NH

I responded to a request for help today and something told me to bring a shovel. The drive up through northern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire was hazy. The haze is actually smoke from the wildfires in the burning West more than three thousand miles away. No one seemed alarmed. 

At the retreat center, there was a young man about to begin digging a trench in the stony New Hampshire soil with a pick and grub axe. He was certainly glad to see me and my shovel arrive. Well within the hour I had sweat through my clothes and the fact that I am 55 and not 25 was made perfectly clear to me. Still, the work felt good, in an unpleasant sort of way, and was much appreciated. I sweat through a leather wallet too and made soggy the paper social security card that I've been carrying since I was 14. 

On the return trip, I stopped at a country store in order to address my depletion. My hands were cramping holding the steering wheel. I'd sweat out all my salt. Gatorade, water, celery, hummus, a block of smoked extra-sharp and local cheddar, and a whoopie pie. I ate and drank a portion of it at a picnic table while looking out across rolling rocky green fields at the distant mountains through the smoke. There was no one around except me, the storekeeper inside, and the purple finches at the window feeder. Serenity despite the duress.