“The minutes before waking, you swim towards dawn, & find yourself composing. Perfect phrases, wit and wisdom, even humor of just enough exquisite sharpness, landing daggers, on point, bringing all to rejoin in one sweet understanding ... ah, Horatio ... dream on! For this is not the time for that. What may be possible one day must lurk, and be down trod. And flow, like the swift, corrected water under ice. Like the road to Galusha Hill, taken gingerly at the intersection after only one double take and a turn around, remembering the church rummage sale as I turned, & what might have once been the town’s general store, now festooned with laundry & plastic toys. Looks plowed. By a big plow, and pushed back with a huge wing blade. Giving me courage that this time, the map might not be our of date. And this, a through road, for real, mid-winter. Still, I felt the butterfly nerves, the recognition that truck size, speaking of my own this time, might prove problematic, should the road shrink to a snow machine path. How many tire tracks, how recently. How much sand, how much ice. Riding uphill rather suddenly, but not too suddenly, my lack of studs was not a problem. Not yet. And what first passed as relief as the first side road name matched my paper map’s, soon became a deeper shade of fear, as the more traveled route appeared to go to “no outlet”. These are the times we live in. Had I really been fired twice in one week? Yes, and perhaps, one could say, for trying to keep the arguments from rising, for nipping them before they bloomed. Being a gardener, and all, it’s my prerogative sometimes to say to my plants: no, we are not dating. We are friends. And I will care for you, protect and defend you, as any honorable caretaker is going to do. For if we love too much, before it’s time, you might refuse to bloom. You might decide I’m favoring other flowers, and hurt yourself with disease. Let’s keep our right relation. If I need to cut you back, or prune your branches, or watch you with a studied eye, this can all be done, short of romance. For many years now, I’ve traveled alone, with my water can, and sometimes my skis, and often my truck. Because loving too much, in a narcissistic kind of way, thinking you own, or deserve something better, will never reach the stillness of deep reflecting pools. Better to call it off than destroy it. Often they do it for you. Galusha Hill Road did disappear, and not adhere to its topographical avatar. A wicked left turn, down an oddball gully, pitching wildly up and around a clear cut top, next stomach wrenchingly falling over and down again, past a fancy, newcomers sign of gilt gold and ostentatious mansion, as I heaved a sigh of relief to pass a car. At the bottom, out of the blue, a mangled metal sign announced Clark’s Crossing. Out of the woods, out of danger. Out onto the naked hard road, caked with spotty, drifted snow, but definitely, definitely, headed somewhere identifiable. And no one was harmed, and no one was the wiser for it.”
