Refill

It's hard to explain how it happened, but there's a new energy around and its arrival coincides with that drive out to Michigan and back. People respond differently to me since that trip. It's happened every day. 

What goes up

And then they (we) inevitably show that we are petty, self-centered, obtuse, rude, selfish, ignorant, profane, unbelievably entitled, vain, fragile-egoed, gossiping, bitter, stupid, vindictive, nosy, melodramatic, destructive, malicious, slanderous and so on. 

That side usually reveals itself shortly after I say something complimentary about them. It's aligned with the mechanism at work behind certain apparent natural laws like the one that says a sure way to lose something is to fall in love with it. 

Like an old Norwegian once told me - Never Get Excited. 

When you venture a little closer to them, it doesn't take you long to remember why you distanced yourself in the first place. 

Equanimity, yo. 

Strange path

Mostly what I find with people is that, when they are their personalities, I'm annoyed by them and do all I can to avoid them. But when they reveal their actual self, I see that they are deeply wounded, brave and beautiful. I can't help but love them then. 

North

Heading to Maine again for the weekend to volunteer. Pieces seem to be gradually falling into place. 

Today, I will

Signs already of late summer's beginning. Falling horse chestnuts (still green) and the first blooms of goldenrod in my little jungle.

The woman who gave me reiki in Michigan told me she kept hearing the name of Jesus when she was working on me. She had a vision of me as a worship leader in a church, singing with a guitar, inviting others to worship. It made me think of the song Oak gave me during the sudden downpour and volunteering at the retreat center. None of that is Christian exactly, but the general flavor is similar. Maybe there is more going on here than I understand. 

Certainly there is more going on here than I understand. 

The tension and tremulousness gradually went out of me. Physical contact was minimal but enough to remind me that I am never touched and that this is not healthy. The energy that came in felt like a kind of love and it created a feeling that I wanted to remain. 

I have to admit that I'd been expecting nothing to happen. Disappointment. I ended up humbled by what transpired and felt that it was something sacred. I'd like to be able to share that with other people. 

Groceries today came to $111.

Energy shifts

There's something different about the hummingbirds. They're much more visible and active - darting and zig-zagging around the sliders - and they let me get closer without flying off. There are at least three of them. I'm wondering if Reiki has anything to do with this. 

The place where I received my training has deer in the yard. The night I arrived, there were two fawns and their mothers on the front lawn. That's how I identified the house. 

I'm going to start practicing remotely. I put the word out on Facebook that I'm providing free remote Reiki treatments to receptive people in exchange for the experience. I've received at least ten responses overnight and a couple of plugs for Reiki from people who've received or provide Reiki. 

There are a number of synchronicities that have occurred over the years which have led me to this. Several apparently disconnected threads have been entwined in a braid. 

Home again

I ate fried pork chops, mac and cheese and collard greens in Detroit but they did not compare with the last ones I had, and have missed since, in Louisiana which were smothered in a gravy I would have drank by the glass. I tried sleeping in the parking lot but it was pretty humid and the driver's seat of the 2013 Camry I'm driving is nowhere near as comfortable as the one in my Half-a-Million-Mile Hyundai was. That seat was the budget automotive equivalent of a La-Z-boy recliner, and that car was like my little motor home. So far, the Camry and I don't enjoy that same relationship. Most of the last decade has been about giving up attachments and identification with any sort of external identity. I imagine this is more of the same. 

Anyway, I decided to hit the road. There was a great big full moon that changed from red to orange to yellow to white as it rose higher in the sky and guided me out of the city. The  car radio played Detroit flavored gospel, Arabic music, and late night R&B slow jams (baby making music) until each station's signal faded out as I made my way to Toledo and on to the Ohio Turnpike. I stopped to pee in a rest area at midnight and saw two minivan loads of young Muslim men getting down to pray on the asphalt. When they'd finished, they were talking and giggling excitedly. I wonder where they were going. 

I drove on along the southern banks of Lake Erie through Sandusky and on to Cleveland listening to a show called Night Stream on the CBC. Whatever gets you through the night, the DJ said. How happy my ears get when they discover something other than generic American pop or right-wing Christian brainwashing on the radio when I'm driving. The signal faded out in Cleveland. After that, the Case Western college station was playing obscure 60's and 70's heavy psychedelic rock that kept me company through Erie, PA and into the vineyards of Western New York. 

I stopped on the Seneca Reservation at about 3 AM to get gas and buy some Bugler tobacco for offerings. The restaurant was closed so I continued on to Buffalo where I took a short nap in the parking lot of a strip mall and waited for a Tim Horton's to open. I got myself a breakfast sandwich, coffee and a donut there and felt somewhat disappointed with the place. The ubiquitous Canadian Tim Horton's have more appeal for some reason. 

The New York State Thruway is a nice drive along the Eerie Canal and the Mohawk River. I feel an affinity for this area because I played an Erie Canal worker in a third grade school play. A parent commented I looked like I was really working with the grub-axe I was swinging and that was because I had already been introduced to such work. Low bridge - everybody down, Low bridge - cuz we're coming to a town. And you always know your neighbor, you always know your pal, when your navigation' on the Erie canal. 

The radio became less interesting after that - NPR and pop country. The traffic increased, the day grew hot and the miles rolled on.  

I don't do as well as I used to going without sleep. I crashed at about 6 PM and stayed in bed until 7 this morning. I've got that scrambled and disoriented feeling now as I'm trying to integrate this most recent episode into my ongoing life. 

Realigned

Energy medicine. Yesterday I was pessimistic, doubting, negative. Today I felt it work on me and I worked with it on someone else. Today I was optimistic, believing and positive. Tonight, I’ll find a parking lot to sleep in somewhere in suburban Detroit. 

Business or pleasure or something else

I booked my hotel on the internet a few months in advance using the lowest possible rate as my only criteria. Two stars isn't five but it isn't none either. Turns out it's one of those places where you can't even enter the lobby. The clerk slides your paperwork and room key through a slot at the base of the bulletproof window. There wasn't too much activity on my first night, but what activity there was wasn't exactly family style. The sheets aren't as crisp and white as one might hope and there's a fly in my room that doesn't look very clean. 

I scouted out the house last night where I'll be attending a workshop over the next two days. There were two does with their fawns grazing on the lawn. 

Detroit

I'll be leaving for Detroit at 4 A.M. on a solo road trip for a weekend of training. Let's see if the dots connect.

Hail Satan

My youngest son is a cinephile. Last night, we exchanged text messages and he recommended a film he'd seen and liked which was written and directed by one of my favorite actors' (Anthony Perkins) son. I went to see it on my own this afternoon. Most of the world was still at work. 

I had time to spare so I went for a late lunch at a local chain restaurant. The service was scripted and uninspired. The food was uninspired and overpriced. There were only a few customers. The staff were complaining about schedules and poor staffing. The entire experience felt like a sort of void.

That sense followed me into the theater. I purchased my ticket at an electronic kiosk and, with about half an hour to kill, I went into the bar where the twenty-something bartender, who also recited a script and seemed withholding of any personality she may or may not have possessed, asked me for my ID. Four women about my age came in a few minutes apart and sat at the bar beside me. Coworkers in what sounded like something retail. They were complaining, sniping, bitching. Another void. 

My beer was in a plastic cup and the establishment had already informed me via posted signage that I was at liberty to take my drink into the theater with me which I did with a feeling of some relief. Once inside, I was alone with a steady stream of commercials on the screen. Within a few moments, I was sinking into that void again. 

I experienced a visceral kind of loneliness. It came from not being able to identify at all with the audience the commercials were intended to influence. 

Before long, about six other people trickled in. The previews of coming attractions commenced. They didn't make me feel any better. In addition to feeling lonely, I felt deceived and manipulated. I felt an oppressive darkness being imposed upon me. Prefabricated, manufactured, completely optional darkness. Why am I here?

I made it through the film and walked out into a lightning storm. Things looked and felt surreal. There seemed no good reason for me to go out in public at all anymore.

Caller

She said she just came to say goodbye and then she did so. I hoped she might stay for the call, share and listen, but she was already gone. Why does that feel so ominous to me?

Call it a Monday

Returning to the world. 

She's drinking sweet wine straight from the bottle before noon in her purple landscape. Something in the refrigerator stinks. Something else is careening behind the scenes, and I can feel it from here. Let's just pretend it's alright. Dominican brunch spot. Hot as blazes. She says men don't want reiki anyway.

I don't mix much these days. 

I brought home some smoked salmon from Portland. I listened to the sound of the fan all day long. I took a look at my car insurance bill. I saw myself reflected on a computer screen while on a Zoom call getting rapidly sick of therapy-speak and vocal fry and the appearance of my own face.  

World building

The car became something of a mobile oven. The retreat center was hot and au natural as well. Midnight ceremony held under a starry sky with the gradually cooling night offering a little respite. The mosquitoes made themselves known but largely held back. Supported the people as best I could as they faced themselves and struggled mightily. Many different walks of life, a wide age range, several ethnicities. I had the feeling that people are being asked far and wide to do this work for the sake of us all. To heal oneself is to heal the world. 

Out of contact

Hot and humid. It's gnawing at my mood. Nowhere near as hot as in some places though. My youngest child tells me it's likely going to be the coolest summer of the rest of our lives. This is the gift we've left them. 

I don't use an air conditioner. Maybe that's my penance.

Today, I'm driving to Maine to volunteer at a ceremony. Looking for that alignment I found a week or two ago. 

At about 8:11 PM

Night's coming earlier. Driving with the windows down, pieces of memories, bits of a strange and foreign mosaic. I can't feel most of it from here anymore. And that's as it should be. 

I had a chocolate malt from Dairy Queen tonight. The flavor and the temperature of it made me remember the sound of a screen door slamming on a very hot afternoon in Niobrara, Nebraska many years ago. The chocolate malt that slid across the counter to me on that day was hand-poured by the Creator and about the nicest thing I'd had to date. 

444

A couple of days out of the ordinary rhythms and I find I've lost my place. Wasn't I headed somewhere, working on something? I let the sun go to work on me again today, enjoyed a slight breeze across my body, felt the Earth so strong under my bare feet. That's where I was going, what I was doing. I'm realizing the foundation upon which to change the dream. 

Back here now

I absorbed as much of the air conditioning and the luxurious shower as I could at the hotel but in the end I had to let it go. Four more hours at the same place today. We don't know how to do it, the man said. That is, how to get along without your friend of 47 years who is suddenly and forever no longer in the next office.

I watched a doe in a roadside ditch on a mountain's slope look both ways before leading her tiny fawn across the road. The woman in the country store said bye-bye for now to one of her regulars. She looked at me with no expression at all. I am outside her circle of care. 

Soaking rain from a thunderstorm on the way home. A string of hot days to come.

Both sides of the river

I had a job today in which I sat in a pediatric exam room for four hours and waited for people in need of support. They never did arrive. 

I walked across the Black River on a bridge of spiderwebs out into humid summer up somewhere in the 90's and out into some of Vermont's many folds and creases. I opened all four windows in the car after spending two hundred dollars on Sunday just to learn I'd need to spend 600 more to replace the compressor for the AC. Screw that. I was raised in the back deck of a station wagon in the 1970's. Go ahead and get some wind in your hair. 

Now, I'm in a company sponsored hotel room on the banks of the Sugar River housed in a renovated building once known as the Monadnock Mills, a manufacturer of fine cotton bedspreads. This town has an all but abandoned 1950's style Main Street. Clean, well-maintained, and free of life and commerce. 

I put on shorts and sandals, took off my shirt, and headed out for a walk along the river bank. Someone was camped out in the shadows when I got down there. Someone else had scrawled a message in chalk on the granite wall thanking someone sardonically for a fucked up Father's Day. The water was shallow and clear but my eyes could not find any fish. The sun was still very strong after 4PM. 

On the way here, I took a rural route near Mt. Ascutney and caught a few minutes of a syndicated program out of Baton Rouge on the car radio. One of those rare radio gems that I live for when I'm traveling. Stumbling upon it gives you that feeling that there are places and things you haven't seen or heard or tasted before. 

The desk clerk did a lot of talking. He likes to take you through his entire process with him, let you know exactly why he's doing each and everything he dose. He told me I didn't look like the type that was going to "Motley Crue" the place, but he was going to need a credit card from me all the same. I appreciated the validation. It's good to not be entirely dismissed as someone incapable of losing his mind and breaking up the place. 

Found

Come to find out some of those you never trusted were far worse than you'd even imagined.

La femme gravissant la coline

Some of the cobblestone streets of old Quebec are incredibly steep. I was descending one of them as she was climbing. For me, it was a novel experience. For her, just one more time. 

She had a practical, modest, elegance about her in low heels and a below-the-knee length skirt. Her eyes flashed nearly black and I held them in surprise for a little more than an extra beat as an electric current ran through me. I didn't mean to stare. She was bright and serious and none of what stirred so suddenly in me appeared to be moving in her. 

Hardly more than a second. Like a beautiful sunset, a snapshot imprinted in memory. All the things that never happened along with the heartbreak that somehow did.

A people's history

Back to the house and solitude. I'm already missing riding with him. 

The time we have with the ones who matter is short. The time we have to miss them though seems endless.

Return

Long drive through Quebec and rugged New Brunswick with next to no traffic today. We stopped at Potato World and learned that New Brunswick produces two out of three of all the world's french fries. Later, Saint John had the look of a rough and ready port city. I liked the feel of the place and the way the people seemed direct and down to earth. We ate good seafood and walked around the town. We stopped into City Hall to see if we might look up my grandfather, but that was not to be. The young woman there did direct us to an archive in the public library and to the Province's office of records. We left in the late afternoon and drove down the entire length of Maine looking out at the scenery. It's the first time we've spent four days in a row together since he was a little boy. He said he really liked seeing things he's never seen before. So do I. 

Quebec, tres jolie

We travelled east across Quebec along the mighty and beautiful Saint Lawrence River this afternoon and stopped for the night at the Travel Lodge in Edmundstown, New Brunswick. About 200 dollars and another 40 in taxes for one night. You won't find anything any cheaper in Canada during the 1st week of July, the man at the desk informed me. And that has so far wrung true since we arrived on July 1st. Oh well, the room is clean. It smells a little strange in here, but we're both tired and breakfast is free in the morning. Tomorrow, it's on to the Atlantic Ocean at St John. 

Out of towners

It's my birthday and I'm in Drummondville, Quebec, Canada with my 18 year old son trying to remember some useful junior high and high school French. J'entre dans la salle de classe...

Bienvenue

We crossed into Canada by road. The official at the border crossing asked for our passports. Asked us where we were from. Asked us where we were going. Asked us where we are planning to stay. The first few were easy enough to answer. The last one was not so clearly defined. "We're just driving," was a truthful answer but apparently a less than satisfactory one to the official. 

We're free wheeling Americans, I wanted to tell him. Ever read Kerouac? His people hale from here. Instead I told him we were going to spend the night in Montreal and then likely push on across Maine to St John, New Brunswick. He asked if we had any weapons. We are Americans after all. 

Quebec is where our maternal ancestors reportedly landed after leaving France in the early 1600's. New Brunswick is where my paternal Grandfather - English in ancestry - grew up. My son is keen on visiting every country whose soil contains a root of his family tree. This is just the beginning for him. 

We arrived in Canada on Canada Day. There were a lot of people in the streets last night, bands playing, fireworks, but the general scene was calm, quiet and peaceful. Complimentary breakfast in the hotel this morning was very nice. The guests who gathered there along with there children were also calm, quiet and peaceful. 

There was a prepubescent boy who kept innocently coughing into the toaster though. I found that moderately disturbing and felt a parental nudge inside to correct his behavior. But then I realized that he's grow up with universal health care and has nothing to fear from disease. 

Today, we're going to do some tourist activities. 

Road Trip

My youngest son is occupying the very small space between the end of high school and the beginning of college. I imagine opportunities to do things with him are not going  to increase in the coming years so we have decided to strike out for Canada today. The money isn't really there but the time and the spirit is. Two against one. We're going.