“It’s been a few years since I called a construction site my home. Might be a little longer ... and that’s fine by me. The apples are ripe, a few high altitude blueberries. Summer is stretching ... and stretching ... and haze funneled down from Quebec thanks to wildfires out west, is no stranger to any of us. The world is all connected whether we like it or not. Maybe I like some of that, maybe I wish I could push some of it so far away, that the old ways would return. Like when you laughed at your T.V., then went about your business. Your business was your vitality and it went against the man, prodding you to think for yourself, didn’t it? Not so much these days. What’s whispered to me in the recesses of a forgotten garden isn’t widely accepted as fact. Where do you get your intel? T.V. isn’t what it was, though it could be argued that it’s always been a tool of the propagandists. Rather a moot point, when you are trying to decide which studs to remove, or whether the carrying beam is in danger. I couldn’t be happier, manning the burn pile, with a mission only to drag, cut and throw into the flames. Left to my own devices, while the more skilled workers do what I can’t, I will contemplate leaves, stems & late summer grass. The well worn paths across the yard, trod by children, now grown almost to adulthood, fit my feet like a glove. I love that what goes up, must come down, and that what seemed unquestionably solid will eventually disappear. I had a few lovers who came to my rescue in certain ways. For this, I am grateful, in a transitory kind of way. They knew they owed something, not clear on what. I also tried to give, without knowing what would satisfy. This is the jagged, harlequin suit of relationships. It is a kind of relief to have gone without them for so, so long now. Abandoned again and again, my learning curve is not so much to be strong now, but to be real. The flawed topography of loneliness is beautiful as it aches for correction, and postures a look both wistful and romantic. Retaining some of that, I don’t really want to do it anymore with any kind of conviction that sentences me to a lifetime of pain. Hence, the renovation.”
