“I love a mission before 9 am or earlier, that requires getting in my truck. Of course, when landscaping starts, then that’s what it is. But, like now, any tangible objective after my first cup of coffee is an aphrodisiac. Widely interpreted as: feeling motivated and useful. I would be a fool to trade that away for some paltry “universal basic income”. As my grandmother used to say, I’m a goer. That dear woman had just enough time on this earth to corrupt me, thank god. She might have credited one of the many painted plaster saints on her bedroom altar for it, but was also modern to the extent that she appreciated my spunk. No one else in the family did, except maybe my mother who seemed to trust the truism: “out of sight, out of mind”, & therefore, didn’t watch me too closely. So my relationship with dark paths, often on the edge of precipices, started young and honestly. I didn’t know anything else, not for a long, long while. It still haunts me, this need to find out what might not be right about what I’m doing. As for today’s mixed load of rubbish, I’m excited about it, knowing things might not go smoothly at the landfill, because I’m pushing the refuse envelope. I wait at the red light, watching as the pickup truck in front of me lingers for a chat, possibly about the weather, more likely, concerning corrugated cardboard, or hazardous waste. That green signal means so much to me. & I carefully pull forward, determined to be a model of moderation & respect for the toll booth operator. She slides back her window. “Town?” she says. “Lincoln”, I reply, this first one, an easy question. “What you got?” she continues, after punching in my stats. I’d rehearsed it, during the drive over the notch. “I have some furniture, a rug .. uh... some pressure treated lumber ... uh ... and some metal”. Privately, I’m sweating a little, not quite sure how my five 60 lb. sandbags are going to play into the weighing procedure. “Go ahead, pull into #1 with your junk”, she says, “ then come back around here, with the metal”. Well, that’s more than I could have asked for. She calls a bunch of my stuff “junk”, & I couldn’t have said it better. Inflated, I pull jauntily forward, then back in, dodging a tractor, coming to a full stop, engine off, still gloating in my god-given right to carte blanche heave without conscience. Dang it, talk about freedom! And I do, from time to time. Ecstatic, I’m almost on the back forty doing my duty into a farm dug pit. Almost. But staying alert, I climb up into the truck bed, and struggle, tipping out an armchair, boards with nails, the last of the futons, and some rotted blue board, attempting to gracefully unload “my junk” as best I can. It’s just not graceful though, is it. I’d always hoped to have a husband to do this fun stuff with me. Short of that, I’m miming a play of solitary virtue, the one left to do it all. Life dishes up periods, I’ve discovered, that gut-wrench and scar. You still have to pick yourself up. And re-introduce yourself, to anyone who seems interested. No sob story here, because my life just gets more mythic & mind-blowing, the more consistently, I’m cast out of it.”
