The Old Mule

Out of Time

The new year is creeping up on me. I want to fight it off like a dog, knock it back for a while and just be unbothered by progress. Not that this past year has been wonderful. Fine things have happened, but the burden of human existence is ever-flowing. A weight hangs over me. Each time I stand beneath the stars, I am filled with the shadows of a thousand of ill-illuminated planets.

“Eject me from this place,” I think. I would like to try life on some other planet, or maybe just float through ether, dodging rocks. I would gaze out over spinning globes and marvel at their geometry.

My space suit, carefully stowed, must be mellowing with age.

A temporal divot exists between Christmas and New Years. It is a black hole. The vortex sucks all the mustered kindheartedness from my throat, deflates my fleeting sense of everything-just-might-turn-out-alright. Doom sets in. Work lulls. Heating bills escalate.

I consider the ease of outer space, and how such sullen days would devolve into blissful moments of nebulae and fractals.

Hum. Earth is home. And just when I catch my breath, some sullen dawn rises. I have to get my feet from under the sheets. Navigating early hours is like wading through marsh grass in hip boots – there is a constant tug to keep a body from forward motion. Once freed from the sheet-chamber, I stand too still under shower water and ruminate. Mirrors fog and I lose a sense of time. My yard looks sparse. The bird feeder hangs empty.

The dwell of winter is a respite from the perfections of spring. Knowing this, I hold hope, maneuver all uncertain routes, and long for the comfort of weightlessness.

Manger Scene

So much happens this time of year. It feels like the world spins faster. We all gear up to accomplish all these tasks in such a frenzied manner. The more we stay occupied the less we have time to sit on the couch and brood. Would most people sit on the couch and brood if there were not gifts to purchase?

I have a terrible weak spot for holidays. I love the reindeer songs and the wreaths. Can you imagine that? I love the smell of cookies baking, a pine tree in the living room and some candles lit. I will not claim to be celebrating the birth of Baby Jesus, but God, festivities are fine. Anything to take my mind off the toil of unimportant days, the Mondays that no one ever talks about.

And I love the reconnaissance and determination of new-year plans (an exercise in self-punishment for sure). That whole thing is a set up. It’s a sports car with bad tires – bound for fiery damnation. But what elaborate plans we make to finally lift our lives off the ground, to make use of god-given arms, and put our minds to something crystal clear.

Holiday emotions remind me of good travel. The kind of travel where you immerse yourself in a universe of new ideas, thoughts, dreams, decor and ways of looking at the sky. Like getting back from some off-the-map jungle and determining to handle your coming days different. Begging your inside self to make note and rearrange: learn the Truscan flute-horn, take to the woods, churn buttermilk, barter with garden crops, stick-build a meditation hut.... and all sorts of other fancy ideas that are stunted by the reality of your home perched there beneath some trees on your street with your neighbors and the grocery store and an old car filled with gas. Not that there is a thing wrong with that reality (and really neither is better) – but to drag someone else’s world into your own painted picture never works. Or, if so, just for a painfully gleeful second.   

All this boils down to a simple point. Every day should be a festival. Bands should march, women should wear low-slung dresses, fresh mackerel should be butter-broiled for a leisurely lunch. Every day, poems should be announced to your lover, neck deep in a bath, reflecting.

Idaho Summer after a Cold Night of Driving

Illumination. A feeling of standing on the edge. I remember crossing the plains states in an old truck, u-haul in tow. Gas gauge low. Frozen fingers gripped the pump. Click. Full. I opened the hood to check the oil supply and dropped the cap into the engine innards. Do they make tools for unreachable crevices? Who designs these things to hurtle our frail bodies through space and time? I recall an inventory of interstate expressions – cool, intent, all-knowing. How bold we are in our metal cages, bouncing above rolling rubber feet.

A day or two later: Idaho. I keep remembering this place. Perfect pull-off spot. Undulating mountains with thin tails of sky, red clay hills, and our cars all lined up against this picture. Sparrows flew to the North. It was love in the grass weather.

I got out to piss and an old station wagon pulled up in a space nearby. It was packed with every conceivable object. Fucking loaded up. Balls, globes, fishing rods, sheets, boots, fast food bags, underwear, crayon sets, posters and several large teddy bears. Packed among all these items where several small children, a young mother with pretty dyed-red hair (belly extending), and a raucous looking shirtless cad with the kind of forearms you do not want on your enemy.

They whole crowd ejected from the car in a heated tumble. Heavy energy hung about them. Words hurled which spoke of the trip’s pale fortune; others foreshadowed its final stretch. I stood there, on-looking, delirious from all night driving, and wanting to weep for the whole pile of them. By definition, this group was headed somewhere. Other than that, I am sure their agenda was wholly unset.

I always recall that meeting. It encapsulated so many things. The car and her contents was a perfect replica of all things American. The striking of the tent, the goods, the babies, the hanging on, and the surrounding geographies perched up like a wooden stage. Like a high school set you knock apart with a hammer. As a group, we swirl about in frenzies, create great things without knowing, and exist in simple confusion in a world of ever-perfect balance.

There is always some great land, just ahead.

In Spite of Remembering

December Thoughts:

0) No cheer yet.
1) Pretty wife.
2) Dry skin.
3) No good fiction.
4) Lonesome.
5) Bathtub cold in morning.
6) Adventures planned.
7) Need to rake leaves.
8) Buckwheat pancakes are too thick.
9) Past is obliterated.
10) Where do the acorns go?
11) Events seemed bigger as a child.
12) Last year for my woodsmen flannel shirt.
13) Mail-carriers work hard.
14) It is difficult to greet neighbors.
15) Who hires local news anchors?
16) Go, this time.
17) Remove order.
18) Lessen.
19) Relax.
20) Think inside.
21) Recall the past.
22) Pull up that pesky mint.
23) Remember the plight of others.
24) Enjoy our hammock.
25) Photograph Grandmother.