Trip

Went into Boston for music. Walked the streets of Somerville after having sweat through all my clothes. Spent, completely. It's good to lose your mind entirely every now and again. 

I danced, or something, and felt the energy in the form of sonic waves moving back and forth between the bands and the audience. I became actively involved in that exchange. Other people in the audience weren't much of a factor. They allowed me a lot of space though. I think I got a little closer to releasing something. I think I gave and I know that I received. 

The night air was cool and I walked in only a t-shirt trying to get dry. I walked past a mostly-darkened hospital. There's an 8-year-old girl in there. I know because I helped to get her there earlier in the week. Her name jumped into my mind and I tried to send calmness in her direction. Summer camp with new friends.

There were only a few people out walking. One in skinny jeans and leather jacket weaving drunken diagonals along the sidewalk. At some point, while talking to myself, I overtook the person now sitting in a bus shelter. How's it going, man? I asked. The person stared blankly past me. Not there. Entirely elsewhere. All alone in that place.

I was looking up at a third floor apartment. There was an inviting yellow glow in the large window. Soft and warm. A string of Christmas lights along where the walls meet the ceiling. I imagined myself there.

To be invited. To be made welcome. To be received. 

I remembered with awe the act of being received. Did I understand the profundity of it then? I don't think so. I was too close. I felt it though. 

I understand the profundity of it now only because I am so far distant.

13

Five days she's been in that room the interior of which looks and feels like a storage unit with a television screen sealed in plexiglass up in the corner. There's a few holes drilled in the plexiglass to allow some of the sound to escape. The people who sent her don't visit or check on her. She's thirteen years old. What do you think she thinks?

Basic

One of the squirrels came by the slider early this morning, then to the kitchen window at about noon, and in the late afternoon, up the railing beside the stairs to make sounds toward me, I presume. I'm the guy with access to the sunflower seeds, it seems to have figured out.

The last time I got friendly with squirrels, two of those red maniacs chewed through a metal screen and ran amok in my house for a weekend.

Work kept me moving for about eleven hours today, and I did a ridiculous amount of yawning. I went outside after dark to feel the air and to see the stars and moon and the dark tops of the tall pines swaying against the cloudless sky and to listen to the sound of peepers. That made me feel better, opened something inside me. 

I don't really need any of that other stuff anymore. So many years of living under the weight of that concern.

Graduation season

That inescapable feeling of regret for what you haven't done rises up into your throat but you manage to swallow it. It's letting you know it's still there though. Time with my son yesterday as he prepares for another transition. So many things have to be done alone.

Today I'm heading to Rhode Island to watch my older son and his team try to make it into the national finals in his sport. The weather looks promising.

Advil didn't help

A swamp has descended upon us here. Sixty degrees and several days of rain. Humid and strange. I sang some songs last night. Met a local songstress who's doing a Patsy Cline show next month. Woke up this morning with a couple of new Facebook friend requests and a bad head.