““Mostly, they’re just selling books to each other”, said an anonymous source, when asked about the Antiquarian Book Sellers, whose brochure I was fondling. “But, the good news is that younger folks are joining.” That’s always good news. Even when it brings strife. Funny, how much valuable intel you can gather, while driving around the state. I paid for my cheddar & yellow bell pepper croissant, in cash, & felt a surge of pride, to be going to an outdoor job, when it was practically snowing in September. My strut back to the Chevy, was something only for me to enjoy. I show off to myself, most days. But honestly, I was glad that the viscous quality of the rain on my windshield, as I’d crested the gap today, was not truly solid. It was borderline, it was taking its time to melt, after a big, noisy appearance, on the glass, but you couldn’t pin it to ice or snow - not yet. It’d been weather, not pleasant, all the way, so far. I was questioning my decision, to go to my job. What a waste of gas, i thought, if I have to just turn around and come home. That’s the nature of my business, and how fickle it is, and how cruel, because no one really cares that you wasted hours going to a job that couldn’t happen. You don’t get paid for cancellations. But that wasn’t it, not today. The further east I drove, the more blue sky mystically floated into the cloud mass, so that sun, and gloom, and changeability & unexpected warmth, all felt not too bad, after all. I had thrown my layers into the truck: the older down jacket, with the broken zipper ... the wool sock bag, and winter gloves. Somehow, there is a fishline, that connects this to books, as if all the preparations that keep me working outdoors are only there, to allow me to sink into a comfortable chair, in front of a wood stove, when it’s finally winter enough, to do so. A metaphor, perhaps, that still maintains, that we earn repose. Well, I only buy into that, in as much as relaxation can be timed, to follow physical work. More often than not, things beyond our control, ground us, and shove us into less active positions, prematurely. And so I fight, I fight hard to place myself under pressures, even adversity, so that I can keep emerging, on my own power. And prove to myself, that human evolution is not about acquiring synthetic ease, but rather it’s more truthfully implanted by God. to summon and tap an inherent genius that has nothing to do with “add ons”. Yes, that capital “G” of a god, is us, not some other, and at our highest potential. What a handful of obscure books are about, ones you’ll never read, because banned books are not only the ones pushed under, but also those not allowed to surface. Why I keep driving, though pelted by a cold, cold rain. And keep digging, though today’s digging was particularly brutal. An old Baptisia, completely grown into it’s spot, and tenaciously though unselfconsciously, rooted in place, like a tombstone anchors to a cemetery plot. Oblivious. Self satisfied. Glorious in its own right. One of my favorites. But, not today. Not, for how stubbornly it resisted me, & gave me sweat, and annoyance, and almost, surrender. My goal was to move it ten feet. That seemed modest. But everything is relative, isn’t it? You can’t force living beings to let go, before they are ready. I stayed captive to spells, and dreams and what I wanted to believe, until the lies got big and started spitting in my face. Until what had initially seemed like a simple parachute drop behind enemy lines, became a full blown act of total self annihilation.”
