“Sometimes we have to work hard to like ourselves, eh? For some, it’s a job description. “Do things that make you shine”. Or risk being fired. By yourself. That’s why I didn’t go to a party tonight, and as I watched my neighbor’s car drive off our muddy hill, to the party, I didn’t wish I was going, I know myself better than that. I knew I would not have shone there. So I spent a few hours outside in my yard, loading and reloading a cart with construction debris, then pulling it down to the burn pile. Feeling deeply in my element. Come on, let’s get with it. This stuff counts in the zen enlightenment category, oft referred to as “mundane”. A huge compliment to boards. And to me. Roaming the dead grass with my muck boots on, and my pruners in their holster, having hauled a makeshift bridge up from the gully, while breathing in the acrid smoke of many men’s labor, yet doing what I do, with the passion of a Tartan. Making peace with my inadequacies. At least for a time. I miss some people. I long for others. I’m also happy, with the ones I have. Then, random others, keep waltzing thru. The hiker named “Rain”, looking for shelter tonight at my yurt. The guy I’m sure is a criminal, who keeps chatting me up electronically. The sweet, somewhat clueless gal who sprayed my cabin all over with Clorox. Or anyone who writes to me, telling me to write to them, via email. Who then ignores my emails. There’s the one whose dogs love to run away, from a house I can see at night thru the trees. A puppy named “Fred”, and a yellow lab named “Poppy”, who show up here ready for action, at my back porch. The ones I really love, are acting aloof, at one gas station, then yucking it up, at the other. Not really having a fully functional voice, I can’t work my magic quite like I used to. But maybe that was just a charismatic manipulation, who knows. I have to rely on subtlety now. People have to want to know me, to know me. They can’t play at it, and neither can I. This handicap goes both ways. I have dreams, and in them I’m fluent, like I was, not like now, in this creepy climate where honesty is rarely even whispered amongst friends. An amazing wilderness, to sort, to drive, to take great, leaping dives off of, and into. Which is where map study, meets the rubber. You can plot, you can surmise, you can fantasize, even, about nirvana. I do. What madman wouldn’t want to find a way out of here? Be it “Beaver Meadows”, or the extended dirt road that, ill-advisedly, continues past Ray Grimes former strawberry patch. I’m on the prowl, trying to garner & cultivate my super powers, trying to unravel this god-awful maze of forest roads, that take us in, and then out, then starburst our consciousness through a portal - completely, once and for all, so we might understand what the hell we’ve been doing in this compromised position for so long.”
