Out

It took a while to untangle myself and get going yesterday but in the afternoon I went outside. I got some sun and listened to an audio book about intergenerational trauma. I spent time with my bare feet upon the grass and thought about a girl whose mother didn't smile much and how the last time I saw that girl she didn't smile much either. The book's author said we're carrying the trauma and stress of three generations epigenetically. I sat for twenty minutes in something like a meditator's pose thinking about the harshness of my language toward myself, the impatience there. Thoughts and words have great power. I'm trying to use them, or to refrain from using them, more consciously. 

By evening, I thought maybe I'd go out to sing a song. I went to the local restaurant my upcoming high school reunion is going to be held at in November. The parking lot was full. It turned out karaoke was last night, not tonight. I was annoyed with myself and noticed the harsh words inside. I decided I'd stay to eat. The waitress sat me in the dining room. Before I'd made it to the table, I recalled coming here two or three times in the past 20 years and always finding the place depressing. 

There's something faded about it but it's not only that. There's this lack of character or a generic quality to it. It feels almost like a blank space to me. It's located in a white suburban town I've always thought of as "stuck up". The town also has that blank feeling. People look at you expecting to recognize you and when they don't they stare too long and that look is ignorant and annoying to me. It's a townie's expression. It makes me question why I live here. Makes me want to leave this place. I see a small, flat-roofed, adobe house in the desert of West Texas in my mind's eye. The bar side of the restaurant is crowded and loud. I see alcoholism, obesity, stagnation, constipation. I feel the air being squeezed out of me and an inability to inhale.

My thoughts and words go dark. The food is only "mid" as my twenty-something son says. The waiter is young and he keeps calling me boss with a sort of unearned familiarity. I finish and leave as soon as possible. 

Outside, the quarter moon is shining in the dark sky. I inhale the cooling night air noticing the sound of crickets. I feel better instantly. These are the things I'm living here for. Not the human portion of the world. I decided I wasn't going to that reunion.