Tijuana is for

He had a pet name for her. He used it unselfconsciously when talking to other people who didn’t know her at all. He said that he loved her with all of his heart. I could see that he did. He also said that he hoped this didn’t mean that she’d fallen out of love with him. I could see that he meant that too. His helpless eyes told me. I was adding things up. It wasn’t looking good. I filed the report.

This morning I was watching the sun rising up through the trees casting its life-giving light upon my housemate from the plant kingdom. A melody came into my head and then a lyric, and I sang to my healthy green friend. It was a kind of chant - simple, direct, repetitive. The magic moves through the repetition. A strong but gentle assertion driven softly home in the spirit of love. I sang the same song to the shining sun except I used its name in place of the plant’s. I don’t usually chant to plants or to the sun, but it was in me to do so today. It felt like the right thing and I enjoyed it. 

There were four deer in the trees behind the house all day today. There’s so little green left for them to graze on out there. They moved fluidly, slowly, blending with the trees and brush so perfectly that I couldn’t at first see their bodies only their motion. One listened and watched over with stock-still attention while the others ate and moved. It’s so difficult to be a wild thing. Always wary, always searching for food, always every effort spent trying to live another day. Here I am peeping through the window of my climate controlled dwelling worried about what exactly?

Then there was the nowhere man. He was a man without history or documentable experience. A man untethered to place, to planet. A crater where his soul had been, shallow puddle of  synthetic opioid glinting in its bottom. I have no answer to offer. Is that you or your shadow? 

Dumbbell curls, bench press, overhead press, behind-the-neck-press, lateral raises, front raises. I sprinkled them into the workday between phone calls. Movement is important. Without it, the authorities usually find people like me eventually decomposed into their chairs or beds. Our flesh, clothing, and upholstery all melded into one strange and stinking fabric. Not today, you buzzards. Not today. 

Here we are now, well into the new year, and I’m doing the things I set out to do. Nearly 48 hours of total victory. Here’s the thing though, I don’t have a whole lot to say at the moment. Hmm, what else? 

Well, interacted with three people from various periods of my past today. All three interactions were pleasant. One of them, though. reminded me of toxic people and this hollow, sleep-deprived feeling of being mired in a black tar, crude oil swamp. Today, I  am rejoicing that I am no longer in the swamp and  celebrating the fact that I had the chance to know those three good people, Remember when getting to know people over a period of time was a nearly invisible part of your daily life? 

This music takes me to Tijuana. I was 18 then. I thought I was too broke to be robbed and to invisible to be killed. The only people who gave me occasional problems were the police who were not ashamed to rob me even though I was broke. But they left me my military ID which was my means for walking back across. Mostly, I found tolerance there. Often, I lost my mind there. Sometimes, mercy found me there. That was nice. Thanks for the memories. 

Texting with someone from long ago. The bad timing we experienced together. The traffic patterns worked against us, the lights and signals, and so we never came together which saved us eventually the mess that comes later and the desolation that stretches out into the forever distance from there. 

I want to take a long walk while my knees still work. My hips. While I can still see with my eyes and my imagination.  While something in here is still stirring. While I can still dream and wish and wonder. I want to walk across countries and continents. I want to walk out of everybody’s memory and home again into somebody’s arms later. I can’t see her face. Beloved. You evade me. You misery.

It’s nearly midnight, when this assignment comes due. No extensions, the master told the students and I’ve got 240 more words to generate. When you think, it stops. You have to let it run. You have to get out of your own way. Frigid, you remember? How at ease she was diagnosing you. But she wasn’t wrong though, was she? 

The cashier at the gas station in a different state told me I looked nice. She said it as though she was only thinking it or, speaking the words, but only to herself. She nodded her head once after saying the words. Can you fall in love with someone’s nod? Yes, you can. But you can’t keep her. And if you try to replay the moment three days later, she will become afraid of you and you will have triggered a startle response. 

What I’m trying to say is - just be present in this moment. 

What I’m trying to say is - why bother? 

The question I have for you is: what are you saving it for? 

The question I’d like to pose to you is this: where the hell did it go? 

I’m seven hours from the start of the work day. This comforter smothers in its attempt to fulfill its destiny. Apostrophes. Forty. Nonsense. There is less to say as the hours pass it seems, but your sense of urgency for saying it is not what a writer’s should be. So what does that make you? Our time here is almost up.