“I was atop the Appalachian gap today in a storm of elevation, since down on the valley, it was blue skies and dry roads. Testing my studs, I guess. But regardless of how intrepid I am, there is always someone sniffing up my rear. I ponder this philosophically as I am wont to do, & the only explanation I can come up with, is androids. I know, I know. My friend used to talk about chem trails and at the time I put off thinking about it. But, come on, folks. Too much has gotten way weirder. These drivers who pull up & pass you way over the speed limit in a blinding ice storm: how can they be human? It’s no longer a question posed by cranks. It’s beyond plausible that some among us are bionically enhanced. I’ll leave it at that. So you can keep on baking bread and raising your children, and please do so, but be alert, and be better prepared than in the Zombie movies of yore. This latest round of plummeting temperatures and arctic winds only makes the surreal landscape more alien. As I trudge between house & barn, studio and garage, each step makes an over-sized creaky crunch. The sun is sliding behind my house, illuminating wood smoke hallows around the chimney, plunging its slim dagger into the heart of the emptiness of winter. I’ve been watching the fall of the mercury, contemplating with seriousness how buildings work, in deep winter, or don’t. It’s an important equation. I climb construction stairs with my flashlight, to check on the $25 barrel stove that’s been drying out bats of frozen insulation. The set of tasks undertaken here are in a kind of moonscape phase, and Roxul fibers float by in the vastness of space. One ladder stands firmly rooted in the stairwell, on a stair, reaching up to the roof, and I squeeze by it, not wanting to disrupt its utility. The manual work of others hangs formidably in the air. The dust, the discarded handfuls of wool; it’s all a mess, and from the chaos of it, I’m able to imagine, again, a future in which I have a job; in which we all have jobs that matter. Funny how that works sometimes. The right people can set into motion, a tsunami, when things align. And they do, when you care enough. So, we have to care enough. It was a day of making short trips across the snowy expanse of field, carrying scraps to the burn pile; of recommissioning the wheel barrow to fire wood duty; of reading painful words from the people I love the most, but who seem often, the farthest away. I broke down boxes, swept up piles of sawdust and nails, untangled extension cords, tried to order a set of doors from Sears. As usual, I couldn’t really get in the mood to eat. It’s a little like traveling, and being in a foreign country, right now. I’m trying to find a language, that reaches anyone. I’m trying to remember hunger, that had a happy ending. Coming back to the topic of who those awful road runners might be, I’ll tell you what I’m not. I’m not going fast. I’m not buying in. I’m sticking to the old road, that says you’re here on this planet to be humanly flawed. And to make the world a more beautiful place, because of it.”
