“The blueberry muffin from the day before was still where I’d left it, in the tray where I keep a small writing pad for important thoughts I may soon forget. It was crumpled up in a paper bag, to keep it, well, fresh. It was a little harder, day two, almost rubbery. My travel mug, filled with hot Irish Breakfast tea, nestled in next to it, wrapped in the kind of bear hug that only a plastic vehicular cup holder can provide. So many useful things, in one square foot. Loose change, pens, paper clips, receipts. My favorite jack knife, from the Swiss Army, and to think that I used to think Switzerland was neutral! Such noble myths persist to keep us buoyant, I guess. & Oh, what a day. Paradise has nothing on the weather. Making gardeners excitable, outdoors enthusiasts antsy, and screened porch fans, ready to move into summer quarters. Always the case, after a late, killing frost. But I guess for me, there were some somber notes, an after taste of bitters, in my expensive wine. And I can’t entirely explain them, not here. It’s not that I’m naive anymore, or expect things to run all to my liking. I’m certainly not high, or, for that matter, low. It’s more like being stuck, in the knowing of how off certain things are. Doesn’t feel good, doesn’t really feel bad due to familiarity, which, by the way, breeds contempt. And the keen disappointment, of having nothing but ditches, right & left, and no place to pull over, on the world’s most scenic highway. So when a friend texts me today, to say how much he misses kindergarten, I totally get it. The solace of peg boards, the ambient rightness of silly rhymes, even the perverse inclination to eat paste, which may, by now, be outlawed. It oddly resembles my goal of finding just one thing I enjoy doing. Why, isn’t it lucky, to love deeply, a particular activity, or a person? Not everyone has that. I at least have the reframing of natural places to keep me occupied, or, when it’s raining, the writing of songs. With a yellow pail, and a pair of scissors, and a pair of muck boots. Or striding towards a tractor, authoritatively, to put my hand on the enormous bucket, as the operator looks to my hand signals, for guidance. He says to me that I should call him, if any future task could be expedited, by machines. “It came up twice today,” I countered, “and I said to her that ‘Dan could do it’”. That was true. Dan could do it. I wasn’t in any way against using a tractor for certain operations. It’s however a dicey landscape we live in, half in, half out, with technology. More in, I guess, and way further in than anyone ever imagined, who still has half a mind. We don’t really want to parlay human biology against electronic circuitry, do we? What do I know, hey, anyway. I just merely watch things from the working center. I still inhabit terra firma, a.k.a. solid ground, brought to you by earth-based humans. Period.”
