The way the second half of the night went

There was a dwarfish horse in my headlights out in the dark oak forest eating grass along the side of the road. Escaped but not on the run, thinking twice about the decision now. The woman who didn't know what to do with herself left the ER about ten minutes before I could get there so I spent the rest of the night falling through various phases of sleep in my car parked in the driveway of my former wife's house. I woke to the lightening sky and gradually building bird song. I texted my son to let him know I had arrived to pick him up for school.

At a red light

Check in with your memories and find that what's still there are the best parts and the worst parts. High - maybe highest - among them is the way it felt when you got into bed together to sleep. How you could feel her so sweetly drifting beside you. Once, she told you that she trusted you. During those moments, you could tell it was true. Bliss is not a word you get to use very often.

Walk

A little silver shower tinkles down upon my day dreams of 100 mile ultra-marathons and hiking across the continent. I walk for an hour up a gently sloping sidewalk in old running shoes and find myself breathing harder within five minutes of setting out. Oh yeah, humility. I almost forgot. You have to start all over again. Again.

Elantra

I took the day off - a use or lose personal day - after working some of the overnight shift this morning. I dedicated half the day and one thousand dollars to life-extending surgery for my Korean battle wagon. There are 366,000 miles on it now. All of the mechanics noticed it. Some laughed. One nodded with respect. Until the end of the trail, I tell them. Together, we endure.

Sure

Attachment is the cause of all suffering, Buddha's meme says. I can dig it and I have nothing to add.

An elder told me once that there's really only two kinds of medicine - laughter and tears. I can see that point of view, have tasted both, been healed (to some extent) by both too. 

A philosopher proposed that time and silence are the cure for everything. And that is exactly the explanation I'll use regarding my whereabouts of the last six years should anyone ask.

Yes, we can

Empty hollow flat and false - your American thoughts and prayers. Your God should wipe you out. I can't help but think it.

I sat in the car with my son before school. The car radio talked about the most recent school shooting. He was eating a cider donut and getting ready to take a standardized test. We listened to the report in the early morning just like we did the one about the Buffalo supermarket shooting the week before last. Neither one of us said anything. 

He seemed to find within himself a way to continue. I guess I did the same. Falling, but forward. 

Good guys with guns have bad days too

I'd been living in a hotel and working there for a couple of months by then. The headline of the local paper said this particular town was about to become a sanctuary city. Wow, I thought. These people are more progressive than they look. I read on. It wasn't becoming a sanctuary city for asylum seekers but for the unborn. Yeah, that was more consistent with what I was seeing. 

Everyone, basically, owned a gun there. Many carried one every day. Just like putting on your shoes. 

There was a shooting during a church service during my time there. The shooter and two parishioners were killed. The man on the radio chalked it up to the quick thinking and decisive action taken by one of the armed parishoners which prevented a real massacre from taking place. That and a clean headshot, the man said.  

Twenty-one, today, died attending elementary school down there. Another man with a gun was having a bad day. 

Shame should break our fucking backs.

Mental Media Mason-Dixon

"Thanks, Joe" said the man as he hung the nozzle back on the gas pump. He was white with a goatee and aviator style sunglasses. Kind of angry looking. One of the Fox brethren, I thought, after I realized what was going on. I could have told him that gas prices are up around the world, but I'm pretty sure that would not have provided a moment of enlightenment.

Ponderosa

The kitchen floor is a torn and filthy vinyl sheet. It was put in place as a temporary measure something like 15 years ago. Whenever I see it, I wonder why I'm still here. I drove into Worcester tonight for fried chicken and beer. I've driven up and walked down those streets so many times often wondering why it is  I'm still here. And now it's hotter than it's supposed to be, getting dark, and a thunderstorm is rising up.

I was thinking about that time my marriage disintegrated and how I decided to train for a hundred mile race as a way to cope with it all. When race day came, it was very hot and far away and after twelve hours of running and slogging I hadn't peed despite consuming lots of water and electrolytes at every opportunity. My hands swelled up. I became preoccupied with the notion that my kidneys were shutting down. I thought about quitting when and if I made it to the half-way point. Something in me didn't want to do that despite my kidneys complaints, my terribly aching feet and my twitching cramping legs. I will die out here before I quit, I said to myself. Once I had permission to die, I felt lighter and I was soon able to pee again. They were right, I needed to let go. 

I was remembering that sick, broken, physically tapped out feeling tonight. How hard it was to stand up from the chair I'd fallen into beyond the finish line, how my urine was more brown than yellow, how difficult it was to walk back to my hotel room less than a mile away, and how lying in bed offered no relief due to the cramping in my calves that lasted all night. 

There was no one there to celebrate my achievement with. I remember the scent of ponderosa pine and a whole new kind of loneliness. 

I was driving tonight thinking that maybe it's time to do something like that again.

Thematic

I have, until recently, rejected listening to audio books on my phone. I think it's primarily due to the sound of the human voice in my particular ears. To the fact that I find most of them tolerable only in small doses most of the time. I'm also averse to listening or watching entertainment content on a telephone for some reason. I'm also not a fan of the word "content" either.

Anyway, I purchased a subscription to an audio book service, made a few selections, and started listening during the three to four hours a day I'm in the car. I'm in the middle of the third book now. It occurred to me yesterday that I might be sending myself a message through my only semi-conscious book choices. 

The books have had a lot to do with self-overcoming, with endurance, and with living alone. 

Business as usual

There were 55 people in the ER yesterday and only a handful for behavioral health reasons. It's not a big city ER. I keep hearing people talking about the pandemic in the past tense. We're funny creatures. 

Mindfullness

Above the monitor there was a patch of clear blue sky. A carpenter bee, I think, was working diligently just outside the window. Higher in my field of view, barn swallows wheeled around crazily in singles and pairs. Above them, two hawks circled, gliding gracefully on currents of air. On the monitor, people talked about suicide. Efforts made to prevent it. How to cope with its aftermath. It was a quiet day in my office watching all of that taking place. When I emerged, there were two teenagers waiting in the ER after not quite getting it done. Thank goodness.

On the breeze

Lilacs, I smelled them on the breeze today. An instant hit. A moment of all-natural euphoria. One small part of the magic inherent in the world. Love. Memory. You once wrote in an early Spring goodbye that you were sorry we didn't make it to the lilacs together. But we did, sweet girl. We made it. 

Taper

She sends a text in the middle of the night saying that you had something to do with two of her dreams last night. It's an act of kindness, you figure. She did it because she understands you think you've disappeared from the world.

One hundred percent

He tested positive this morning. Of the five of us, he'd been the last remaining hold out. He looked pale and tired when I got home from work watching A Clockwork Orange on the couch.

Heat in the kitchen

It was one of the first hot days here with temperatures in at least the middle 80's. This morning he tried to adjust the inside temperature by messing with the thermostat maybe not realizing there is no central air conditioning in this house. We went out for breakfast. We took a trip to Lowe's to purchase a fan for his bedroom and a hummingbird feeder. When we returned, it felt much hotter in the house than it was outside in the sun. What gives? I took a look at the thermostat. The needle was pegged at 90 degrees - the absolute maximum end of the scale. The actual indoor temperature was probably hotter. The furnace was blasting (with heating oil at about 5 bucks a gallon and the tank now probably empty). What the hell did you do? He wilted. He'd been trying to turn it down and instead turned it up as high as it would go. He was ashamed. He sheepishly went to work on bis Biology homework while I, sweating, attacked the dishes in the kitchen sink, put the new feeder together and mixed a batch of sugar-water while mutterring to myself. The hummingbird showed up about an hour after I stuck the feeder on the kitchen window. That's about how long it took me to make the thermostat incident into a joke. And then we moved on.

A vague dream still counts as a dream

This morning was already hot. Native asparagus and lilacs in full bloom. I stood outside my place of work and looked down the street. Everything was greener. Leaves unfurling. I thought I'd like to just start walking and maybe keep it up for a year or so.

The last of my favorite things

 Sleep, the healer, spent the long night restoring and realigning me,

Nowhere else to go

I took myself to a movie last night - the worldwide premier - about a singer, writer, artist, father, husband trying to live through the grief of the loss of a son in his teens. There were only seven of us in the theater and that hurt me a little bit. This singer and his songs have been a significant part of my life for nearly 35 years. What saddened me more was that he had another son in Australia from a prior marriage, in his early 30's, who died tragically just a few days ago. Just before the premier of a documentary about how his father survived a world-shattering loss. 

"It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That's the deal. That's the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable."

At the end of the film he said that he was happy. Happy in the sense that he had found meaning in being alive and in other people. That made me sadder still, knowing what we know now. 

After, I was too tired to drive home and I was on-call. So I parked in the lot of a neighboring Walmart, tipped the seat back, and went to sleep. No one bothered me and I slept fairly well. At 5:30 AM they called me in to see a Vietnam veteran, sober now, who had gone to the ER to sleep.

There is nowhere else to go, he said.

Wednesday alright

And now another Wednesday has come and gone. Another turn in the barrel. The same well-worn dynamics take shape and play out. Something needs to heal. Something re-done differently. Don't sit so close to the fire, son. 

Signs and signifiers

I've seen three bald eagles in as many days. Not a common site around here. The hummingbird met me at the kitchen window this afternoon. First sighting. 

Outing

I got a chance to watch him play in a tournament today. He's just finished his third year of college this week. In the third game, a smiling girl on the sidelines held a large poster covered in photographs of him. He played like he was on fire in that one. It did me good to see him so alive. So unselfconsciously joyful.

Enough

Falling into some kind of work, sleep, work, sleep rhythm during which the sleep is broken but the portions I manage to get are long enough to be somewhat rejuvenating. Even though I'm sleeping less, that heavy drowsy feeling isn't constantly pulling down on me. Good riddance. For now, this is life. Be content.

Nature's still there

It's time for the hummingbirds though I've not seen any around yet. Bumble bees have been hard at work here for at least a week. I read somewhere that bird flu is going around (among birds), and that it's a bad idea to put feeders or baths out just now. I'll hold off then. I saw a river otter run through my backyard this morning. That's a first.  I'm a good ways from any river and not all that close to the nearest lake. Wanted to ask him where he was coming from but he looked to be in a rush.

Up toward the dream two rungs at a time

A brilliant young woman achieving well ahead of schedule carrying her immigrants parents' anxieties and hopes comes to this small room in which the bed is bolted to the floor in the middle of the night for temporary refuge. There's so much to deal with. Finals, four jobs, moving across the country, coming out to her family, racism, familial trauma, whatever you call this thing that's happening to this country right now, a pandemic, and an unfolding world war on a rapidly dying planet. She doesn't know if she wants to live anymore.

Let go, they said

Part of what made it so difficult was knowing in my bones this would never happen again. 

Affirmation

Your hull is dented all to hell but it's not pierced. So...