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.