introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- numbered days this old fool - 1 april 2o15 "all good dreamers pass this way some day / hidin' behind bottles in dark cafes...dark cafes /only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away / only a phase these dark café days."~joni mitchell a lot of stuff happened, i guess. i've been juggling so many things i want to think about with things i don't but it's not going to slow down for a few months. i thought i'd found a roommate and then i realized that it was more of a dating thing for him and that was dumb for me because my heart wouldn't be in it. earlier that same weekend, i went way up north with my friend nick to have dinner with our friend phyllis and her husband. they'd made a beautiful meal and phyllis even insisted we all eat two desserts. nick and i and my little fella packed up in the car, picked up coffee, and got on the road. i remember days when i commuted this far for work. i don't know if i could do that again. i enjoy nick's company so much. it's good to have found someone to talk with...i look forward to crossing paths with him on weekends. i knew the day we met almost a year ago that eventually we'd be friends. the weekend after we'd taken our little excursion to where there are trains in maine, we were having salads and discussing how we'd work as roommates in what must be the tiniest denny's in america. we'd probably make really terrific roommates but if i'm honest, by the time it came up, i'd already made up my mind. along with nick, there was another possible roommate that turned up just yesterday...a woman phyllis knows from back home in philly. the truth is, i could take a chance; i could probably make either of these situations work and pull off staying. the thing with nick just came a couple days too late. i think it clicked over in my brain when i was in the petco. no...i know it did. i dropped sammy at the groomer to get the last of the winter fur brushed out. spring has sprung for the old bloodhound of the northern wilds, it seems. perhaps in my heart a little bit, too, but you know...spring does that to folks, i guess. anyway, that's a whole different can of worms. so there we were, waiting on sammy and i figured i'd blow the baby's mind and show him some things he's never seen before. there were feeder mice--some running on a wheel, some nested and sleeping, and all doing the same jitter-twitch thing only tiny little mice waiting to be sent off to hungry ball pythons can. there were small rats and medium rats and large rats, sorted into tanks of males and females because, well...we all know why. spring, duh. there were tiny musky ferrets and a bunch of parakeets and canaries and finches and then there were walls of fish. they have fish that glow now, guys. welcome to the future. i think we were looking at the medium rats and i realized that this was the closest he'd get to a zoo in our little town. how am i going to explain a fucking giraffe to this guy? in that moment, i was thinking like a mother, i suppose. it's the hardest decision i've ever had to make in my life and i'm not even sure i've made the right choice, but i've made a choice. i've settled in to a life here and i don't think i realized quite how deeply i'd put in roots until these last few days. everything makes me ache...this morning, i could hear the robins in the trees. i haven't seen one yet but i know that song. last night when i came home, it smelled of thawed and re-frozen mud and balsam. today, the wind was cold but the sun was warm if you stood in it a moment and the smell of thaw and soaking wet ground and pine that both warmed and broke my heart. did i squander my time here? i don't think i did. this was the monastic quiet life i'd craved...but there are two of us now and that chapter is ending and i am keenly aware of my impending break from the place where i've spent the most challenging, difficult, amazing, satisfying, magical year of my life. it's time to think about going back home. but my heart...oh, man, my goddamned heart. xo, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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