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.