“I live in a community where joiners & sawyers, whittlers & timber framers, work quietly making beautiful, handmade objects, because it what their hands want to do. Ditto, the basket weavers, stone masons, gardeners, ditch diggers, & arborists: artists all, each carrying a unique stylistic flourish. I watch walls go up, mud scraped shapely, forms emerging from dirt and sweat, into realms of gold. Maybe I’ve stumbled into this world ass-backwards, unknowingly falling into place with them, or they with me, as our collective creativity surged forward, unstoppable against the currents of the digital. Or maybe my urge to finally land a home overtook any rational thinking, and tossed me into the fray, and amongst the unruly. What is left to us now, but our terra indigenous, fought for tooth & nail within tides of excessive permitting, meant to protect, but in the end, disenfranchising. It used to be a simple dream, to raise up a cabin, or merely carve a pathway into the wilderness, wherein, we could find peace. It’s hard to disconnect; equally hard to connect. The somber radiance of screens pulls us in. We flounder, especially at night, even in the hours before dawn, between restlessness, and plugging into something that will ease our disease, momentarily, or so we imagine. What is this world of mixed reality? Is it benevolent, or a drug of choice? We have so few cogent choices, within a morass of options. I savor the energy of my builders, my free thinkers, my chums. Some famous, most not, because the odd twists of value that place this one over that one, is not to my liking. We are all, innately, miraculous. Those who make the effort to spend time, and share deep troubles, & their humble achievements, will always win out. On any given back road, there are lives being lived in complete obscurity and sadly, of unnoticed majesty. On any given block of suburban or urban housing, dwell the heroes, and the devils, side by side. Harm is being done, even orchestrated, one apartment down from pure transcendent compassion. It’s impossible to grasp, but in glimpses, and occasional epiphanies. A chance meeting on the porch, in a village, might lead to hours of wondering, what might have been, if only things had played out differently. “The mob put a hit on me,” he told us, as I was getting coffee on the way to a job. On the surface, I was just standing there, looking out at a gas station, and beyond that, an ecumenical church. The hills beyond, steep and dramatic, held steady, as I soaked in his words. “She saved my life,” he continued. I was still thinking about the enormous work load on my plate, for the day. Why was I getting this information here, why now? My truck was loaded with tools, my sandwiches packed, my thermos filled to the brim, with a healthy, herbal brew. I looked at him, and tried to stop the excessive thrust urging me to leave, to get to my job in time. However, no one should cut short a story, without finding a way, to carry it forward. One part of me wanted him to wrap it up, while another wanted to author the book of his life. God bless, the mercy of strangers. I would probably now dive into a dark frog pool, to retrieve his ring, if there were any clear path to doing so. But my coffee, my muffin, my co-worker, it was now all a muddle, a time warping dream of collusion. Dear everyone. Random encounters: joyful, galling or authentic; what do they mean? Well, we all smiled, as I remember it, and I asked when his book would be published. Shifting right to left, as my knee begin to hurt, I realized my day had planned this for me, as much as I’d tried, and I had tried, to keep with the program.”
