“I woke at dawn, and stepping out onto my back porch, took in the quiet. Nothing sleeps anymore, I thought to myself, including the moon. Ushering my cat from his frozen posture on the threshold, he soon joined me, though coerced. I watched him, wondering what he knew about the world, or didn’t. A stray brought home from the shelter at age two, he seemed perplexed by the wildness of his new home, 1800 feet up the mountain, surrounded by the sounds of rushing water. I could understand his nervous caution. I also seem to live somewhat on the cusp of impending disaster or at best, confusion. “Nothing to see here”, I said aloud, half to him in an effort to reassure, half to myself. But in reality, there was more than plenty. A blood moon, hanging timeless above the leafless hill. Somewhat beautiful, somewhat disconcerting. A nip in the air, and surely, filled with the essence of spring. A new beginning, a divide from what was once called winter, now hardly credible, in the freakish, slow building light. “Nothing to write home about”, I continued, hardly knowing what I meant. Could this physical environment be considered home anymore? I didn’t know. I stepped up to the edge of the porch’s floorboards, looking down at what had recently been of a mountain of snow. Peppered with sunflower seeds from the bird feeder, it looked unimpressive, and half of its former self. The cat pulled back in alarm. “What?” I said, again, half to myself. I wondered if I could face another day of this. The not-knowing. The endless morass of misunderstanding. The chasms of awe inspiring grief. The digital realm. All I really wanted, was love, and someone who understood me, and who I’d become, and why I’d landed here, so alone and disregulated. But compartmentalizing anguish having become the norm, I’d grown habitually prepared to soldier on. I could still fight, and I could still be kind. Who knows what else, but certainly being an artist would never fail. The cat slipped between my legs. “Okay, I know, its time for breakfast”. He, at least, lived life on the regular. I would follow his lead, build my fire, clean up last night’s messes. It was actually, going to be a beautiful day. After spooning food into his bowl, I settled into finishing my taxes, simultaneously checking my messages for the latest from people attached to me, who needed me to do something, while popping on a video blog created by a hapless teenager climbing Mount Everest. I put the kettle on, for my cup of coffee. The fire was now heating the room, and I could relax a little, and sit back, to sip and ponder. I’d heard a strange story, last night. About a street dance, and a chance meeting between strangers, and a late night visit to a local basement, where “our whole family’s consciousness is being uploaded”, was declared. Nothing to see here, I thought, repeating myself, while I stared at a column of figures declaring my business expenses, seeing double. How could this possibly be relevant, to any natural human with half a brain, and hardly a fraction of AI capacity? In short, we are all suffering an extreme case of cognitive dissonance, and it’s a fact. Humanity was never intended to thrive within such parameters of outright insanity. And yet, here we are. Welcome to the New World Order, to coin a phrase that almost seems hackneyed at this point, and old fashioned. On the flip side, my friend texted “I have to be at work at 1 pm. But ... want to take a walk? “ This is still a real thing, walking around. She drove over, with her dog. We chose a trail, and left our phones in the vehicle, after parking the SUV on an ice shelf. I shared my ski poles, so we each had one. I vaguely remembered having been in the same location, in 1990. With a husband who did not want our 2nd pregnancy, and let me know it. Some things, are better left unsaid. And so we proceeded up the steep incline, grateful for our ice cleats. The path opened out into an incredible field, only just emerging from many feet of snow. Brown, lifeless, inert below gnarled apple trees, the land swept up towards an abandoned gravel pit. Elliot appeared out of nowhere, and we stopped to chat. “Are you sugaring?” I asked. He paused, and I filled in the rest. “It’s looking like a bad year”, I said. “To hot and too cold”. He immediately agreed. “I’m going to sell off most of my land”, he admitted, somewhat chagrined. “What with property taxes going up ... “ he continued. And we knew. It was a beautiful day, and there was no denying it. But it was an all too familiar story.”
