The Last Good Day Of The Year

 

Last day

It's the last day of the year, and I've gotten up relatively early and made myself a cup of Irish Breakfast Tea. I'm not really a tea drinker. It seems to have arrived with the new kitchen floor. The birth of civilization. When it was a torn and filthy vinyl sheet, Thunderbird was the beverage most apropos. 

I'm thankful for this year's home improvements. Thankful, also, for getting out of management in a soulless and sick health care delivery system. Grateful for several experiences that shined a light on my life and my history and inspired some long overdue changes. I'm grateful for my family, its health and its resilience. I'm grateful for a couple of distant voices who I think of as friends. 

Thankful and grateful but not attached. I won't walk the tracks this year behind a long-gone train. I can let it go. Thank you and goodbye, good year. 

The other day, while my car was up on the lift being operated on, I took a walk into the large fenced in area that once contained Rutland Heights State Hospital. It was closed for good back in the early 1990's  and the buildings were all torn down sometime in the interim. There are plans in effect to build a "lifestyle community" there now. One man was working on a bulldozer packing and leveling dirt into a buildable surface. The only thing remaining of the old state hospital was a rusted metal flag pole. 

There were a number of giant haunted oaks; a sinister-seeming, man-made pond; an upended wishing well made of stones imbedded in concrete; and a pile of broken sewage pipes installed in the late 1800's. The hospital had originally been a rural tuberculosis sanatorium in which a great deal of academic research was conducted. It was repurposed in the 1960's when TB had calmed down and new maladies had arisen to badger the people. Part of it became a hospital for the treatment of alcoholics. My father entered that program as a patient, following a family intervention involving my mother and both sets of parents, a few days before Christmas in 1972. He died there that very same night. He was thirty years old. I was six. Since it's been kind of a year of perceived spiritual growth for me, I wondered if I might be able to sense his presence while walking in there. 

I couldn't feel you there. Could you feel me? You know, I've still got a lot of questions. Six year olds don't really get satisfactory answers. Did you suffer? Were you afraid? Did you think about us? Was there time for feeling and thinking and remembering? 

My mother said she'd found a little blood in the sheets at home after you'd gone. A nurse friend of mine speculated that maybe it was esophageal varices. You were very thin and jaundiced. I'd been told you died of cirrhosis which is something that blows a lot of peoples' minds on account of your youth. To be completely honest, I've often wondered if you killed yourself there. If you did, I'm not mad about it now. I've always imagined you suffering something no one else knew or understood. Alone. That's the part that hurts most to imagine. 

Anyway, we have this weird town of Rutland in common. You came here, unplanned, without your young family, to die. I came here, unplanned, with my young family, to live. In the last twenty-five years, I've never really thought about that.

Dinner plans

Wow, I did a lot of sleeping last night. Might have been related to the two mezcal margaritas I had for dinner along with some barilla tacos. 

My car was finished by about 3:30 PM after having two tires and a snapped tie rod replaced and the wheels realigned (to the extent that it's still possible). Well, I've got two new front tires to face the winter with, if it ever decides to come to Massachusetts. No snow or ice here yet. That car has traveled 413,000 miles with me so far though. The fenders are rusted out and covered in gorilla tape, the bumpers are cracked, the roof is dented in, the arthritic door hinges make strange sounds as they open and close, the motor runs on just two cylinders and burns so much oil I no longer have to get it changed. It won't pass inspection anymore. The mechanic, as he was charging me $536, told me I ought to write a letter to Hyundai. None of them go that far, he said. 

I drove over to the next town to obtain a signature on a Health Care Savings Account form that will enable reimbursement of the six hundred dollars I paid out of pocket for two pairs of glasses. One of them has  what was described as three-stage progressive lenses. The top part of the lense is for distance, the middle is for looking at computer screens, and the bottom is for reading. If I can master them, it will save me having to constantly take them off and put them on based on the vision demands thrust upon me at any given moment. The optometrist was suffering a barrage of hiccups but she signed the form without question.

The Mexican place was next door. It was a little early for dinner, but I figured it wouldn't be crowded. I sat  at one of the corners of the three-sided square bar. There weren't too many people there. I started with a beer. A man came in, calculated a safe and appropriate distance from me, and selected a stool leaving two unoccupied between us. My initial reaction to him was one of mild dislike. A woman came in and joined him. I liked her better. Something about her face. I'd guess they were both in their forties, but I'm getting less accurate with those estimates as I age. Probably has something to do with not wanting to acknowledge the growing distance between us. 

Anyway, I mention this because I kept finding myself staring at the woman. They were far enough away, and the place was sufficiently noisy that I could not hear their conversation, but something held my interest. She was attentive to him. Her eyes seemed to leave him only when she was taking a bite of her salad or a sip of her drink. His back was to me while she was facing in my direction. There was something delicate and exquisite about the bone structure of her face. She noticed me staring more than once and her response was completely neutral. Mostly, I got that way because I'd start thinking and drift off not realizing that I'd left my eyes on her. I was thinking that no one is going to look at me the way she is looking at him anymore. I noticed her caressing his thigh and I liked the man even less. It had not been difficult in my day dream to imagine myself replacing him until I realized that my dreaming was more delusion than possibility. I sat there confused and disoriented for a few minutes, probably still staring. 

There was a man sitting beside me to my left now. 

Any big plans for New Year's Eve? he asked. I realized he was talking to me. 

Not my kind of holiday, I replied. 

Mine either, he said. Just stay home and order Chinese.

How about you? I asked him absently.

Just staying home and ordering Chinese, he said.

I was still watching her. She was looking at him steadily now trying to reassure or convince him of something, I thought. Her red nails were tracing along his thigh a little faster. I experienced a sudden flash of memory. This guy's incredibly unlikeable face staring at the woman I was with from across the bar and the heavy steak knife I had in my hand. 

I thought it was probably a good time to leave. And so, I did.

Fucking Friday

Fucking Friday. 

I had a day off work today so I made a list of concrete objectives I woke up prepared to achieve. I got a little distracted, as I tend to do, and left the house later than planned forgoing an early morning walk in the rain. About five minutes after leaving the house, while wearing a brand new pair of glasses with an updated prescription I'd never driven with before, I got a little too close to where the white line usually is on the right side of the road and dropped my passenger side wheels about 12 inches in the ditch. I pulled out of it but could already feel damage and, sure as shit, in less than a minute, my right front tire had gone flat. I pulled into an elementary school parking lot, knew I didn't have a spare, so called AAA for a tow. There's a garage about a mile from there so I called them in the meantime and ordered a couple of tires. An hour and a half later, the tow truck arrived. I got my car towed to the garage without further incident. The man said he'd call me when it was ready and nonverbally sent me a message to buzz off in the meantime. 

I walked up the hill to a diner in the center of town where I ate biscuits and gravy with eggs over easy and coffee. She had Fox News blaring on the television which made me forget pretty quickly how good the food was. The poisonous backdrop and soundtrack of rural America. They were talking about illegal immigrants. About how they're here to get comfortable living in the tender care of our Democrat led government. About how their presence here enriches the cartels and takes money out of my white, tax paying, pocket. It was a round table discussion intended to sound spontaneous, but all the well rehearsed, endlessly repeated talking points were driven home over and over. How are we so fucking stupid?

I paid the bill and went to a Dunkin' Donuts close by to kill time and to write in my journal. Two women were talking at a nearby table. One of them was getting the short end of the stick in a divorce from a doctor and she was contemplating whether or not to rat him out for prescribing whatever his "patients" wanted. I judged all parties involved harshly, without mercy, and renounced the world yet again. Just then, about ten hyperactive kids from a local residential treatment center came in with an ineffectual staff person and made me wish I'd never left the house today. Solitude becomes taxing, but this thing among people is not any better. I've forgotten how to be. 

Morning report

Listening to the rain this morning and trying to resist the negation. The rivers of New England have been high all year. I wonder where the water will go each time it rains again. Be thankful it's not coming in under the door. We're on the edge of January and it feels like April. I greet the plant who lives with me. Yes, granted, it's not by choice, but it hasn't yet opted for self-murder like the others did. I'm no good with bamboo. I found this one a few Christmases ago sitting in a three inch pot at a CVS pharmacy. We caught each other's eye. I took it home. I gave it the only South facing window in the house - the one that gets the most sun. Eventually, I transplanted it into an eight-inch pot and it took off. It's tall and healthy now. I speak to it often and it seems to improve the quality of the air in that room. I need to walk today or tonight or tomorrow. Feeling a little confined here with my green friend.

While you can

One of those scenarios in which you're asked what advice you'd give to a young person just starting out. Today I'd say, "Young Person, your future will feature no shortage of heartache, heartbreak, hardship, sickness, struggle, loss, grief, and untold other varieties of tragedy. And it all ends with your death. So here's the thing you need to learn to recognize. Learn to recognize when you're not suffering these conditions and seize the fleeting opportunity to celebrate that fact fully. Live as well as you can while you can. Don't manufacture unnecessary suffering." That's what I'd say.  Just chill, maybe. 

Neither hot or cold really

It was a regular work-from-home day - chasing insurance authorizations and conducting crisis evaluations via telehealth. An overflowing Emergency Department. People who held out through the holidays are now collapsing. Between calls, I lift some dumbbells; take out the trash; clean up the kitchen; check the basement for usable primer, spackle, rollers and trays. Most of what was liquid when I bought it years ago has solidified. I'm planning a small painting project. Goldfinch yellow, I'm thinking, for the hallway. Something bright. I need to attach a doorbell to the wires sticking out of the wall, put a cover over the bare light bulbs, and when was the last time anyone changed the batteries in the smoke detector? I aim to apply for an updated passport this week too. 

Salvage

Christmas. Today, I'll have dinner with my brother, his wife, their three daughters, my sister, and my mother. I'll bring a shrimp wheel and wine. I got to spend yesterday with my kids and my daughter's boyfriend. I should say, I got to enjoy yesterday with them. There's truly something to be said for slowing down and being fully present. There have been many changes during this last year. Some of them were difficult. None of them do I regret. I heard Silent Night on the car radio on the way home alone last night. I was thinking of the people I love. It was the first time I'd heard that song this Christmas season. And I felt as though I'd actually heard it properly.

Eve

7 AM and the light is slowly rising. I've got laundry to do. It's Christmas Eve. Linking up with the kids today to exchange gifts, have dinner, maybe catch a movie. By working from home, avoiding most media, and not interacting with many people this season, I've managed to sidestep the sickened saturation with the commercial aspects of Christmas I normally experience by now. As a result, there's little, if any, anxiety attached to the day. Hallelujah. 

So as not to sink

To linger in bed after waking beside someone you love in a particular way can be heavenly. No matter how long that person stays there with you, it's not long enough. How rare a thing that is. 

To linger in bed after waking alone feels different. It can be a relaxed and comfortable experience to be sure, but there's always this feeling that what belongs there is absent. The best you can do, I have found, is to adjust the volume control on that feeling. Maybe it's best not to linger too long. 

Getting the kitchen floor fixed seems to have freed something up. Energy. Flow. Life. Like removing a dam from a river or a grape from an obstructed airway. It's a trickle though not a torrent. Don't get too crazy. My blood is moving within my body though, and I'm breathing again. A parallel process is taking place inside my house. 

The spice cabinet. I threw out the curry powder that was best used 20 years ago. The ten year old green tea bags. A small bottle of Tabasco, never opened, that expired in 2017. And then the OTC medications, all expired for just as long. I pour one thousand pills out of plastic containers into a plastic bag and got it out of my house. I notice the partially painted walls and remember the sensation of dropping dead before the work was completed. How long ago was that?

Perceived

This morning I realized I live just about 10,000 steps from the farm I grew up on. I walked there earlier while my watch was apparently counting my footsteps. It was colder than I expected, but the walking warmed me. I always new it was geographically close, but there were obstacles and impediments between there and where I lay my remembering head that made it seem more distant than it actually is. I'm glad to say that some of those have been removed before it grew too late for it to matter.

Pretty darn okay

They returned and finished up the grout today. I now have a serviceable kitchen and that feels pretty good. I don't really feel that great myself, and the longest night of the year has descended upon us, but I do have to admit that a couple of things have gone my way lately. There's not much to complain about right now. Go to sleep now and don't worry about the rest of it. 

Renovation

Jose and his protege arrived this morning at around 9:30. By 5:00, they'd installed the kitchen floor and placed all the backsplash tiles. Tomorrow they'll return to grout it. I can't say I've ever really been house proud but, as of today, I can say I'm no longer house ashamed. Thank you, men. 

And thank you, Lady. 

Current events

Jose's coming tomorrow to fix my torn and filthy kitchen floor. I haven't had a single guest in this house for the last seven years. The kitchen floor isn't the only reason for that but, after tomorrow, there will be one less. 

Lately I've been housebound mostly - letting my hair grow, not shaving my chin, not talking to people, not watching television, not listening to the radio. I have been scrolling some and reading the headlines on my browser's home page. I feel like whenever I leave the house now, I should be purifying myself first, making myself clean, because when I go out there I am offering myself up for murder. One of these days it will be my turn. Always put on clean underwear before you go out, they warned me.

Task

Unsticking myself in some aspects of life. I've been looking at this unsightly problem for years now in a state of paralysis. Today, I took a step toward it and found that I can afford to have it remedied by the end of the week. Be concrete, damn it. 

Echo

I was just remembering how there was a period of time when I could feel your thoughts and emotions shifting when we were apart. It was almost like hearing a distant echo. I knew whose voice it was, but couldn't quite make out the words. This sensation would fill me with joy or with terror. I'd either start to fly or I'd plummet from a great height. The core issue of loss was activated. The loss of love. As a result, falling in love knowingly is a sort of suicide pact. And after the inevitable loss, the ending of the relationship, comes grief and a sort of inner devastation. You live in memories not in life. You love in memory in the close and constant proximity of grief. After a while you cannot distinguish between the two and you come to believe grief is the one you love. Because you are in love with grief now, you can't find your way back to actual love. Real love with a real person flows in both directions. This is something you should try to keep in mind. 

Hike

It's heavy work carrying my body, my boots, a thirty-five pound backpack and this leaden head over roots and rocks and slippery leaves, but it helps clear my mind and circulate my chemistry.

Erase

A point of reference. A rallying point, an X marked on a map, a set of coordinates - the place to which you will return or hope to arrive at some future time. There has been, will be, something waiting for you there. 

A photograph of someone kept in your wallet, in a locket, on your phone, or preserved carefully in your mind's eye may serve a similar purpose. 

But who are you without these things? What will you do when there is no one waiting for you anywhere? Where will you go when no place represented on any map has meaning to you?

I dreamed of walking up over the top of a mountain at night. Once over the crest, I could see the glow of a campfire against the rock walls below. I knew that in a few minutes I would emerge from solitary darkness into a community of light. It was just a glimpse, but it felt like coming home. A sacred beautiful feeling. That was a long time ago.

Recommendation

After you've made the transition from speaking out of your mouth to others to speaking mostly in your head to yourself and you find yourself wanting to communicate something to someone else, I'd really recommend saying whatever it is you've got to say out loud first, to yourself, before you say it out loud to that certain someone else or you might find yourself coming off as a little nuts.

Pitfallen

I realize, at some point, you might have to fabricate something to look forward to. I've also almost realized that there's actually plenty to do. I'm just procrastinating on doing much of it. Time to focus more on doing concrete tasks, and less on feeling, remembering, and, let's face it, wallowing. Wallowing is not so different from basking. Each activity has its own particular delights.

Frank sounds like a wise guy trying to be cute when compared to this version of the song. I give you...Tony Bennett.

 

Sinatra's Birthday

 

Dream

Twin faces in a mirror looking out at me as though I were the mere reflection. Two different faces in nearly identical dress. Neither face was mine.

Nashoba

The representative haled from Oregon so she wasn't familiar with the Native American names which are so much a part of the geography of New England. The names still remain, only rarely considered.

After a few

Alcohol. A disinhibitor, social lubricant, and alibi for over-the-top verbal pronouncements and behavior. Opening the windows and letting the pent up air flow both out and in. I remember when and ache. Tonight, a warm wind is blowing, feeling like it's early May, here and now, in December, with all that Spring-time lonesome hope and remote possibility. A night for desperate lovers. And holiness.

Shane MacGowan

 

Scattershot

 If I could focus, I tell you, I'd be a dangerous man. Half the day has already slipped away during which I thought about scheduling an eye exam and getting new glasses after my sole pair disintegrated yesterday but got side tracked into transferring all the dirty dishes from the sink and counters into the dishwasher and running it during which I remembered the 800 page Russel Banks novel in my laundry basket that I took from the shelf of my favorite 1970's era laundromat yesterday and that led to making coffee and reading (this is book number eight that I'm reading simultaneously) and reheating my coffee several times while reading and texting my sons who are both busy today then re-reading the last page of what I had just read but couldn't remember during which time I started imagining the Adirondacks and walking in and writing about the mountains and then realized it's a nice day and I should get outside while wondering where I left my passport application which I started filling out over a year ago. Then I sat down to write this in the hopes of getting it out of my system. 

Later, I walked for a couple of hours. Quietly, through the brown wood under gray skies on a carpet of dead leaves. Occasionally, I'd feel a single silky strand of a spider's web strung like a high tripwire across the trail. I brought some ticks home too. December's not as cold as it used to be here. The woods did me a lot of good. Quiet, except for the infrequent sound of birds - chickadees, a woodpecker sounding the alarm, a single honk from a Canada goose - and the brook's water gurgling over stones and logs. I stopped several times to listen and to feel. Rejuvenation. I began with a plan to walk a certain path but found myself deviating each time another one revealed itself. One could say I seem lost, but I don't think so. I know quite well where I am. It's where I want to go.

Errand Day

I'm taking some time out to boil a shirt in water and vinegar right now. I'm quite sure I've never boiled a shirt in vinegar-water before, and I'm enjoying the process. It's a mock turtleneck I earned running the Marine Corps. Marathon about 20 years ago in bad shoes with an injured IT band. It was my first Marathon, and my hair was still dark then. There were something like 30,000 runners in that race through Washington DC and many thousands of spectators cheering along the route. I didn't know enough about running marathons to know that runners often write their names on their race bibs so the spectators can cheer them on. I got into the race by raising a small amount of money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital. In return, they gave me a singlet with their name on it which I wore in the race. "Go, Saint Jude!" people were yelling at me. After a while, limping and suffering, I internalized that identify. I began blessing people, laying hands upon them, as I ran by. Saint Jude is the patron saint of the lost cause and the hopeless case. He's always been close to my heart for that reason. It takes a stimulus of some kind to make a person take up distance running. Sometimes it's to keep from drowning.

Perspective

One of those doldrum kind of days. A kind of internal dullness - bleak and drowsy. This morning was cold, down in the teens, and kind of invigorating for a moment. My mother told me she's realizing how much we need contact with other people. She's only about half way through her quarantine and not enjoying it at all. Of course, that led me to wonder what the matter is with me. I avoid people mostly. Small doses, for me, work better. I'm prone to overdose in situations that seem to be pleasantly social for others. About once a decade I meet someone I wish I could spend more time with. I'm about due. 

On Target

If I could play it on piano, I wouldn't have to try to find the words. And I'm sure it would sound nicer. 

This morning, there was a little magic out there. I earned access to it by staying in the house on the verge of lonesome for a long time and by righting a tipped-over shopping cart in the Target parking lot. Karma going my way, shopping for my mother at 8:15 AM, not many other shoppers, upbeat Christmas music piped in overhead. I haven't overdosed on it this year because I live predominantly in solitary confinement, so it was kind of refreshing. I discovered an African woman dancing in the toothpaste aisle. Caught you, I said. We laughed quietly. Merry Christmas to you, I said. She smiled wide and a smile began inside me too. I felt warmer. 

A few minutes later, when I was picking through candy cane shaped plastic tubes filled with M&M's, a song played. Something like, "I'm Wearing My Stretchy Pants". The first new holiday season song I've heard in years that was any good. My inner smile grew a little brighter. 

And then as I was leaving, I saw a group of developmentally disabled young adults paired up with staff people learning how to grocery shop. One girl looked at me over her shoulder. She'd taken control of the shopping cart and had all the mischief and light in her eyes of a teenage girl about to take a convertible out for a spin for the first time. My smile spread outward and onto my face. 

Outside, light snow flurries were starting to fall. I took a deep breath in.

Quarantine

She said the meals, which she normally enjoys very much, don't taste like anything now that she has to eat them quarantined in her room. The company she normally keeps has a lot to do with her enjoyment. She said she had a moment of insight into how it would feel to be in a nursing home. Alone in a room all the time, no friends, no conversation. Wait a minute, she said. That's how you live. 

Back again

Remdesivir. Three upcoming trips to the hospital this week. Covid isn't vanquished and it's no joke when you're 80. 

Undigested

She'd worked very hard for months to prepare her body and self for a competition. Her dedication and discipline were absolute. And it paid off, she made it happen. She won. She was elated when the announcer called her name. I was too, cheering for her from the audience. I remember her running off the stage and jumping into the arms of her coach, wrapping her arms and legs around him. This funny thing happened just then. I was still cheering and applauding, only now from farther away.

Thought blocking

The way your own brain can torment you with spontaneous horror stories. I've had a rash of them arise recently. I tried not to flinch when they did. Let them come, look at them, and let them go. Don't feed them any of your energy. Still, you can't help but fear that just acknowledging their momentary presence is enough to make them manifest in the world.

Testing

Then comes the set back. Equanimity. I'm practicing. 

Load out

We lived under the same roof for months after we'd agreed to divorce. To say it was tense wouldn't cover it. Finally, the time came to draw a line. Someone rented a large U-Haul truck. She and a friend or two packed everything up, except for my clothes, and I loaded it all out into the truck. In the end, I had a bed and a few pieces of furniture left. Some of my clothes and papers and the stuff she didn't want were left in piles on the basement floor. 

In time, the spiders took over the basement, and I only went down there to deal with furnace issues once or twice a year after the washer and dryer died. The piles remained exactly where they were. What's it been now, 11 years? 

Today I moved one of those piles from the basement to the dumpster. It was mostly old running gear. Lots of t-shirts from races run of varying distances from 5k to 100 miles. Most of them I can't remember running. 

Being married was difficult. Living in a tense relationship with three small kids was very sad. Moving that pile today, if you subscribe to the ideas of feng-shui, will free up some energy that's been stuck in this house, and probably in me, for a very long time.

Dawn

I can't remember ever having enjoyed cleaning out a refrigerator until today. I took every thing out - all the food, the expired condiments, the drawers, and the tempered glass shelves. I scrubbed all the pieces with soap and hot water, dried them with paper towels, and wiped them down again with bleach wipes. I squeezed three types of funky flavored mayonnaise into my compost container. I used the same three-step cleaning process inside the refrigerator. And I did so mindfully. I'm not boasting when I say this, just noticing. I noticed, when I was washing one of the drawers with warm water and Dawn dish soap in the sink, that I felt a sort of contentment. I think I felt content because I was completely absorbed in the task. I wasn't ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. I wasn't trying to do three or four things at the same time. Mindfulness is being fully present in this moment. My refrigerator is freaking pristine right now. 

Piece

Silent today except for the tedious repetition on four or five calls to insurance companies mostly about people fed up and at the end of the ropes they're currently holding. My stomach is still a little unsettled and I am unable to form a coherent narrative of the night before last. Fragments. I watched the bright Beaver Moon set slowly through the high windows. I retched up something from early childhood. Choking. Am I being punished? No, this is only a story you are telling yourself. The Creator wants you to travel lightly, the man said. To love your life.

After

Old stories were given to the fire, that might be one way of summing it up. But a whole lot transpired, in a non-linear kind of way, making the idea of summing it up seem silly. There's a new story that needs writing though.

Ceremony

Thinking about who will be left up there - buried in the earth; burned upon a pyre; swept of memory, stripped of identification and left to wander the wilderness; kissed, swaddled in weighted blankets, and let go to sink into the deep. By sunrise tomorrow something will have been left behind. Or maybe just embraced, loved, and released to fly up toward the sun. That would be nicer. 

Thanksgiving

We are changing, aging, becoming, and moving steadily toward our individual ends. Memories are made, fade, and disappear. We suffer the history of this family individually, nearly unknowingly. Carrying invisible burdens and understanding, in our own ways, only that they are heavy. I feel different sitting among you this year. It's good to see us laughing together, remembering, fitting another piece of the puzzle into our collective understanding. My anger has cooled. My wounds are what they are, but they're not the whole story. I'm something more. Something has shifted. 

This thing that happened

God? God?! GOD! GOD! GOOOOD! Death! DEATH! DEATH! DEEAATH! He was the first to try to break my concentration. Next, the sound of the man beside me, stricken suddenly mad, thrashing on the ground and muttering to himself. Sitting with eyes closed, waiting for my turn, breathing intentionally, keeping the others out. Show me what I need to see. 

Bright white and a mounting pain at the base of my neck and between my shoulder blades. I asked what this pain is. Something gave me an immediate answer. I asked if I could leave the pain in this place, but no answer was forthcoming. I tried to imagine how I could put it down, like wriggling free of a heavy backpack maybe. No, it's stitched into me, I realized, melded with my tissues. I imagined exhaling a breath large enough to release all that pain and tension. I exhaled until I expired. Terminal exhalation, something said to me. 

Falling down and through self and world, telling myself to stop observing and to let go of this life, strange voices heard in passing. Down and down and down until I was soaring far above a great gliding bird which was itself soaring far above the world of things.

Time has passed since then. I've thought a lot about who has to die.

Too early for drowsing

Celebrate, sure, but never gloat. My raft seems to have significantly less air in it today. I worked and spent some time in between work-related tasks unsubscribing to tens of junk e-mails trying to sell me things I do not want. I'd like to declutter my life, you know? 4 PM is dusk now and I seem to be feeling that missing light. A hurricane approaches. My kids will be driving on Thanksgiving. I feel an urge to pick them all up at their various locations instead and deliver them safely back when the time comes. There have been some invitations lately. I decline them politely. Still not feeling like socializing beyond family. There's a zoom call at 7 PM regarding something this coming weekend. I'm hoping I'll be more sociable by then. I had this idea last night, when I was still feeling bright and energetic, to take some aspect of the day and run with it in writing. Create a fictional story out of a factual occurrence. It might have been the cashier in short sleeves stationed too close to the exit with it's sliding electronic doors and the intermittent arctic breezes that assailed her. Or maybe the tiny hellion with mischief in his eyes turning his full grocery carriage around and making ready to sprint with it down an empty aisle. There are all kinds of stories right around here if you're willing to participate. Why aren't you?

Buoyancy

Fraud alert gave me a call today. Apparently I was on a Best Buy shopping spree in Minnesota earlier. The things I get up to. Honestly. I did, however, actually go to Market Basket to shop for my contribution to the family's Thanksgiving dinner. I found the frozen French meat pies I was hoping they'd have and grabbed two. Half a gallon of egg nog, Italian olives stuffed with pimento, a jar of French gherkins, and a large shrimp wheel. People seemed to look at me more frequently than normal. I must appear insane or something after being in the house and away from others for a while. I checked to make sure my shoes matched, that I was wearing pants, that I hadn't drooled toothpaste on my black jacket. The place felt like an amusement park to me. My thrills are cheap and I'm easy to please when I'm not drowning.

Spill it

Once in a great while I try to engage strangers in conversation. This is most often facilitated by alcohol. I'm not a regular drinker, so on the occasion that I have two or three, I tend to become expansive and may take the risk of reaching out to someone in my vicinity. This seems to happen almost magically when I'm traveling but much less often, or easily, when I'm home. 

I did this twice yesterday. I'm not very good at, or at all interested in, small talk so I tend to take us into  deeper waters pretty quickly. Sometimes this seems to make people uncomfortable. Other times we seem to make a connection. This time both parties I conversed with ended up leaving before I did. This makes me think I either bored them, freaked them out, or threw an unintentional wet blanket over their picnics. Oh well. Sorry about that. It won't happen again for several months.

Observe

The first mouse died in its pursuit of happiness in the form of peanut butter. I felt a little  remorse but was able to explain it away. You're in my house, little buddy. Technically, you're a home invader. Yes, you were only seeking warmth and sustenance but you brought with you pestilence and disease. I removed his/her body from the trap and enfolded it in a paper towel. Later, I took it out to the woods and laid it gently in the shade of a yellowed branch of fern. 

The second mouse died in the same way. I felt no remorse at all this time. This is my fucking house. That's why I killed you. Stand your ground. I removed its body from the trap and flung it in the old dish pan I use for compost among the coffee dregs and grounds, egg shells and banana peels. We all biodegrade. Don't worry, I'll get mine too. 

This morning, Andre 3000 pointed out the way I talk to myself, the way I compare myself to others, the way I envy. That's deep, Andre 3000. And you're right, I do need to chill. 

Tonight, I took myself to the local place to eat after not eating all day. It's Friday night. People are there. In groups. Friends. Families. Dates. For a moment it felt good to be out of the house. Out of my head. But that didn't last very long. There's something about the sound of social laughter in public places that makes me feel alien. Separate. Some of that was happening. I was hungry though and so I ordered food and ate it. When I'd had enough (company and food), I asked for a box and the check. I boxed my food, gave the waitress my card, exchanged smiles with her, signed the check and left, forgetting my boxed leftovers. The hell with it. 

Outside, the night was warm and quiet. I felt much better immediately. I looked up at the stars, breathed the scent, and leaned against my car for a while just taking in the night air and savoring it. When I was driving home, I saw a woman standing in the shadow of a closed Dunkin' Donuts. She'd worked the closing shift and was waiting for a ride. I only saw her dark silhouette and the small light given off by the phone in her hand. I got that feeling I get when I like something about people. Some kind of sadness for us all. Why isn't it joy? Or maybe it is.

What the sun did

The sun seems extra generous this morning. There's something in its light that feels uncommon this time of year. Mercy maybe. A certain kindness. Like a busy father spending a few extra moments playing with his delighted children before leaving for work. 

I'm grateful. Trying to just bear witness with equanimity.

Now, it's afternoon. The sun is descending from its zenith and the quality of the light is changing. It feels a little cooler. In my mind's eye, I watch the sun's journey downward to the horizon. I witness its disappearance and the silent darkness flooding in. There are emotions attached to this visualization. And I am attached to the emotions. I have always been missing someone or something.

I know how to write endings. Not so much the rest of it.

Cutie pie

Cleaning out the drawers today I found a Valentine from 2015. Reading the penciled words I could tell you loved me then. I'd nearly forgotten that part. Time almost made me believe it was only me doing that.

Domestication

Another trip to the hospital for an appointment with my mother. Before that, I went to Walmart and purchased five quarts of synthetic motor oil, olive oil, avocado oil, mouthwash, lightbulbs, electrolyte powder, baby wipes, diaper rash cream, marshmallow Fluff, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, two cans of Nitro coffee, a King sheet set and two place mats. I enjoyed laying out the place mats.

Dust Bunny Ranchero

My home is known, to me at least, as the Dust Bunny Ranch. It's in this condition largely because no one has really lived in it for much of the last seven years. I slept here when I wasn't traveling for work. There wasn't much done in the way of upkeep during that time span. 

Now, I'm working from home. The Dust Bunny Ranch title seems a little less cute these days. When I have energy, I set about trying to remedy the situation. Today, I assembled the chairs for the new dinette set and set my old chairs out at the end of the driveway. Before morning, someone will have likely snagged them. I deep cleaned my bedroom which involved a fist fight with a king mattress that tried to crush me. I realized I've had that mattress for something like 15 years and have never once rotated it. So today I rotated it 180 degrees and flipped it over. So much dust in and on the baseboard heaters. Weird items under the bed. When it was over, I emptied the chock full canister of the vacuum cleaner. Among the colony of bunnies was a significant quantity of fine grey dust. Fragments of who I once was. 

History

Tonight I watched a documentary on my laptop about the Lakota people, the Black Hills, the Land Back movement and the Water Protectors. It was disorienting to realize my connection to that place goes back almost 30 years. There's an anxiety in me. I've left something undone there.

Food coma coming on

Long drive with the boys to a high end seafood smorgasbord in Rhode Island that draws people by the bus load from all over the place. We met people from Maryland and Delaware who had made the trip just to eat there. It was very good, and I'll not likely need to eat next week. Great to see the boys together.

Like a real live action figure

Where did this one go? Started work at 7 AM and worked until 5 PM. The furniture Wayfair said was out of stock showed up along with the dinette I ordered in place of it. I had to deal with their customer support and arrange a way to send it all back and an eventual refund. It still cost me extra having to print shipping labels, but I did it. I assembled a pedestal table without smashing anything or making myself bleed.That's an improvement. I inhaled a lot of weird styrofoam packing material that basically disintegrated in my hands.  I got rid of some mildewed items that my shitty former roommate left in the basement. I did laundry. I printed, faxed and e-mailed some references. I made some more grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. I made plans with my boys for a fancy seafood feast tomorrow to celebrate the youngest's 18th birthday belatedly. I drank a beer. I didn't run or work out. And now I'm going to bed. 

Monkey brain

The gym is one of the few places I go and I don't go there all that often. It's always a bit of a shock when I first arrive. All the television screens. I don't have one of those at home. What you notice right away is that everyone is acting. Everyone is selling. Everyone is trying to herd you in one direction or another. I'm glad I can't hear what they're saying. 

So I turn my attention to the people around me. Everyone is acting. Everyone is performing. Posing or trying to hide. I get annoyed at the conversations. I start picking people apart. Judging them. Ranking them. Especially the Alphas of Planet Fitness. They strike me as the most ridiculous.

Once I've run on the treadmill long enough, something inside me says - stop running and run. I'm not sure whether it's a commentary on all the ridiculous behavior I see going on around me or if it's talking directly to me. Then it hits me. You - the people I'm annoyed with - are all me. Now I can stop looking at them and start focusing on the rhythm of my feet, my breathing, the clock on the treadmill's display panel.

Later, I took my mother to a medical appointment. This ended up requiring three more procedures and four more stops. She was a trooper enduring them all. Along with the underlying unanswered questions. The NP who examined her first was very thorough and communicative. We both like her. In fact, we both liked every receptionist, technician and provider we came into contact with. Each interaction, however brief, made a positive difference. 

Arrived home after dark. My dinette had arrived in three cardboard boxes and was waiting for me in the rain. I prepared a grilled ham and cheese sandwich after moving the boxes inside. I used to make them regularly when the kids were small and we all lived together. It's been years. It was pretty good. 

Slow boat to China

I made it out the door for a short walk at sunrise. Cold (right about freezing), stiff wind, some of the oaks have managed to hold onto browning leaves but all the rest have fallen. It felt great to be out there. How do I forget this so quickly?

When I tried her patience, my Irish grandmother used to threaten to put me on a slow boat to China. I wonder if she understood how good that sounded to me. It was a great place for dreaming.

I tried something new with my running today. Every couple of hours, if there was nothing happening at work, I took a quick break to run a mile. I managed to get 4.3 in today. Ow, my cardiovascular system.I've got less than 11 months to prepare for something that seems impossible at the moment. 

Like this

The story of this day is the sun not at all wanting to linger here. Up and over and out - like that. Leaving it dark when my work day is over and providing the excuse I need not to run again. 

Work kept me busy with tedium today. Hours spent negotiating the obstacles between where I stand at the starting line - me, the runner representing a patient in an ER waiting to transfer to a psychiatric unit - and the insurance company who may or may not agree to pay for some portion of the patient's treatment when the race is over. The whole process could be reduced to a straight shot, an easy jog even. But the race isn't designed for ease of use. It's a trial by ordeal. You must be willing to repeat yourself endlessly. It's like detectives trying to trip you up during an interrogation by making you tell the story over and over again looking for inconsistencies. They transfer you to non-existent voice mails or to holding pens where they soften your brain and erode your resolve with eternal loops of hold music. Sometimes they say they're going to transfer you and then hang up and you have to start the entire process over again. I did a lot of swearing and yelling at automatons for the first couple of weeks of this job. Sometimes I could hear the hurt in their voices. AI is getting more I by the second. It won't be long, I'm sure, before they have a zinger at the ready for me.

I don't yell anymore and I try not to give any outward sign of being flustered. They will press you to cardiac arrest if you let them see. I use it as an opportunity to practice self-awareness, to exercise patience, to find humor in absurdity and futility, while at the same time not giving up on getting the person I represent the authorization he/she/they require to take the next step into inpatient treatment that they often don't even want and rarely receive except in name only. But they're out of the Emergency Department at least. And that moves money around if nothing else.

The mice have moved in for the season. I trapped the first one last night. I have no quarrel with them but they don't pay rent and they eat and shit and piss and breed and chew through upholstery. I must destroy them all to maintain my quality of life. It's a biological imperative. We both deserve to survive and to be destroyed depending on your point of view.

I got outside for a few minutes in the afternoon to bring out trash and bring in mail. I read something today that provided a realization. It said something along the lines of us needing to avoid trying to hold something that is leaving and trying to repel something that is arriving. I've learned that first lesson by being dragged half to death more than once. That second one though. 

I heard a gust of wind tonight - the kind that tears loose the last few leaves - harkening Winter.

Every day is a story

8:55 PM. I made a grand plan for today last night which would require discipline and rigor. Trying to activate my inner Jesuit. I planned so well that it kept me up all night and, later, made it seem unwise to get up at the agreed upon pre-dawn hour. Nevertheless, the plan was put into effect a few hours behind schedule. I managed to avoid the usual time sucks and vibration-lowering activities and stuck to my work. That is until, in a fit of cleaning, I broke the leg off my street-salvaged multi purpose dining room table/kitchen table/home office desk/ironing board/storage closet. This gave me the reason I needed to chuck it. I took the legs off and threw the round table out the back door into the yard. I then spent a couple of hours on Wayfair and located a replacement dinette that didn't break the bank. I'll be cursing while assembling it two or three days from now. I also managed a flu shot and to get tested for tuberculosis. My work day was pretty light. I cleaned the toilet and got deep satisfaction from using Lime Away to wear down  the hard water stains. I didn't run, or ruck, or walk like I was supposed to but I managed to do most everything else I'd planned. Three people need various references from me and this becomes slightly complicated when you don't have a working printer. I went to Staples but only managed to resolve about one third of the issue. On the way home, I went out for a burger and a few beers in a place I've dropped into at different stages of my life. Watched the people who were there on dates. I did not envy them. Driving home, I saw this swirl of warm multi-colored liquid paint in my mind's eye. That's those feelings working on you. Better get to bed. 

So long

Turned down the invitations to go out but I was hungry and maybe that was what finally got me up and out the door. Went to a Greek place because I had a craving for feta and had a meal with a couple of drinks. There were three couples sitting within earshot of me. As I ate and drank, I could hear bits of their conversations (like it or not) and soon felt glad to be on my own. One conversation involved nothing more than talking negatively about people who were not in the room. The second was also negative, this sort of back and forth complaining, not about each other at least. In the third, the woman talked endlessly and automatically about her two cats. The man she was with seemed to be looking beyond her and never spoke. I felt glad to be single and, after I'd eaten, eager to leave. 

A man I've gotten to know a little bit over the last 12 years or so runs a karaoke bar in this city. I took up singing as a form of therapy back when my then wife and kids moved out. I was not much of a singer but they never judged me. Gentrification is happening in real time in that neighborhood, and he's been told to vacate. Tonight is his last night at that location. I had to go and pay my respects.

I sat in the last seat at the bar blending into the leaves of the plastic trees. The place filled to capacity. The owner, who is also the only bartender, didn't have time for much talking. There were a couple of birthday celebrations going on. From where I sat with my back to the wall, I could see all the faces. All younger than mine. I saw a lot of anxiety. I thought I saw people pretending to be having fun, pretending to be doing alright. We are false to each other, I kept thinking.

There was a good mix of singers - some very talented, some not at all, some characters, some drunks, some groups, some showy and some shy. I like that. What I don't like is that they so often pick such lame songs to sing. Typical karaoke songs - the basic program. I'd go mad if I worked here just because of the severely limited range of songs selected. 

There is no more rock and roll. I feel compelled to represent so I sing Motorhead first and Black Sabbath later. War Pigs is probably something most of these people have only heard in a video game I've never played and it's not really twerkable. I sang it the best I could. There was a group of people packed into a booth to my left. When I'd finished, one of them said I was a rockstar. That's not a bad way to go out. I'll take it. 

I got to sing Fly Me To The Moon to you in this place once. That was a real high point for me. I haven't sung that song since. I remember how delighted you were watching the bartender make one of his artful cocktails with about four kinds of fruit especially for you. As I'm remembering this, I become aware of this young couple sitting beside me at the bar. They are very, very still. I'm wondering if my mind is playing tricks on me. I can see the man's face. It's expressionless. His eyes are squinted. At first I think maybe they're stoned. Then, maybe they're shy. But as I kind of tuned into their vibration, I felt their tension. It's one of those quarrels that come up over and over again between a couple. The stillness persisted for a very long time.

I'm not sure what compelled me to do it, but I started to breathe deeply and consciously. Breathing in the way you would to relax your body in meditation. I decide that I would inhale the tension around them, transmute it, and exhale understanding. After not more than ten breaths, they broke their stone silence and started to talk. There was pain in their words though I couldn't really hear them. He got up and walked out. She looked at me. I told her I could feel that things were hard. She said, yes it is very hard. I got called up to sing a few minutes later and passed closely to the young man who was coming back in. He appeared less tense. I put my hand on his shoulder and told him to keep trying.

Check up

It's been one of those fatigue days with that buzzing fog in my head. In addition to that, I've got myself a case of the tomorrows today. My master plan to straighten it all out commencing bright and early - tomorrow. Procrastination is a depression response. There's no shortage of excuses. A couple of invitations came in to go out tonight. But I'm just not there. Time is going.

A small truth

Spent more than two hours on the rail trail yesterday going in the other direction. Meeting people on it has become annoying. Untethered dogs too. On my way out, I met an older man (someone my judging self registered as an old man) who asked me if I'd seen a basset hound in my travels. I told him I had not. A little while later, I encountered two women on the trail. We passed each other along the shore of a lake a cold wind was slicing across. The one who said hello my judging self registered as an older (than me) woman. When I run into people out there, it interrupts whatever is going on in my head. I feel an obligation to greet the person/people in such a way as to demonstrate that I am not a threat. Most often this is done with a wave or a wave and a hello. If it's a woman or women - I wave, say hello, and look down at my feet. I continued up the trail for another half hour or so and then turned around. On the return trip, I passed the two women who were now sitting on a bench near the shore of the lake with it's cold-edged wind. The older-than-me one asked if I'd found her yet. She was referring to the basset hound. She had mistaken me for the old man. Nope, I said and just kept going, the internal image I'd had of myself shaken like an Etch A Sketch. 

Help

Someone told me they wanted to help me. 

I bristled. I recoiled. I ran in the other direction. 

I slammed the door right in their face. 

I wonder why.

It's the little things

That heaviness sets in right behind your eyes so you sleep for an hour only to wake in a hung over state that doesn't go away or have anything to do with alcohol. You take out the rotting food that's been sitting in a pizza box on the counter for too many days and feel a little relief. You cook the flank steaks you bought at the supermarket a couple of nights ago at a 30% discount because they're about to expire so they don't expire and something inside you seems to unclench. You think about your electronic devices - a sports watch, smart phone and two lap top computers - and how their batteries are draining even now and you add a little anxiety back into your tank. Then think about how you really need to develop a system and a consistent practice to ensure that those devices remain charged and ready when you need them. And then it's gasoline in the car. And oil. Water in the dehumidifier. Calories and hydration in your body. Mundane, tedious, futile and the necessary daily stuff of life. It shouldn't be exhausting, but. 

In your mind's eye, you've become Charlie Brown. 

Movement

I set a timer and went out for a walk/run last evening at around dusk - four minutes walking/one minute running. I stayed out for about an hour and a half. For most of the first three miles, it was hard to move. My range of motion was limited. My legs felt like soft lead and were difficult to lift. My head started trying to justify cutting it short. At some point something shifted. My hips and legs loosened up a little. I did my best to run hard, with long strides, during my minute on. My head opened up and relished the stimulation. My thoughts started to fly. The twilight in the woods was beautiful all around me. My breathing was too ragged and my body not yet fit enough to glide into a blissful moving meditation, but I felt aware and alive and glad to be where I was in the world for a little while.

Lowell in mind

Kerouac's not here. Anhedonic gray day in Lowell. River fog occupied the campus. You sitting on a bench in your long black wool coat with your piercing dark eyes and irresistible mouth. We both had a similar strain of rabies-like-depression trying to kill us while it ravenously sought another host. And so we soon infected each other because there was no choice. The Hunger. The music you gave me to listen to was an infiltration. Your quiet scratching at the door of my room sealed my fate. I became a zombie of some kind and remained so for another many years thereafter. 

Mr. Hanh says, to love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love. I've got all these silent days in which to learn but I'm not sure anything is happening.

Run in the rain

It's raining this morning when you wake up at 4:30 AM as planned and then reset the alarm for 5:00 AM so you can return to your strange dreams and then again to 5:30 AM when the threat of impending shame finally kicks you out of bed. It's 20 degrees colder this morning - low 40's, dark and raining when you get to the trailhead. You wear a light jacket, your glasses, you decide to bring a flashlight, start your timer and head out for a thirty minute run. Within the first five, you can feel that you haven't run in four or five days. You've forgotten how to breathe. When you hit the fifteen minute mark - the turn around point - you are soaked through to the skin, blind from rain-streaked and breath-fogged glasses, and already seeing things due to the tricks the bouncing circle of light in front of you plays. You take off the glasses and put them in your pocket. You turn off the flashlight. A vast improvement. You decide it is a metaphor for letting go and trusting the process. You like to let your mind run when you're out here. You think about this girl and how she realized she had magical powers when she was with you (maybe she always knew). She practiced that magic on you a little. Stretched and tried her wings. And you, you stopped analyzing and observing and allowed yourself to be mystified completely. Surrender. You were also thinking about how a human body goes from a state of equilibrium to distress very quickly if the environmental conditions aren't favorable. The rain keeps coming despite your shivering. Nature doesn't care if you can't see well enough to stay on the trail. Nature has an indecipherable plan, I don't doubt that, but what it doesn't have is compassion. I'm amazed for a moment that we humans are capable of it. That we ourselves generated it as an antidote to our own cruel nature. We learn to give it because we, ourselves, are so desperately in need of it. A Palestinian cries, "Why are they killing us?" in perfect harmony with an Israeli crying the same words.

Something off kilter out there

The dry leaves were falling from the trees at a faster rate and the outside temperature was at least 70 degrees and climbing when I walked out of my front door in the morning. I startled a large, ragged hawk from a treetop and wondered if it had killed the rabbit I was talking to for awhile there at dusk. When I spoke to it, the rabbit stopped and seemed to be listening to me. This happened several times. I haven't seen it lately. I went out to the mall and noticed an increased police presence. There was a shooting at the local college the night before that resulted in the cancellation of all homecoming activities this weekend. The mall annoyed me. I had the strange experience of not knowing what most of the things I was looking at in the stores were. There was a wall covered in band t-shirts, and I recognized less than half of them. I found the costume number-one-son was looking for, purchased it, and delivered it. I got to hang out for a couple of hours with number-two-son before he had to go to work. He's pretty sure scratch tickets are not the road to financial security and wants to learn about mutual funds. I drove home later and talked myself out of going for a run because it was dark so I went out for Mexican food instead in this town that's felt wrong to me, in my stomach, since childhood. There was a trump parade there a couple of years ago. I sat at the bar. Almost immediately the asshole sitting next to me, an older white man, leans over and makes a crack about how great it is to have a bartender who speaks English for a change. I don't know exactly what I said in response but it had some f-bombs in it, and he got the message that we were not on the same team. He turned away. What was jarring to me about it was just how automatically he assumed I was like him. Again, I seem to be getting the message to just stay home. 

Saturday plans

Weekend. I've got to go in search of some items for number one son's halloween costume. He's an adult, part of my programming says with a sneer. He's living life and having fun, the rest of me says with a smile and relief. 

Running and gunning under the Hunter's Moon

We're this: simmering murder, bottomless greed, vast ignorance and voracious appetite restrained by fear, if at all, with a desperate desire to escape ourselves by consuming each other. 

I am not separate, but I don't want to be this.

Felt a little better about things walking in the woods this evening. Hunter's Moon rising. That is until I walked up through the state Wildlife Management Area and saw spent shotgun shells scattered around the dirt road. Grouse feathers. Pheasant too. Crushed paper coffee cups. Crisscrossed four-wheel-drive tracks in the hardened mud gave the field a look of desecration. A dead partridge draped across a branch. More ugly.

Wednesday, I think.

Waking in the dark - it's quiet inside and out. Asking the same question the poet did. Is this loneliness or freedom? Hungry. Let's get up, eh?

Bleak? Not quite. Bleak is blank with an emotion of some sort attached to it. I'm not doing that. My soul isn't draining away. It's just quiet. It doesn't hurt. 

Exchange messages with a friend moving south today. She has regrets. So do I, and a lot of what ifs too. I should have kissed her on the pier under the street light in the fog in accordance with my day dream. I wish her well. This thing we have to do here in this place is so hard. 

I listened to a clip of Henry talking after one of his spoken word shows. His voice is familiar. A remote presence in my life since my teen years. A one-sided friendship. Hearing his voice grounds me, lends me something familiar, pulls me out of this alien space. 

I wrote to him years ago. He wrote back recommending I read Hubert Selby Jr. and John Fante, which I did. Selby hurt me deeply. Some of the darkest and most tender writing I've ever read. Song of the Silent Snow - a collection of short stories was my starting point. Then it was Last Exit to Brooklyn. Unless you're ready for a real trip to Hell avoid The Room and Requiem for a Dream. He does it well and beautifully, but "bleak" is a sunny day picnic in the park compared to the places he takes you.  

Anyway, Henry said he still writes every day. Hearing that re-ignited a small spark in me to continue. Even if it's going nowhere. Continuing matters, though I can't always say why.

Taking my own advice, I go outside as the sun is beginning to rise to experience the morning air. This changes my mind immediately. My senses awaken. The gentle light, the scent of the leaves, the feel of the cool air on my face, the sound of a bird. Just get out the door. Just get out of the bed. Just get out of the room. Just get out of your head. 

Eighteen

Today my youngest child turns 18. He has managed to survive his childhood during a particularly challenging time on the planet. I'm proud of him. 

I can also feel my own shoulders dropping a little bit. If you're a person who lost a parent as a young child, maybe you can relate to the fear one feels that he/she will die prematurely and leave their own children alone and unprotected in the world. Today we cross an imaginary finish line.

Swindle

Woke up after a night filled with lots of dreams with an aching back from being supine too long after yesterday's excessive lay-around. Today is sunny and, despite it being only in the 50's, you can feel the strength of the sun. Appointments today. And soon a run/walk on the trails while the last of the colors still hang on the trees. 

You know, maybe that's it. Maybe you won't ever love that way again. What you used to crave is more like just an idea now. Satisfying it has become unsatisfactory.

You made it outside in the late afternoon and ran/walked 13.1 miles along an abandoned railroad line. Your feet don't like you now, but you're ready for sleep. 

Maybe Mañana

A sleepy day spent in the house and alone. I kicked myself a few times for wasting an Autumn day and for not going outside at all. 

Mañana. Don't worry. 

Row

Further from shore.

I went back to the city where I used to work to attend a send off for a young person I supervised. There were three other people there. I drank four cocktails. It was nice to see them. I like those three people. But as I listened to them talk, I realized how glad I am not to live in that world anymore. 

The sunlight glinting on the water makes me squint, and I can barely distinguish the distant shoreline. This small skiff, two oars, a folded sail, and myself. 

As I pull evenly against the oars, I keep seeing two snapshots through my mind's eye. One is a soaring eagle viewed from high above. My spirit remembers what it means and even how to do it. The second one is an image of your stern unsmiling face. This one catches in my spirit's throat, I guess you could say. I cannot alter or dismiss it.

I wish I could restore your lightness. Only now do I understand how precious it was.

Odd pieces of old furniture

Moved a pickup truck load of mismatched furniture from my mother's house to her new apartment with an old friend from high school. We worked in the fields together through those years while other kids went to the beach. We joined the Marines to escape the fields and our respective abusive father figures. Parris Island wasn't all that nice to us either. We haven't seen much of each other in the 40 years since then. We both married, have three grown children and are now divorced. We both resolved not to treat our children the way our father's treated us. There have been other struggles too, but we both agreed that we are better now for having gone through them and come out the other side. We talked about the ways people find each other. The way we recognize those psychologically similar to us in a world of strangers.

That which no longer serves you

Boy, do I hear that said frequently. I keep encountering the notion that Autumn is the season for naturally letting go of those things which no longer serve us. Dead leaves falling away, you know? For me, Autumn has always been a time for memory and nostalgia. A time of general yearning and of missing people and things that have fallen from my tree. 

Placebo

Tending toward worst case scenarios, I've been bothered by a raised mole on my shoulder that seemed to evolve from a regular old freckle over the summer. A voice inside hisses - you're probably going to die from a highly treatable skin cancer because you avoided being seen for so long. Today I went to an Urgent Care where the very young Physician's Assistant told me the mole was still brown and shaped ok. Cancer is apparently black and patterned in a certain recognizable way. She of course wouldn't make an actual judgement but recommended I find a dermatologist to be on the safe side. That's probably all I need to quiet the voices for now. 

Friday the 13th

Ran errands today - breakfast, mail pick up, banking, haircut, coffee, shopping, and clams for a late lunch. I saw a few anxious faces, more than a few bored and not very courteous service workers, a professional ghost hunter, and a guy drunk on plastic cups of Bud Light at 4 PM. I didn't make any friends today. The car radio's news featured an entertaining blend of mindless banal trivia and extreme apocalyptic horror. It's Friday the 13th under a lunar eclipse. Keep your head down.

Look forward not back, I'm told

My living room isn't living, actually, and no one else has lived in it for quite some time. 

There's a couch there underneath a shapeless slip cover that a former roommate left behind. When moving it to clean the floor, I found evidence that mice had taken up residence within. Whether or not they are current tenants, I cannot say, but they've lived in there sometime in the last ten years. There's a corner TV cabinet built to house an old analog television with a screen no larger than 24 inches, I'd guess. I bought it unfinished at a mill store, and my then wife and I stained it together. I remember feeling proud and accomplished for buying, with cash, a piece of our very own furniture and doing some work on it with my own hands to make it a part of our home. It serves no purpose now, except to fill space, and I don't yet know what to do about it. There's a carpet that my then wife bought at some point during the last 20 years. It still looks alright, but I decided recently that I need to make some physical changes in order to get some life energy flowing in and through this place so today I rolled it up and with it all that history like a corpse now awaiting illicit disposal. Then there's the dust and mildew infested rattan blinds over the picture window. That needs to go. There's an old bedspread hanging over the second picture window that allows me to walk to the shower in a state of undress without the neighbors involvement. It's unsightly - the hanging bedspread - but provides a certain crack house utility. I may need a consultant to help me replace those. The number of options for window treatments these days is bewildering. There's a disconnected big screen TV that my youngest son lobbied my now ex-wife for. She wasn't using it and we needed something to watch movies on when he came over. He'll be turning 18 in a couple of weeks. There's a faux leather couch and chair that her parents bought us years ago, shaming me in the process, which my former shitty roommate's shitty little dog ruined. I solved that problem by purchasing beige Italian slip covers. I'll keep those two "pieces" for the time being because people like to have something to sit on and someday there could be people in here. 

Those are the items that comprise my living room as of today. Now I've got to decide what to give away and what to junk. I burned a sofa and love seat in my backyard once many years ago which my then in-laws had forced upon us. We had no room for them so they turned green while stored in the damp basement. The blaze created treetop high flames and a plume of thick black smoke visible for miles around. The orange-green furnishings burned for quite sometime after I doused them in accelerant to overpower the moisture they were saturated with and to express my moral outrage. Don't tread on me! I won't likely do that this time. Now it's the expense of a dumpster, or a couple of men and a truck, or recruiting some help versus wrecking my back dragging it all out to the street and posting a FREE sign. And then there's the matter of revisiting and letting go of all that history from back when the living room was still alive. 

As I was waking up

She said she liked his freckles. Something about that left him as stunned and speechless as a punch in the face. He didn't know how to respond as her words, her voice, travelled the length of his nerves deep into the extremities of him. Like sunshine or rain seeping down inside. The start of a warming of what had been frozen. The beginning of an opening of what had been tightly closed.

Chat

Indigenous People's Day. Out with the old and in with the older. I posted a thought or two about the meaning of the day on Facebook (an unqualified opinion no one asked for, admittedly). The post elicited various comments. Everyone's got a point of view. I didn't react to any of them. But it gave me a lot to chew on. We are, at the very least, a complex skin disease upon this planet.

Low down skank-a-doo

It was a day of realignment. Three hours of getting my fascia re-sculpted and learning how to breathe into different areas of my body. Then a long slow drive to Brooklyn in traffic and intermittent rain. Then a few hours spent with my brother talking about matters of the spirit and walking around Williamsburg with its top to bottom graffiti and watching the esteemed 73-year-old, Mr. Lee Ving, with his band FEAR, rip it up in glorious fashion. He's at the tail end of a national tour playing shows every night. I couldn't resist the dance floor and had myself a good purifying sweat while somehow managing not to be crushed in the process. My back's a little worse for wear this morning but look at Lee, damn it. Just look at him. Then I drove home in less traffic among Connecticut's  Saturday night apocalypse drivers, high at 100 mph, trailing atmospheric green vapor. A friend texted from far away saying she's gotten over her fear of driving in the mountains. How's your love life, my brother asked me. Solo, I said. You ok with that? Partially, I said. I'm partially ok with that.

Step

Morning. I'm going to rent a car this morning then go and try something different before driving to NYC. Something that's supposed to be good for me. I received this message back in August - crystal clear - regarding how experiences and emotions (violence, hatred, anger, grief, loss, pain, fear) have become woven into my muscle tissue and are the source of this tension and pain in my body. I saw that maybe my purpose was not just to absorb pain in the world and to carry it. Maybe there's a way to release it, to put it down, but I was not given any answers for how to do that. Well, there was one answer. Terminal exhalation. I'm still trying to understand exactly what that means. So before that last breath, I'm going to try something else. Something new.

Ash tray

I'm slow to move today. Prolonging sleep with anxious dreams and revelations of the parts of me I'd like to remain unexpressed. The seasonal scent of the woods beckons. Run a few miles today. Don't burn another one. I started to imagine what my house would look like if I were a smoker and my squandered days cigarette butts. I'd also advise you to skip the extra cheese on your pizza if you've lost the ability to digest it properly because it'll doubtless delay you getting out the door in the morning and, before you can tie your running shoes, the rain will start to fall in earnest hastening the colored leaves coming down and your favorite season passing away and yielding too soon to winter. Yielding to winter too soon. Winter will wash over you again and at the end of it you will either emerge or you won't. And then your bed starts talking sweet again. She's so hard to leave. I seduced you, she said. It's true, you never wanted to be a step-child so you morphed into an orphan and now you can't even teach your boys to fish. Envy. I wish I had. I wish I was. Hot black hatred smolders underneath. So tenderly. Let me touch you without words. Don't look at me. Just let me. Let me touch you with only words. There are really just a handfull of moments worth revisiting back there anyway. That is if you decide to commit to living here and looking forward instead of sleeping here and dreaming back. The ghost of dim corners. The one who keeps the cemetery flowers fresh. I remember that time on San Clemente Island, a hot summer day where the fog burned away  all at once, when Ian and I stripped down to underwear and got sunburned into purple paralysis. The palest two in the unit. Someone took a picture. Some people spend their days sad because they want to be loved and aren't. Or at least that is what they believe. Some people spend their days happy and sad because they love and no one knows it or can feel it. I'd say be the latter, if there’s only two kinds and you're spoiled for choice. At least it's active. It's still raining now. I'm going to run in the woods anyway, while my favorite season still is.

Activity

That good smell of autumn leaves. Red ones, having just recently parted with the maples in the swamp. Five miles walking on dirt roads and across the damn at dusk. This is the perfect time for such things here.

Pass

Not that well today. A work day but I managed nothing else. Tired and vaguely ill or something. Cancelled my plan to go into Cambridge to see Mutiny in Heaven, The Birthday Party documentary, which I'd been looking forward to. I e-mailed the theater today and told them to keep the money but sell the seat. There's not that much I want to do out there right now. 

Work

I met the rising sun in the corn field this morning already soaked with dew. My hands, back, joints and muscles grind unsteadily aching from just one single day of farm work yesterday. What so may of us think of as work today hardly qualifies when compared to this. Labor. The real thing. Remember those who must do it every day and on whom we entirely depend.

Who turned out the lights?

A full day of farm work today. My body remembered how to do it all, 40 years later, but not how to metabolize it properly. Let's just say I'm not feeling like partying tonight. 

Season

A strange yellow evening - mild, early Autumn, quiet - along the banks of the swollen Ware River. I'm alone and stop the car, walk down onto the rocks, and listen for a little while. I picked corn for the first time in many years today and noticed that even my youngest sibling's hair is starting to go grey. We all celebrated our mother's upcoming 80th birthday and, in the background, worried for one of us who couldn't be there because he was in the emergency department waiting to be admitted. My daughter and youngest son learned to pick corn today and probably had thoughts of their own regarding the way things move.

Sleep and wakefulness

Rainy night filled with a long sleep and dreams. The unconscious seems hard at work trying to show me something.

The voice you hear when you're reading should feel like a friend

Days ticking by. It's wrong to let one pass without feeling it on your skin - the sun, the breeze, the weather. Yesterday, I put in nine or ten hours of tedious work. Nothing strenuous and only "exhausting" in its repetition and its blandness. I should be glad for not having to break rocks for my daily bread. But the need to sleep came upon me early and stayed right up until I had to start work again this morning. This fuzzy drowsy ring around my brain. 

It feels like the momentum of change, the energy that was moving me through a new awareness, has waned. Without wind, I'm left to paddle with hands and feet. They call this part the Work. 

While you work

Look at your irritation. Such a well worn pattern. Something you could very easily sidestep and avoid, but you choose to take it on the chin every time and react in kind. Notice your irritation and how it impacts the unsuspecting. It's a sucker punch they don't deserve or see coming. Keep your hands in your pockets. Whistle. Maybe even smile. 

Command

Magic, synchronicity, kismet, delusion

Realize they told you you'd have to die 

A terminal exhalation

The time of the sacrificial lamb has passed

Lay to rest the tragic victim, broken and spent

And continue on, new

Adult education

The depths have been stirred. There's work going on in my dreams. Connections are being made providing me with actionable intelligence. Now, I've got to act on it. This feeling of significance between days and what I'm being presented with after so much dead time.

Running (and walking) this morning with a tight right lower leg, I paid attention to how my mind works. The thoughts that go through, the comparisons, judgments, colorations. I see a red door and I want to paint it black. 

Envy, they tell me, is my deadly sin. 

At the end of the trail, I said hello to another runner finishing his run. In the car, Bruce Springsteen (who turns 74 today) was telling me about a darkness on the edge of town. 

I know it, Bruce. 

Well everybody's got a secret, son

Something that they just can't face

Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it

They carry it with them every step that they take

Til some day they just cut it loose

Cut it loose or let it drag 'em down

Where no one asks any questions 

Or looks too long in your face

In the darkness on the edge of town

In the darkness on the edge of town

Friday

A cool morning sleep in. Time now for a run and to take care of business.

It took a while to get out there, and at the half-way point my right lower leg had tightened up and did not appear to want to release. I thought I could probably run through it, but why? Just walk. Be nice to the damn thing. You need it. And so that's what I did, until it got a little looser and then I ran again. No need for crushing it. Just keep going. And the sun reflected up off the water which I was admiring through the color changing leaves with great appreciation. 

Not long ago, a week or two, I had the experience of falling in love with all the people (and dogs) I encountered on this rail trail. I said hello to all of them. About half did not return the greeting. I could see them suffering, withdrawn, trapped inside, and I felt for them. I touched my heart as if to send healing or love or both. In that moment, it was all true. 

I've fallen somewhat back into my old headspace in which less kind thoughts come to mind when I see someone else coming down the trail. But I'm aware of them - the people and the thoughts. I wave to them both. 

When I got home, I sat in the car and watched the bees working hard among the tangled grass and fading goldenrod living out the last of their purpose seemingly free of anxiety content to do as they must. 

Treat yourself like someone you love, she said.

It's time to do something to address it. Now that your hair is white. Now that your kids are basically grown. Now that you have time to look at yourself and understand that things need fixing. I lived a decade in this house as a dust bunny. If that seems like an exaggeration, maybe then an odd bipedal daddy longlegs patrolling the unmolested network of cobwebs, high and low, in the quiet darkness. Let this last few years be something else. Something brighter.

And another thing

Dispose of, replace, repair. There's much to do here.

Rail trail

I went for a run around dusk on the rail trail. You and I ran there once or twice about ten years ago. I remember you as competitive. "Keep up," you'd often say. It was a cool evening and I just took my time on this one. Base building is mostly done with time on your feet. I'm going to need a broad base for an 84 hour trip exactly a year from now. Fifty-one minutes last night. That's the longest run I've taken in recent memory.

Later, on a cool sunny afternoon as the winds of the outside edge of a hurricane blew through the leaves, I strapped on a 35 pound pack and walked a seven mile loop over roots and rocks, up and down small hills. That's a good training loop. I plan to use it more in the future with my house as the resupply - eat, drink and rest. I need some wool hiking socks though. My feet began to squawk a little in their soggy cotton toward the end. 

After the owl

After the owl, the night remained quiet. I opened the slider and slept in the cool air. Dreams came. Strange ones, but they slipped away from my remembering. Awake in the dark now, getting ready to join the traffic. 

Who?

The new phone arrives via UPS in the middle of a deluge. The driver, wearing a large transparent plastic bag, places my phone, boxed and wrapped inside another transparent plastic bag, on my doorstep. I unbox the phone, which I need to perform the job I am paid to do and could not do today, and read about the sim card installation. I'm supposed to be installing the sim card from my old phone into this new phone so that the elements of my old life can be transferred into this new space and I can pick up much as I was, right from where I left off, on Friday late afternoon. But that old sim card is lost in the world and I have only this new one to install. A blank slate free of apps, contacts, photographs, text messages, voice mails, and e-mails. I am a man free of history at this moment. Weightless and without depth or substance.

Two forward, one back

Friday, in a flurry of activity, I shifted from maybe to yes. I dove right in. In a flurry of activity, I took the first couple of steps I needed to take to get it off the ground. I spent money which I'd been loathe to do. I made phone calls and sent text messages. Right up until the point at which I lost my phone, in a flurry of activity. I retraced my steps, revisited all of my stops, interviewed people, did everything I could think of except rip the seats out of my car, but it was gone. I had insurance on it, but there was still a "deductible" to pay. The replacement is being shipped now. Ok, I've got time to take a breath but I shall not be deterred. 

Terminally tense

If the muscles in your neck, shoulders, and upper back could exhale deeply, what would that feel like? I certainly don't know but I'm trying to find out. 

Reminder

Forward, friend. There's a reason Lot's wife became a pillar of salt in looking back. Stay alive, go this way.

Movement

That box containing slip covers I ordered for the fake leather couch and chair that a former terrible roommate's dog destroyed has been sitting on the floor in the living room for more than a year now I think. I really have completely lost track of how long the box just sat there unopened. What I noticed though is that it's presence served as a sort of energetic dam which was inhibiting the flow of energy through the house. There's a lot of that sort of thing happening in this place. I've been addressing it these last few days. 

Turning

September first and the first chilly morning of the season with temps probably in the low 40's. I went out to the Rutland State Park portion of the Central Mass Rail Trail and ran continuously for 30 minutes. For a runner, this does not sound like much. For an ultra runner, like even less. But for me, a guy who is just now emerging from a metaphorical dusty coffin, it feels like victory. It's been a long time since I ran last. Maybe years. 

What a beautiful morning. The woods are still green but the seasonal change is in the air. At the end of the trail I could see my breath after getting carried away and sprinting for the last few seconds. No need for that stuff right now. That's greed or vanity or something, but the effort made me gag a couple of times as if to discipline me. Humility. It's enough to show up and do what you said you would do. And this morning, I did that. 

The surface I ran on was a flat, hard-packed, dirt and gravel. Probably a lot like the Cowboy Trail in northern Nebraska which is home to the Cowboy 200 Ultramarathon. Two-hundred miles inside of 84 hours. I heard about it last month and the idea has crept into me. Today's run marked the first milestone in my vague, not-entirely-imaginary, training plan. I'm still contemplating whether I want to take the race on or not. 

I'm going through some positive changes right now, and for the last few days everything seems possible. This is in stark contrast to the couple or few years of steady depletion and depression I'm emerging from in which nothing positive seemed possible. I'm afraid of falling back. I don't want to go back in there. 

Something in me just now said, "Then don't!". 

Registration for 2024's race hasn't opened yet. This year's race occurs later this month. 

Interior designs

 Forward still. 

This house is a dust ranch containing a few, mostly broken, things. Now that I am alive and actually living in it and not just commuting from and to it in order to crawl in and out of my coffin, it's time to put this place in some sort of order.

Something

Yes, something is shifting. Connections are being made. It feels as though forces are at work even when I'm asleep. Forces working for my benefit rather than my demise. That's change alright. Thank you.

Return not replay

Upon returning to the world, I found smoked salmon at the edge of the bay, a good sleep, vivid dreams, and a little vertigo. Am I changed? Let's find out.

Else

Raining this morning at sunrise. Travel today. Maine. As I'm packing a few things, I listen to the sound of the rain on the leaves through the open sliders and smell the scent of ozone. So refreshing. I look for her to share the scent and the feeling but she isn't there. Whoever she is.

Sensitive

I quit coffee for a few days and was kind of surprised at how lousy I felt. Headache, irritability, and a generally shitty outlook. Yesterday, I found out I didn't really have to quit coffee so I got myself an Americano at about 8 AM. That's it. One cup. No more coffee throughout the day. Suddenly the lights were bright and I had energy, focus, tolerance and a pleasant outlook. It stayed like that all day. All night too. I started drifting off 20 minutes before I had to get up for work today. 

Dreams

Dreams came last night. On the vast grey ocean as a deck hand on a small boat approaching a massive cargo ship. A neck massage on a train. Other things, already forgotten. This is how it all goes by.

Chemical

Everything is fire and amazing.  And everyone is super excited. Apparently I am experiencing the  complete absence of one neurotransmitter or another. 

Cowboy up

A day of almost total silence. The hours just evaporated. Something is needed. A shift. I stumble onto a challenge and by day's end have nearly accepted it. 

No remote

The people are driven into the sea by wind and flame. Some say we've lost our way because we no longer fear God. What that means is not being barred from an eternity in heaven or being condemned to an eternity in the pit, but this, what we are seeing now. The earth is swallowing us. Floods washing away mountains. Flames transforming living world to ash. Nature rising to crush us because of our wanton disregard for the entire interconnected web of life. That's God. That's what we should have been fearing.

No time to wallow in the mire

When you've been stuck, sometimes you only need to change the scenery. Just find a way to make it out the door. It's another world entirely for your senses. Progress becomes possible.

Early morning outing

You can't make friends on the trail if you don't set out on the trail. 

This morning I got to the gym half an hour after it opened and found fewer people lounging on the equipment staring at phones than I usually do later in the day. Still, there are many who appear to go there only to gaze in the mirror. One guy's wearing dark shades. People apparently talking to themselves while moving on cardio machines are actually engaged in telephone conversation using technology I can neither see or fathom. Who the hell are you talking to walking on a treadmill at 7:30 on a Saturday morning?

Anyway, despite the no judgment credo of the place, my mind was doing plenty of it. At least I was aware of it, I guess. 

As for me, I was mostly feeling feeble while trying to move weights and breathless while trying to run. Making an effort felt good though. There's strength in that. 

On the way there and back my car radio was tuned into a local community radio station. The name of the show was Nobody's Happy Hour and the DJ introduced himself as my bartender. The music he played was pretty great and rather heavy in subject matter. Lots of loss and heartbreak, disappointment and hard luck, struggle and temptation. It was my kind of place. No hipster irony, not at all crowded, and with a great jukebox. 

I remembered the station's phone number from my teen years when that same radio station exposed me to punk rock and experimental music which somehow made me feel less alien, not as crazy, and like there might be something out there I could in fact relate to. I called the number. My DJ/Bartender answered. I thanked him for the music and told him I loved the name of the show, the music he played, and the concept. He thanked me.

Keep going, Pal. Keep going. 

6 AM here

The sudden tiredness seems to have returned and with it at least a perceived need for long sleeps. A friend calls from far away. She's infected with a new Covid variant. Sleep and drink water, I say, wishing I had a way to shorten it's duration or to make it go easier on her. 

Lots of the world is on fire or flooding at this very moment. People are sweating, old ice is melting. Perhaps this is the time of chaos and confusion the elders foretold. Necessary to bring things back into alignment, they said. But there will be hell to pay.

It's 6 AM, time to get going.

Right over here

It's this day, I guess. 

Working from home is like living in Alaska in the summer or the winter when the days/nights (depending on the season) are long and it's impossible to know what time it is. 

There is something to be said for structure and being oriented in time and space. There's also much to be said against too much of that stuff. 

Love is a stepwise process

I'm thinking about buying a ceramic dog. 

I recently repotted my only plant which had survived three years in a 3-inch pot with frequently yellow leaves and very little care and it seems revitalized. 

I'm drinking ashwaganda in my smoothies now and hoping for similar results. 

I'm thinking about taking a walk but still in bed

Broad jumping toward cataclysm now. No more with the baby steps. Nietzsche sends a meme telling me that my body knows. I listen in and don't hear anything I can interpret as good news. Dig a hole, lay down inside the cool Earth, wait.

Scrivener

A kind of sobriety, I guess. Too heavy to be carried away. It appears that I would prefer not to be after all. 

Hi again

The moon is full. There is the smell of wood smoke in the air here. The temperature after sunset is about to dip down below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. I've got the slider open. I'm thinking of my children with regret. I should have given them a better life, I think. And when I think that, I counter the thought with - It's not too late. There's still right now. And then inertia and that sinking thing happens. 

Better go out while it's nice

Thunderstorms came through and broke the humidity last night. This morning is sunny and cool. Relief, however temporary, is always welcome. What have you noticed since you've been outside the sleep-commute-work-commute-sleep cycle? Well, it seems to me that conditions are deteriorating at a much faster rate than anticipated. Sleepers and wokesters. I'm trying to focus on the transformation some say is taking place but am wondering if that means higher consciousness or just floodwaters and ash and humanity as castaways.

Social beings

Instead of going directly home, I went to a place in a town I haven't visited in some years for something to eat and beer. A few minutes after sitting down, I regretted my decision. People talking too loud, or incessantly, about nothing. Commenting out loud - to no one - following each shot the golfer on the television took. Tedium. Slowly buried in the sands of the hour glass.

Why so judgmental, I ask myself. Just let them be. The North Atlantic is a jacuzzi now.

Extra

Cloudy this morning with heat on the way, so I put on my boots and pack and walked along the power lines for an hour. A horsefly stopped by for a blood meal and didn't survive the experience. In retrospect, I could have just let her take it. To her it was everything. To me, a momentary inconvenience. 

I did a lot of sweating. Nothing about it felt easy or enjoyable, but I was thinking about the Camino de Santiago and the world getting hotter by the minute and how there may not be much opportunity for recreational long distance walking in our future. 

When I made it home again, I stepped on the scale with clothes, boots and pack (along with the gallon or so of sweat trapped in their fibers). 272 pounds. That's a load. 

How Fortunate The Man With None