. 

I should have thanked her for the opportunity to be a Dad again. 

Trying to work in the cafeteria

I noticed Boston's forsythias are in bloom. I noticed the loudest talkers aren't saying anything of interest and don't seem to know it. I noticed the people I used to know here are still alive and still employed, with a few exceptions. I noticed people complaining a lot. I noticed one woman in a head scarf who never seems to complain at all. I noticed people make noise and noise startles me. I noticed the women. I also noticed that I'm not trying very hard to build community.

Dreaming my dreams

 

Dream

Just before the sun came up this morning, I was dreaming of you. 

Your circumstances were the same as they are now in life. As I imagine them to be. You were happily married and unavailable to me, but we were talking together, easily and naturally. I talked with your sister and your mother too, and that also felt comfortable. You were not available to me, but we were still connected. That was plain to both of us.

I woke up pleasantly surprised that my mind was being so kind to me, but I also missed you tangibly and very much. 

An odd detail: your mother was preparing a pheasant to serve at a holiday meal. 

I was busy today, and there were other people to deal with so not much time to think or to remember. But in between the work and the people I made a conscious effort not to feel the hole that might have been in me. 

I have seen now what I needed to see. It leaves less room for nightmares. But also less room for my dreams. I am happy for you. For your life, and for the love I could see in it. 

It is possible to be happy for another person who you love without feeling envy or jealousy.

It was a little hard to be looking in from outside the window though. Something sharp might have pierced me a little while I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings. If it did though, it's my own fault.

That would not have occurred to me

Yesterday, while walking in the woods, I ran into three other people. This is unusual. Normally, I don't see any other humans. The first was a young man of possibly twenty. He was wearing impeccably white sneakers and had a sweatshirt - just as white - tied around his waist. It's Spring, mud season, but he did not appear deterred. The second encounter was with a couple about my age hiking along with trekking poles. They were in the midst of their third section hike along the Midstate Trail and intended to get to the half-way point today. 

The man asked if he could ask me a question. 

Sure, I said.

Well, I know we don't know each other or anything, but what would you do if you encountered a bear on the trail?

I'd probably freeze, I said. 

Because I was taking a leak beside the trail when she warned me that someone was coming. She saw someone walking down the trail. Well, it turned out to be a black bear of about three hundred pounds coming towards us. 

Wow! What'd you do?

I asked her what you do when you encounter a black bear. So she googled it on her phone. 

Look big!, she told me. 

We kind of backtracked, keeping our eye on him. You know? And we got the hell out of there. He watched us for a minute and kind of went his own way too. Do you know where you can get bear spray?

No, but those kooks who stormed the Capitol used it and it looked to have some pretty decent range. 

I know! Yeah, I'm gonna try to find some. 

Easter

We had a call today, the first since Christmas, with my mother and all of my siblings. I noticed them older this time, as I'm sure they did me. Despite this urge to avoid contact with anyone except my children, I know that it's good to maintain connections. And it did feel good to see and hear from them.

Though Catholic in my DNA, I have no relationship with Jesus Christ today. I admire him as a self-sacrificer and a man with a lived commitment to social justice and to love. A fighter on the right side in the good fight. But the resurrection of the body? Saving us from everlasting death? The gift of eternal life if you accept that he accomplished these things? You lost me there somewhere. 

And the Catholic Church is a deeply flawed institution corrupted by wealth, power, and human politics. It's comprised of ordinary men with ordinary weaknesses. As an institution, despite an increasingly revealed history of filth, it continues to oppress and subjugate around the world. 

I spent a sunny and mild Easter afternoon walking in the woods. And I didn't need a risen Messiah to see, hear, smell and feel the beauty of nature. Of creation. To be walking out there in contemplation is a sort of local and abbreviated pilgrimage. The idea of making a pilgrimage has been on my mind for most of my life. There has always been a mysterious appeal there for me. 

Easter seems like a good day to make a commitment. So, I commit to make a pilgrimage on El Camino de Santiago when the borders open again and I can do so without putting people in peril from Covid-19.  I hope to be able to walk for a full month and to begin sometime within the next twelve. 

Futuring

We went out for lunch. Ate BBQ at a picnic table in the sun. He's starting to look at colleges - film schools. What about making a living, you could ask, kind of scoldingly, as if there's some kind of safety or certainty somewhere. If there's a thing you want to do, try to find a way to do it. That's as good a way as any I know. 

Patience

Another walk of three hours going South this time on the trail. It was below freezing with a few snowflakes in the air even as a few peepers sounded and the skunk cabbage sprouted in the swamp. I felt good on the way out and bad on the way back. I carried no water or food and found myself  needing energy and electrolytes. My hands and legs are cramping now as I type. 

The purpose of my walking is to learn what is necessary to walk and to keep walking, and to condition the body and mind, gradually and with patience, for pilgrimage. A month of twenty to twenty-five mile days. Today I walked nearly ten. Tomorrow I'll bring water.

Feet

Nine miles this evening down the usual trail near home. When I'm out there, I just want to keep going. For a week, maybe. A month. Or a year. Maybe I should walk trails for what remains of my life and see how far I can go. But after nine miles my feet are already sore, muscles twitch and cramp later, and yet I still want to go. 

Santiago de Compostela after this bug runs its course.