2022

I won't miss you. You meant very little to me in the end and that lack of meaning is all that I'm a little sad about if I'm even sad at all. I drifted further from shore this year. Out of earshot and beyond the reach of the lights. I watched closely the process of decay and decline. Studied how the world forgets. How one man forgets and is forgotten. Also what he remembers. I went a year without touching and it changed my understanding. I won't miss you. I'm neither colder or warmer for having known you. We passed through each other. That's all.

Less and less likely

I went out there. Gave it a go. Tried it on for size. I didn't fit it and so came home early.

Work day

5:30 A.M. and rising after good sleep. I'm facing a strange mountain that's growing higher by the day. Its faces are increasingly steep. The mountain itself is equal parts mudslide, avalanche and volcanic eruption. You can feel the earth moving under your feet. Climbing it is ill advised, and yet...

Wonderful World

 

Milepost

A Christmas Chinese lunch with the kids - they who are no longer children. It feels good to slow down and to be conscious of their presence, here, together. After, we went to the house and watched It's A Wonderful Life together. Can you believe that movie was made nearly 80 years ago? My God. James Stewart had this screechy voice that I don't remember from the last time I watched it, however long ago that was. Is it true to say that I was someone else then? 

I met a man today, an ordinary man suffering ordinary problems, and I shook his hand. Eighteen years ago, I wanted to murder him. Today, I felt nothing more than a human hand grasping mine. No hatred. No sense of being wronged. Is it true to say that I am someone else now?

It's the season of children's dreams, of winter ghosts and mileposts nearly drifted over with snow.

Christmas eve this year

I ate breakfast this morning in a diner feeling thankful that it was open on Christmas Eve. I thanked the hostess for being here. She smiled. Things were going well until the sometimes annoying owner became annoying with his sideways political commentary. 

I found myself getting that flat, grim feeling I get when a situation has to be either exited or endured. I wasn't finished eating yet so I put on my don't-talk-to-me face and endured.

I've unplugged from a lot of people and things that have caused me annoyance over the last few years. If you're going to take that course of action, I'd recommend replacing whatever you unplug from with something else. Preferably something that brings you joy. Otherwise, you're left with a lot of silence and just your self. And that can be pretty annoying too.

Rain instead of snow

A good looking kid with a fresh haircut, and she, a beautiful woman. They're obviously related, but in what way? Mother and son? Brother and sister? Aunt and nephew? I ate my dinner alone while discretely watching them eat theirs. I was dreaming there for a minute. She glanced at me and then away. Away. I felt that part. And then I walked out into the rain. 

Repeat

When the sun set on Saturday, I said I'd soak in all the sleep the night had to offer and then did so.

Desire

It was a Friday night, and what I desired most was just to crawl into bed, alone, and to stay there.

Something about the dusk and the Christmas lights on the houses

"You're so serious," people frequently said to the boy. They usually said it in such a way that he began to believe there was something wrong with him. That maybe he should be something other than what he was. I think it would have been nice if the boy had asked the commentators if they'd ever lost something elemental. Because that's where serious begins. That's when he became a real boy in a cartoon world. 

'

V

 V. 

That's as far as I go. All that I show. For me to know. 

This was the first white morning of the year and, as it happened, the morning after the arrival of my new black shoes. They're grippy. I tried them out in the new snow. 

The day commenced on time, in darkness, with the making of my bed and it was just barely light when I arrived at my workplace. And work there I did, well into the next darkness, while all the people looked to be so fragile and endangered. 

Perilous is the road. Tender are its travelers. I loved them all then, but silently, and from a distance. 

V.  I told that to myself. The first letter in a new way. The leaf nearly turning. I tried it on for size and it fit. 

December 4

To Whom It May Concern, 

The emissary you sent? That masked priest with the shifty eyes? Yeah, I just wanted to let you know that I made him. 

Was he hurrying in the stairwell because he was rushing off to administer The Last Rites to an expiring patient or perhaps to hear someone's final confession? Or was he trying to put some distance between himself and the briefcase bomb he left outside my office door several floors above?

Do you see what I'm getting at? 

You can't ever be certain when it comes to the motivations of others. It's nice to think people are just going about doing their assigned work and not something sinister. It's nice, but it's probably not true. Around here, I will henceforth assume there's a bomb in that briefcase.

Later, I dined in Worcester. A small group of people were talking about something dull at the top of their voices heavily accented in the local dialect. That sound, for me, is a dagger wrapped in 40- grit sandpaper slowly thrust into my ear. That complaining tone. The harshness. God bless 'em. 

I returned alone to an empty house that was free of improvised munitions, spies, assassins, unhappy women, and was glad for the silence. 

I'm not wrong to avoid you.

Sincerely,