Facetime

My parallel about what's going on in the world with the pestilence and what the powers that be asked us to do after 9/11 and the now almost twenty years of a surveillance state. When 9/11 first happened, more people were willing to just go along with what the powers that be deemed necessary for the greater good than not. In recent meditation, I think I may have come across a reason why; tangibly.

A terrorist has a face, a virus does not. You can hear, see, smell, taste, and feel a terrorist. A virus can seep straight through you and it's not real until you're actually sick. The virus is so much more of an abstract than the terrorist.

That's why some dismiss out of hand; it's not tangible. Just a story to frighten us. The powers that be cannot declare a military victory over it. Instead, focus on the faces. Focus on the economy.

Ever notice those pieces of paper are imbued with the tangibility of a face?

Epilogue; Back to the World, or, Beyond its End

On a recent walkabout through the town cemetery, we witnessed a miracle of wind-loaded snow. We laughed ourselves sick...





Come down music...

It was the twentieth of January when we arrived home around five in the afternoon. How I maintained consciousness for another four hours still baffles me. The feeling of sleeping in my own bed was akin to the warm embrace of a long-lost lover.

Yes, I did ask my pillow the next day if it was good for it too, what of it?

Six days later, on my first real walkabout since returning from the island, I noted direct sunlight had returned to the house. I had a glass of wine out in the first soft daylight of two months in celebration. As far as I'm concerned, when the Long Dark ends, winter is halfway over. Then again, in my timekeeping, winter starts when the sun no longer rises above the ridge, and that's mid-November. Perhaps I function best in places where time is something of a dodgey concept.

Of course, I was back to a place I did have to keep better track of hours and minutes, rather than just whether or not it was night or day, what with professional obligations and all. Life slid back into familiar rhythms fairly quickly.

There were obligations and errands. Meals and walkabouts on the free days. We came across fresh cat tracks in fresh snow. It was glorious, but I am unsure if it was a mountain lion or bobcat. See, the fresh blood in the snow helped to talk us out of further investigation, despite the coolness of the National Geographic moment. Besides, it would have been a dick move to disturb the cat during its dinner, not to mention potentially fatally dangerous.

Seeing those tracks served as perspective. On the island, upon land, the most vicious predator was a species of primate that had figured out how to manipulate fire. All the scary beasties were out in the ocean. Here in the mountains, things with tooth and claw walk the same same trails we do.

Because I live in a smaller community, people I didn't even tell, but were acquainted with, would ask me how my trip was. With a fair amount of glibness, I would say it was okay, which was meant with a chuckle at me being a card. Many of these cats are used to me saying the mountains are okay if you're into sweeping views and juxtaposed geography.

Every so often, I catch myself missing the backbeat of the tropics; the chatter of the local wildlife at night and the surf against the lava rocks. Other than alpine breezes, it can be rather silent in the mountains at night. It was a jarring lesson I had to relearn.

I do dream of the island. I dream of whales, which is kind of fantastic. Part of me would love to have the skull of one. Then I catch myself wondering where I'd hang such a thing.

The superstitious sort might see my whale dreams as portents. Lifetimes ago, I might have, but these days, I know a little better. A Pagan's spell may not work. A prayer to a deity may go unanswered. An omen can be misconstrued.

So it goes...

I started to meditate on how the trip has changed me, and immediately realized how absurd that was. Sure, how oh so romantic to say x place changed you, but I haven't got a romantic bone in my body. The reality is you're changed the moment you walk out your door, even if it's just to run down to the store for ice cream. On some level every walkabout has left me changed.

There is a term for those who are not changed by experiences; dead...

I am happy to be home, make no mistake. There are the peaks and being in my own house. It's nice to see the familiars again and not to be tripping over six other people to refill one of my water bottles. When I look out a landscape, I remember that sleep-deprived catharsis of the first night back. This is Kashmir. My place in the world. A preservationist of my acquaintance has a similar experience when she comes back from traveling, and she wanders the globe for want of something to do. I think of her as something of a mentor, so the fact she shares that experience is something I find infinitely comforting.     

A Backbeat for Nada

Runoff has started to abate. I no longer hear the Leviathan, grinding river rocks to bowling ball smooth. Some of my lower demarcation rocks begin to peep above the swells, and my oh fuck! rock has become completely dry. Other places in town, I see evidence of drying out. It will be safe to traverse the water crossings of Grizzly Gulch soon enough.

Out back, by the willow, there is still ankle deep standing water. So it goes. Old beaver bog. Runoff always gets the Talking Heads song Swamp playing in my skull. Because we like to anthropomorphize and imagine the universe has a sense of humor-and the giraffe and platypus certainly make a strong argument for this-it's vaguely funny how the monsoons come on the coattails of runoff. During some deluges, William Elliot Whitmore's Lee County Flood seems so fitting.

Then again, I have a constant backbeat within the walls of my skull. The stereo is always on in the house. My daughter once said she thought I'd be overjoyed becoming deaf, because I'd not have to listen to people. Truth is, I'd be depressed, because I'd not be able to hear music, be it that made by humans, or by impassive universe around me.

I hath smote my first mosquitoes of the summer. An omen the ticks have most likely gone. One blood-sucker for another. I am not amused.

The strangest happenstance has come to pass over the last week or so; I've not been so much in the mood for tea. There, I said it. Water, cool, clear water-water-has been my go-to. The other night, winding down for bed, but trying to finish up a conversation with Sabina, I'd decided I was done with libations, and my wine glass became a water glass.

Queer. I wonder if this means I'm pregnant. If so, then who's the daddy? Sabina, for having never wanted or had children, is perhaps one of the biggest mothers I've ever met. Do you find it strange that one of the last times I told her this she entreated me to fuck off? I know I did.

Last week I saw Senpai all but dancing the jig a few times over the state of society. Even and especially over the events of this past Friday, he has quite the right to be happy. There was irony that a trade agreement was pushed through with the help of a political party whose agenda has been to block the sitting president at every turn. Although, for every leap we make as a society, there comes that moment of catching the evangelicals getting into a truck with Missouri plates, one wearing a t-shirt that reads; Fear god, love thy neighbor.

And Social Distortion's Don't Drag Me Down starts in my skull...

If you haven't figured it out by now, I am one of those cats who finds existence a constant state of becoming. Evolving. Owning up. You adapt or you die, this is the imperative and gospel of biology. The dynamic of change is just a given. One of those songs that I hear even when I'm not playing it on the stereo with varying degrees of frequency is Memphis Minnie's I Got to Make a Change Blues. That jam's been playing a lot recently. Part of me, feeling slightly silly-superstitious, wonders if it is an omen of bigger changes upon the event horizon, and, if so, I curiously wonder what those changes will be. 

Rambles

A day of rest. Over the last few weeks, I'd maybe gotten one or two of these. Not really my fault. See, Sempai had been off California dreaming, putting his stepfather in the ground, and, at its simplest, who else was there? My efforts have been noticed, lauded, and rewarded, for which I am grateful. Besides, the blood drama he had to deal with in a family of conservatives, crazies, and religious zealots makes my trip down south to help my father put his mother in the ground all those years and lifetimes ago almost a simple game of ketchup.

Despite all that noise, it doesn't seem there's been much going on. Oh sure, a couple walkabouts, trips to the local watering hole, Sabina and I even slummed the biggest town in the county, in what is basically the foothills, to get Cajun and play some pinball. Almost a date. Still, it's been almost like downtime, although, I am never one to complain about life being quiet. Whilst I enjoy my adventures, the dramatic side, which can sometimes rear its ugly head despite my best efforts, is something that can make me rather difficult to get along with.

It has been soggy. A lot of nice mornings and then rain in the afternoon. Sometimes rain all day. Snow above ten-thousand. Although, it has fallen a bit lower a few times. The snowpack for our river drainage is back above average, and there's flooding in flat places. Sabina's most recent radio show had a water theme to it in observance of it all. Part of me feels the burnout; wanting shorts and sandals after seeing hummingbirds and blooms. Another aspect grimly accepts this weather pattern knowing I cannot do anything about it other than make the best of it.

No bad weather, just the wrong gear...

Recently, I did draw something of a line in the sand, if only in my own mind. My sister had invited me down for my nephew's birthday. Because of obligations, I really couldn't, but I found myself feeling a little irate. It's been five years since either of my siblings have been to my house. Back when we scattered my mother's ashes up outside of the ruins of Waldorf. It's been two for my father. For some of my friends and acquaintances down below, of whom I wouldn't mind having over, it's been longer. Like since I left the fucking city.

Sometimes I get asked to come down. I him and haw. There's the fuel and my growing hatred of crowds. The fact it's becoming increasingly hard to see at night whilst driving and I don't stay up until the small hours anymore. Rationalizations, perhaps. However, and, what caused the above mentioned ire, was remembering how my father will say the road goes both ways and I find myself sick to death with those both ways being me going down and coming back up.

Point? Final statement on the matter? It's y'all's fucking turn. You want to see me? You come up the hill.

Last night, I was going through some older stuff, and came across this;

"I have this urge to pack up my belongs and move to Africa, or, maybe Tibet, disappear into the wilds, and grow a beard..."

That was right after my grandmother died. I could Conformationally Biasly say it was where the trouble started, or an aspect of it. That wanting to ramble, but we all know better. Although, it got me to think, and thinking is good.

There was a comment from the bruja, which gave me a chuckle. I should have stopped there, but it was late at night, when the demons come for tea, and I was having a whiskey to note I had no obligations for the next two days. I found the last correspondence between us; me offering sympathy and an ear right before her grandmother died. It was the day before the rollover that would take my beautiful friend's life, some ten months after I'd lost my mother.

The gypsy recently told me she believed the bruja was wearing her seatbelt when she was ejected from the vehicle, but the force of impact was enough to do what it did. Such a postulation can help assuage five years worth of slow-burning anger over the circumstance, but it doesn't change facts; dead is dead, and you do not always get to walk away from that. My friend certainly didn't, of which I am so vividly aware. I stared at the correspondence for a long time.

So it goes...

It is a day of rest. I mean to wander the Notch down-valley. Maybe take myself out for a salmon burger. Just because. Walk back up the canyon along the train tracks. Shrimp curry for supper. Tomorrow I do a museum committee thing of being at reception for the train workers, but that's more of cookout than any kind of obligation. I feel myself recharging as these words flow from my fingers. Summer's almost here and the snow on the high peaks is striking as always. I itch to get further into the Backcountry and up upon the alpine, but I know that's bit off. Sooner than I think, but later than I hope.

So it goes...

Owning Up

I have been known to say with a degree of flippancy, routines are for squares, sighting the banality of such a thing. There are times I will own up and say my hypocrisy knows no bounds, if, for no other case, than at least it's funny. Case in point; after waking and getting myself presentable, as it were, I fed Milarepa and started my tea water. Checked the stove for pellets and recorded the morning low. Let the dog out, answering that age-old metaphysical question, and lit some incense whilst I got my pack ready for my day's walkabout. Activities very indicative of a free-day morning. Despite my appreciation of chaos, I too, have a routine.

This is owning up...

Not too long ago, Sabina was asking me about her outfit. I told her she looked luscious as usual, and glibly asked about my look. When she said mountain, I found myself a little insulted. I abhorrer stereotypes, finding them boring. To be pigeon-holed in such a way was a bit of a metaphoric backfist.

See, I thought about it; the curse of self-awareness and a mind that never shuts off. I have longish-okay, long-hair. There's the beard. My raiment most of the time is of someone either leaving for or returning from a multi-day, multi-mile backbacking trip. I drive a Subaru. Nay, I drive an older Subaru with some mechanical...eccentricities...that's all but smothered in bumper stickers.

Mountain. Sometimes, you just gotta own up. I just hope that doesn't make me boring.

The last parting shot the jewel-eyed girl said to me in those moments of Machiavelli when the break-up got good and ugly was she'd rather stay home and sleep or watch Cartoon Network than hang out with me anyway. I was boring. It was a terrible thing to say, the kind of barb spoken in the tongues of pure hate one uses when they are absolutely not getting their way and really want to wound.

I did not rise to her bait. During that period after the glass broke, right before my birthday, and mid-October of that year, she tried that sort of thing a lot. Hateful asides whispered from dark corners, trying to get a reaction. I didn't feed that dragon, but endeavored to rise above. There were a couple of reasons I was still in places she could encounter me during that period, perhaps the most poignant was to show to her and her harpy of a sister, whom was much more Machiavelli at times, that she didn't break me.

However, I was bothered by being called boring. I can own up. Certainly, I found myself being entertained, but perhaps I had sank into stagnation and not realized it. I remember speaking with Jezebel on the subject.

"I've know you since you were nineteen, and, one thing I definitely know about you is you hate to be bored," Jezebel said. "It's almost like you're afraid it. If I really wanted to hurt your feelings, I do just as she did; call you boring to see if you'd wince."

Ergo, I found myself having to own up. Jezebel would go on to tell me she was proud that I didn't rise to jewel-eyed girl's bait and that I was still one of the most entertaining cats she's ever known. Sometimes, late at night, when the demons come for tea, I wonder if she was just saying that as a balm for my verbal shock. Other times, I remember it when I worry I am slipping into mundanity.

So, I own up; I have a routine. I am mountain, although, Sabina digs the term mountain bohemian, but that probably has to do with the artifacts and funk-because you gotta have the funk!-about the house and property. I loath being bored, even for perceived nanosecond.

My hypocrisy knows no bounds...

There are those I know who want to hear stories of my adventures. What meals I've cooked recently or what books I've read and my thoughts upon them. Maybe I am entertaining. Perhaps, when it comes down to brass tacks and bedposts, it only matters that own up to what I am and do not find myself banal because of it.

The Student, The Master, The Changes of Roles, and The Degrees of Cool

Thanksgiving, 1994; I had been twenty-two for two months and change. My daughter had been alive for a week. I only had one piercing, no tattoos, and had yet to sprout a gray hair...

For those just tuning in, I was not always the hoopy frood you know now. Very far from it. I was a rather awkward youth. Part of it was being an aberration; being too tall, too skinny, with eyes too big for the rest of my face. Another aspect was the bullying, which nurtured my solitary nature.

There were times I wanted to be someone-anyone-else so badly it physically hurt. Perhaps that is why I despise the concept of a persona so much now is during those ugly, painful, awkward years, I more than once tried to be something I wasn't. More than once, the results were disastrous. I have the metaphysical scars to prove it.

Once, when speaking of someone I admired to the point of idolization with my x-wife, I mentioned hoping to one day achieve their level of cool. My x-wife, the rebelling good Catholic girl who ended up with me to piss off her parents-to this day, I'd speculate-suggested instead of trying to aspire to someone else's level of coolness, perhaps I should aspire to my own. It was a backfist of perspective, which helped me ditch the idea of trying to be something I wasn't. Years later, I knew a cat who would speak of the importance of living one's own myth. Sometimes I wonder if his advice and my x-wife's are interconnected in queer way I've yet to fully understand.

When I first met Job, I thought he was so cool you could store cuts of meat inside him for a month. He was the master, and I, the eager student. We'd hang out at coffee and I'd devour his insights. His advice when I had a problem was invaluable. He was my guru. Me saying I was going to talk to Job was like the monks of old going to speak to the head of the order.

I think it was perhaps six months back I first noticed my conversations with Job had changed, and that was beyond the fact of his becoming born again. Certainly, we had, and still do, stimulating dialogues, but suddenly, I wasn't the one seeking advice. I was not the one thanking my friend for the insights.

We've known each other for twenty-one years and change now. He might be eleven years my senior, but I am no longer so wet behind the ears. Even back in the day, he appreciated what I had to say. Nowadays, it seems he treasures it even more.

I find myself queerly shocked...

During one of our conversations, he told me how he always looked forward to hanging out for my perspectives, because apparently not everyone sees things as I do. This is a good thing in my mind, because the world would be a really fucking boring place if that were the case. From his perspective, my passion was something he saw as a fire that burned hotter than a star, and like Hendrix, he wanted to stand next to it. He told me some of his acquaintances now think I'm his imaginary friend, because a cat like me shouldn't/couldn't exist. That many of those times I was going to his for insight and advice, he was taking from my perspective ways to, as he likes to put it, build a better mousetrap.

"I've always wanted to be Robbie Grey when I grew up," Job told me recently. I told him he gives me far too much credit.

I find myself wrestling with this. When did the student become the master? How did I ever get so cool as to win the borderline idolization of one of the coolest cats I've ever known? To me, this is shocking.

The man doesn't even drink, for fuck's sake, so I can't dismiss it so easily...

At one point, in recent years, I realized I truly do have back in the day stories. I know I've gotten where I have along this Tao of Chaos through a sense tenacity and perhaps a little-a lot?-of strange luck. Yet, when I talk to Job, I go into the conversation feeling like that wide-eyed whelp from years back. Nowadays, he talks to me as his guru and I don't know how to approach the subject.

Perhaps someone might say I've come into my own. It seems, were you to ask Job, I did that a very long time ago. Me, trying to work out this change in our metaphoric roles, thinks it's just a step along the way. Which one of us is right is purely conjecture.

January twenty-seventh, 2015. I've been forty-two for almost five months and my daughter is twenty. I have more piercings and tattoos. My hair's as thick and wavy as ever, although, there's a rather interesting blaze of gray along the right side. Just a few of the things that have changed...

The Beach Weather of Indian Summer

Sabina's sunflowers are hanging in there, despite the fact we kissed freezing-with tongue-the other morning. And I name thee Defiance...

One last columbine hanging on...

The other day, I drove down-valley-two- thousand vertical-to our community garden plot amongst rumors of weather and visions of pesto pizza. Although, it had been breezy up along the upper western valley as it meets up with the Roof of the World, the sun was shinning and there were very few clouds. I would later document the high temperature of the day at sixty-eight.

As I drove east, the clouds increased. Within the span of fifteen miles, I had gone from sunny to murky. From the sixties to the forties. I put on my soft shell over my t-shirt and zipped up against the damp chill to harvest my basil, purple bell peppers, and tomatoes. Later that night, I donned a sweater. On the drive up, I noted how the murk followed me, causing me to remark later that the dragons chased me up the valley.

Job, for all our differences in theology, will sometimes tell me he lives to hear of the world as seen through my eyes...

It was not without a bit of a chuckle that I heard the first snowfall happened down below and we did not receive a flake-unless you speak in context of some of the snowbums that inhabit the area. Oh, the schadenfredude. Whilst it was cool the day after weather moved in, the sky was clear and the sun was warm.

"This is beach weather compared to Denver," a traveler said to me.

"It's always beach weather in the mountains," I said glibly, even if, technically, and, geologically, the last time there was an ocean in this state was seventy-some-odd-million years ago.

"Even in January?" The traveler asked me skeptically.

"Especially in January," I replied with smirk. "Just think in the context of McMurdo Station. Easy."

Hey, on equatorial Europa, our January weather would be positively 'pocalyptic in context of temperature, and meditate on that for a little bit of perspective...

My Friday's walk had a bit of bite to it, but there is no bad weather. Just the wrong clothes. I did note there are far less neighbors holding court on their porches. Another omen of the changing seasons; the summer residents returning to their winter nests. The sun now sets straight down the middle of the valley, which can be blinding when walking straight into it. Slowly, our nearest star will shift south, toward the ridge line of Pendleton. A portend of the long dark.

The planet's tilt on its axis is the reason for the season...

Succeeding days have been warmer. Meteorological prophecy has foretold of little chance of precipitation and mild temperatures. Beach weather. The possibility of grilling and chimineas without the heavy layers.

I've heard whispers of  indian summer. I just call it autumn. It's all in the perspective.

A Hymn of Thaksgiving

I am surrounded by a sense of antiquity from a bygone age so close I can still almost hear their phantasmal voices, and stark, unyielding nature. Where the landscape is juxtaposed with rock and river and wind and storm and temperature. A kingdom of dragons, where the fantastical dances upon earthy feet. Where the Divine speaks in inaudible tongues of which you just might hear if you learn to listen. This dichotomy is fantastic.

I have found my bliss and follow it relentlessly, and I encourage you to do the same...

We exist in a world where there are still dinosaurs. Although, we commonly call them birds, thus removing the majesty and mystery. Then again, if you could see a T-Rex or a stegosaurus either in the wild or within the safe confines of a zoo, their magnificence might be considered old hat.

This is time when the future is now. Once upon a time, this was the purview of sci-fi; a world of hand-held computers approaching quantum speeds and the language of an atomic cosmos revealed. We have made our first forays off this tiny island into a great black sea. The most audacious of us will launch further into this inky black void of interstellar to explore, to perhaps find a new home.

There are those who might say these are the End of Days. Hell on Earth. Certainly, there are enough horror shows to go around and then some. And yet, these are just constructs, for the Wise will tell you we are the architects of our own imprisonment. In our hands, we hold the keys to a kingdom greater than any described by the flimsy religions of Man. We need only realize that.

These are, the best of times...

Of What was Lost and Found and Other Bizarre Happenstances

Back when I first started studying and practicing Buddhism, I had occasion to meet a man in a coffeehouse who introduced me to some of the sutras. He was older than I, being mid-fifties to perhaps early sixties. During his years, he'd spent a great deal of time in Buddhist countries and spoke of having traveled the length and breadth of the fabled Silk Road.

During one of our conversations over a cup he handed me what I would later learn was a Thai Buddhist prayer stone, encased in a pendant. Years later, a man in an import shoppe would tell me how monastery monks would carve these and they'd be traded almost like baseball cards. Such a happenstance got me to think of the stories of holy relics during the dark age Europe.

At twenty-three, I took this fetish with reverent awe, which could be considered awkward from someone so full of heresies, and a respectful inclination of my head. To me it carried the wisdom of someone more learned than I in the ways of the Dharma and the scents of the fabled Silk Road. Perhaps, I was giving too much power to a thing that was, when it came down to brass tacks and bedposts, just a trinket. A fetish. So many years later, I don't think it matters.

Some ten years after I was given that fetish, when I was trying to be something other than a friend to the gypsy, I gave her that Thai Buddha. To her credit, after her curb-kicking and me saying done and over, she offered to return it to me. I declined, saying it was a gift to her. She needed a talisman so well traveled-gypsy!-more than I. Occasionally, I confess, I regret that decision because of the auspice of how I received that trinket, but it would've been uncivilized to ask for it back. I might be the worst kind of bastard with the morals of an alley cat, but I do have manners.

A few weeks ago, at a bead show in Fairplay, I came across a piece of punched brass I immediately recognized as the countenance of a Thai prayer stone. On one side is the Buddha, and, on the other, some Thai script that might read eat at Joe's for all my literacy in that tongue.

Of course I had to have it...

Since its acquisition, I have found myself subconsciously touching or looking at it. Memories of a man who claimed to have traveled the fabled Silk Road flit through the corridors within my skull. I catch myself thinking I have recovered something I lost, even if, when it comes down to brass tacks and bedposts, that is not quite the case.

***

To barrow a metaphor a friend used a few years back, it would seem summer's back is broken. I've mentioned some of the omens I've observed. The emerald of some of the aspens has faded to duller green. One meteorological oracle I consult has spoken of a cool and moist autumn. It would seem we are seeing its prelude.

Another omen of the changing seasons is one of the local history groups giving once a month talks. Usually, this is September to April or May. A way to stave of cabin fever during the cooler, darker months, perhaps. This year, it's started a month early. The magistrate, who's great-grandmother and grandmother ran a few of the boarding houses in the area during the halcyon antiquity of the mining days, found, what he called, a younger couple to give a presentation of mining boarding houses in the mountains.

The mister of this couple was easily five, if not ten, years older than me. A great many cats I'm acquainted with refer to me as young man. The baby. Of course, a great many of these cats are my father's age, if not older. I mine them for stories and they speak of when they had my energy levels. I find irony in this. Perhaps the only thing more ironic was when the magistrate, whom is possessed to a warm and jovial manner and, it has been joked, would befriend a rock, told me recently that, whilst he considers himself a patient man, he thinks I perhaps have him beat.

Then again, I am in possession of formidable patience of which saints and monks prey for and upon...

***

Although, I've often thought of Job as my guru, it seems our recent conversations have not involved him breaking down cosmic wisdom. It seems I've been trying to encourage him to pick himself up by his bootstraps more. What a friend does.

"Well, my young friend, thank you, as always, for the scintillating conversation," he said as we concluded our most recent chat. "You've given me so much to think about."

Curious. Time was I'd go to Job for advice. For insight and a differing perspective. That after our conversations over many, many, many cups of coffee, I'd have a skull full of new information of which to process and apply. We've know each other almost twenty-one years now. One of my oldest and dearest friends. It would appear that within the course of almost twenty-one years, the tables have turned.

Funny old world...

Roads

Sabina found the perfect place to picnic on the shores the reservoir with musics of rushing water and the cries of ospreys for the backbeat. Fantastic. We had summer sausage, cheeses, crackers. bread, chocolate, and a old vine tempranillo. The landscape we had driven across reminded us of what a fantastic place we had come to call home. We discussed alternate routes to get to the Great Stupa for our yearly pilgrimage, which would involve not leaving the mountains at all.

"Bet when you gave me that paper wasp's nest you didn't think it'd play out like this," I said as we toasted. "Such a sweet thing."

"Sweeter than the acorn?" Sabina asked me and I nodded. She smiled her I-love-you smile. "I guess I had you at wasp's nest."

"If you had gotten me a tarantula, I might've swooned," I said.

Sabina, because she's a girl, shuddered. I've never gotten the fear of spiders given any human is hundreds of times bigger than any arachnid and their blood has no coagulants. Of course, my irrational animal fear is sharks, made even more irrational by the fact I live very far from any ocean. Any time someone chides me for that but shudders at the mention of how I once kept spiders, I chuckle at the absurdity. I also fondly remember how my daughter asked me for a tarantula for her sixth birthday.

Excuse me...there's some dust in the room...no! It's nothing! I'm fine!

Stop laughing...

Job called me from the desert that night to let me know he made it. I told him his new role as caregiver to the blind parents of a friend was a good thing. He was once a constable and even did security work. It seemed hardwired into him to serve and protect. Although we spoke of keeping in touch, the conversation had shades of goodbye, which depressed me, because, in my personal construct, goodbye means over and done with for forever and ever, amen. Because we've sometimes gone for long periods without talking, another part of me warns myself not to panic.

I have been meditating upon the concept of burnt bridges. Both unintentional and otherwise. Job's phone call somehow got me to remembering back to when we buried my father's mother. I'd not set foot in North Carolina in sixteen years at that time and hadn't felt bad about it, but it'd been over a year since I'd seen my father. Sure, we'd spoken on the phone once or twice, but not physically been in one another's presence for the time it takes the world to truck around the sun.

"You need to stop worrying about it, boy," my father said in his rich Carolina accent. "The road goes both ways."

That said, that remembered, was a nice little metaphoric backfist. A reminder that losing touch with some of the cats from high school I may have once considered friends, university chums, or even friends from my ten years in the metroplex, is not the end of the world-actually, the end of the world is the eastern border of our Sahel as far as I'm concerned and here be dragons. John and Paul-the Beatles, not the biblical prophets-may have summed it up best;

"Ob-la dee,
Ob-la da,
Life goes on...well,
Na-na-na
life goes on..."

It's queer, but I've gotten funny looks and eye-rolls when I mention that bit of wisdom...

I do find it interesting the roads we've all taken. Sabina and I on the path of pine needles and smoothed river stones with our grand mountain adventure, Job with his sojourn into the deserts. Sabina's friend will be here in a day, his road down out Montana, to hopefully dance with the wolves. There is something to be said for the metaphor of the road going on forever, because, as far as I'm concerned, the day you reach the end it is the day it's lights out.

I can't speak for ya'll, even if I knew the language, but I'm far too busy for that...      

A Clichéd Lesson

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a common place thing, but burn burn burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."-Jack Kerouac

I have spoken before of the magic and madness, which is March. Sometimes, I feel it more than others. At times, whether through my own recollections or something from previous times being brought up, I find myself either smiling, perhaps bittersweetly, or being tired, emotional, and really wanting to eviscerate someone...with a spork. Depends on the day, the year, the hour. So it goes.

The last week has been a whirlwind of activities. My daughter was up for spring break and there was an extra bout of obligations. There was the historical society meeting and a daytrip of quietly shifting landscapes. We saw a bald eagle that day. At least I think we did. See, it was combing its feathers all to one side and shooting lascivious glances at other birds that were really not its type. It was really kind of vulgar. Coming up, a presentation on the Santiago Mill and the Cabin Fever Dance, which I always help do the clean up for, but at least there'll be whiskey and perhaps even rum.

I told Job I'd felt busier than a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest or a three peckered goat, depending on the cliché. Job is very found of clichés, stating they contain great cosmic truths therein. It took me a few years to spot on to what he meant. Over the years and lifetimes, I have had the pleasure to know many extraordinary people. Job is one of them, even if he thinks I give him too much credit.

We spoke of our lives as they moved apace; his perdition and my paradise. When I told him about feeling busy and a little tired, he reminded me to revel in it, enjoy being young, because, to his mind, I'm probably still in my roaring twenties. We spoke of living the passions and dreams. I have often felt that I have always been on a sort of path, be it concept of Kashmir, getting published, or just living like it's one big adventure. Something I've sometimes referred to as a Tao of Chaos. Job also believes he has been privileged to know some passionate extraordinary individuals. He says I am one of them and I tell him he gives me far too much credit.

"It's trite," he said, so I knew a well-worn phrase was next. "But once my minister told me if you have one foot in the past and the other in future, you're pissing on the present and the present is a gift."

Funny, I'd been wrestling with the urge to eviscerate over some memories from a March so very long ago now. That little cliché reminded me of where it was; the past. There was nothing I could do about it now and I have little time for regret. I'm far too busy reveling in the moment, that trite gift my friend pointed out, to feed the dragon.    

Our conversation did not last long after that. As always, we promised to speak again. Maybe even see one another. Although, his condition and circumstance makes a visit to the mountains difficult and my reasons for going down below diminish by the day-I'm sorry, you're sorry. So it goes.

"You take care of yourself and we'll talk to you," he said, hanging up.

"Of course, mon ami, and thank you," perhaps one day, if he asks, I tell him what I meant, but maybe, I don't need to.

Weatherly Perspective

When the national news is not talking about that crazy scene in DC-it's just a power-mad town-or someone rich and important doing something scandalous, word has been about the weather. Great maelstroms. Droughts. The midwest is apparently in the grips of another ice age.

Good thing nothing's wrong with the planet. That and there's no need for 'Merica to get involved with the Kyoto Protocol. Oh, and the rich people shouldn't be taxed, because, you know, they're going to save the rest of us cattle.

Wow...for a second there I almost got political...

There's the story of Atlanta being paralyzed by two and half inches of snow. Of course it was. It's the fucking south. My family lived in that region for three and a half unfortunate years when I was an adolescent. During our first winter, it snowed, once!, three muthafuckinginches no less, and the region we were in was paralyzed for a week. My mother made fun of the same people who called her, my brother, sister, and I yankees as she got around in the wintry wonderland without hindrance.

Yeh, calling us yankees...didn't they win that fucking war? Oh, and by the way, Colorado wasn't even a fucking state back when that war happened!

Sempai lived in Atlanta twenty years prior to coming to our Sahel. He remarks he had a better time of living in Appalachia than I did, and he's married, to a man. I surmise this was his urban verses my rural.

It's funny, as the sun sets, the sky clears from a two and a half day storm, I estimate a foot and a half to two feet of fresh snow. There was obligations and getting wood pellets for our stove. Shoveling and higher boots. You could hear the avalanches roaring not too far away. Travelers were terrified, transporters annoyed, and the locos got by. So it goes.

Sempai wishes the media would lay off Atlanta. It's the south, this shit happens maybe once every twenty years. I am sympathetic. Although my life in the Confederacy was not nearly as decent as his, I've seen how winter weather we don't even really blink at knocks the slats out from under those folks.

Of course, I remember southern heat and humidity vividly. Here at ninety-one sixty, we get above seventy-five quaint 'Merican degrees and it's a heatwave. One-hundred on the fahrenheit scale with as much humidity? We'd have old-timers dropping in all directions from heatstroke. Down there, they fan themselves, turn on the air conditioner along with the NASCAR, and sip something cool, which may or may not be laced with liberal amounts of alcohol. We start a fire and throw on an extra layer when it gets below forty.

Perspective is the buzzword of the day...

Our big winter storm made the metroplex news. Just enough to scare the flatlanders to not come up for a day, but to get the urban snowbums to touch themselves in their no-no places with glee as they ran for the hill-powder's gonna be good! A quick glance at the the national speaks that the novelty of Atlanta's recent weather 'pocalypse has gone and worn off. That's okay. Weather changes, as does what the hot news item is. Funny that.

Outside, the skies clear. It'll probably get rather frigid overnight. Come Sunday, I'll be off snowshoeing in the recent snow, and I can hardly wait for Tuesday, for more snow might come. Hopefully, the avi danger won't be so high. Half a world away, in Atlanta, the snow and ice will have disappeared into the stuff of apocrypha, fantasy, and/or nightmare, and that's okay. Different worlds, different landscapes, different weather. So it goes.         

Job

We first met in a diner. I was using a set of Chinese medicine balls as stage-prop in what could be considered a lewd joke. You came back with one better. We spent the first half of the evening trading dirty jokes. I might have blushed once or twice whilst giggling guiltily, had all the capillaries in my face not been damaged by the ugly incident in Calcutta when I went toe-to-toe with that militant faction of Up with People, but that's another story.

I was twenty-one. A young, impressionable, philosophy and theology student who was probably far too impressed with my own intelligence. I kept talking about writing a book. Being published someday was my rockstar fantasy back then.

You were eleven years my senior. Already, you had worked a molybdenum mine outside of Leadville and been involved in the constabulary. You had a vocabulary that made my other philosopher friend seem like a monosyllabic hick. When I told you I was starting to dig on far eastern philosophy, you implored me to check out Sun Tzu.

Some of the others may not have liked you as much as I did. Thinking back, you might be right about that. No subject was taboo to you. At all. You stood your ground in a dialogue and refused to mollycoddle. It could be that made some others, weaker in their constitutions and convictions, uncomfortable. Perhaps it was that shocking, violent honesty that fascinated me. Maybe it was because you were willing to hang out with me until night became another day whilst we drank coffee and discussed the whichnesses and wherefores.

You taught me the concept of the alligator mouth and the hummingbird ass. Something both of us still have a problem with-although, I like to say I have come to a place of acceptance and the rest of the world needs to catch up. During those dark days of my divorce, you offered unflinching advice, much like you did the time I quired you about a restraining order against an x-girlfriend. Some of what you said hurt my feelings, but I desperately needed to hear it anyway. I was perhaps the second person in the whole of creation you told you were going to marry your second x-wife the night you met her.

Over the years and lifetimes we've known each other, I've called you one of my gurus. A guru, after all, aids one in finding enlightenment. Whilst I'll not be pretentious and say enlightenment is something I'm even close to achieving, you have helped me pull away some of the cobwebs of ignorance.

When you told me you were born again, I flippantly wanted to ask what was wrong with the first time. You may have laughed. You might have entreated me to go fuck myself. Either response would've been appropriate. I did tell you I am pretty happy with my beliefs and we'd just have to agree to disagree.

"Robbie Grey, I didn't call you to convert you," you said. "I called because you're my friend and I wanted to talk to you."

Just like that, everything was zen...

And the shit you've been through in the last few years; divorce, bad health, loss of home, hearth, and income, you describe as your living perdition. Meanwhile, I am so very happy in my existence here in paradise. The dichotomy is enough to get me to believe that blasphemous rumor that god has a sick sense of humor. That, the Problem of Evil, is why I cannot even pretend to believe in an anthropomorphic deity that even remotely cares. Yet, to your credit, you've kept your faith.

And I name thee Job...

So, naturally, when you phone me up sounding all but broken beneath the blade, I catch myself worrying. Not that you'll go and do something utterly stupid and rash; I do believe you that you'll not go quietly. I worry that the man I've spent the last nearly twenty years admiring for calling it as it's seen and going where the angels fear tread for a laugh and intellectual curiosity, is considering bearing his jugular.

I understand; it's been a long time in this downward spiral. Kafka, Milton, and Dante would cross their legs and blush. But I've heard your stories, Sir. Those ones from further back. Back from before that night in a diner with a set of Chinese medicine balls and a volley of crass humor. You've gone toe-to-toe with worse infernals than this and they were the ones who limped away with scars.

There was that night during the bardo after my x-wife left and when my divorce became official. I was scribbling manic poetry to a soundtrack of Nine Inch Nails. Words fail in describing the psychic devastation and Shakespearian betrayal of it all. It, to this day, was one time in my life that I was closest to being heartbroken, which is queer, given my heart has no bones. You sat down with me and told me how sick to death you were with my wallowing.

"The fact you have fallen is interesting," you said in a steady, yet harsh voice. "The time you remain down is important."
 
Job, my guru...mon ami, you have fallen, and ain't that about interesting?

How long will you remain down?

April Showers...Or, Winter's Encore

The last storm was not without its comedy; it was supposed to be more of a northern event with just a few inches here in our Sahel. By the time I got home from obligations, Sabina had measured eighteen inches in the yard and it was still coming down. I could not help but chuckle how winter waited for April to give us a proper storm. How the one storm I'd have been drinking that coveted last bit of Nepali black tea I had to explain to travelers-muthafuckinrepeatedly!-why most of the mountain passes were closed.

Without irony, my life would be boring, and, quite wrinkled...

A day later, the sun's out and it's warmer. The High Country in spring. As I dug the vehicles out-two feet of snow? We've got shit to do-I would hear the wumps! and roars of avalanches, which precludes any Backcountry travel without a beacon, probes, and a will. So it goes. I'll just do a running of the Bull's Head.

Meteorological prophecy foretells of chances of snow through at least Thursday. The last prophecy was for three to five inches, not eighteen, so we'll see. We all know my views on prophets and oracles. Be that as it may, I remember something matron once said to a tourist;

"Up here, we don't put away our winter coats. We just move them to a different part of the closet."

True words, and a mantra, which also reminds me to keep my snowshoes handy... 

A Mud Day Beyond the End of the World

The day began warm and mild. I was quite comfortable with my down vest over a rugby shirt. I started off with making breakfast burritos, coffee, and some cleaning/grooming projects. Being a nice day in early mud, I felt the urge to do some tidying.

It's been a bit since the hounds had been subjected to a decent brushing. With Chevy and Whistler, being the former champion show dogs, this was not nearly as traumatic; just assume the position and it'll all be over sooner than later. Milarepa, on the other hand, being the youngest, and, having never been to a dog show, was a bit more spazzy, though she enjoyed the attention. Amusingly enough, she was in the least need of brushing, even if what came from all three was the equivalent of a pack of chihuahuas.

After that was a spot of vacuuming. Between three dogs, three cats, six ferrets, and two long-haired hominids, this can be interesting. Even and especially when one has been slothful about it. The penance price of this was another couple drop-kick dogs worth of hair along with the other detritus, but the Persian rug in the parlor looked fabulous.

It would not be a Tuesday without me at the very least contemplating a walkabout. Because there were a few other things I meant to accomplish during the day, I just opted for the milk run of the Bull's Head. Certainly, doing just the trail and no side excursions deeper into the bush, I'd not even need a pack. Some have told me of jogging that trail, though, with the grade, I'd think it'd be torture.

I did not even climb to the top of the rock formation, from which the trail takes its name. The soles of my boots were wet with what little snow there was, and the route I like to take up these days-when I don't take a hound with me-requires a bit of bouldering. I did make a promise to myself and that bouldering route we'd be having a date within the month. Then I cut down from the ruins of the Diamond Mine to the 730 and across to ruins of the Ashby Tunnel and the eastern edge of town.

The Road was closed because of mitigation-tis the season. I sat upon a rock, watching my tiny world go by and noting the excellent zen silence of the road being closed for a bit. As I sat, half-meditating upon the serenity of my place in the world, I came to a bit of a resolution; every Tuesday, even if I don't go on a proper walkabout, I'll at least do the Bull's Head, as to keep my lithe-a polite way of saying emaciated-figure and my trekking wits about me.

Traffic started moving again, as did I. There was the necessary evil of a trash run and a social call to my friend at the winery. I also wanted to swing by the library to start acquiring seasons of Northern Exposure for Sabina to watch. She's never seen it-imagine!-and, others within our Sahel refer to our funky little township as Colorado's version of that show. I find this to be a moral imperative, even if I do have the morals of an alley cat.

I can give Sabina shit for not having seen Northern Exposure or even Office Space-the corporate America survival guide, and we both did our penance in that perdition once upon a time-but I do get the backfists of perspective. My friend at the winery was going on about a show called Big Bang Theory and how it makes her laugh. I may have heard of this, but it's been many, many years since I've owned a television set, even then just for news, films, documentaries, and PBS. Pretty much what I do on the 'puter nowadays. A few years back, my daughter and my siblings gave up on asking me if I'd seen such-and-such show or commercial. The fact get excited about streaming a new episode of Nature or Nova doesn't surprise them. My daughter mocks me when I threaten to punish her for something like defying me and dating.

"What are you going to do, Dad? Tell me I'm grounded from TV when I visit you?"

Insolent whelp. She gets this from her mother, you realize. I'd never be that way.

Stop laughing...

By the time I got back to the House of Owls and Bats, thin cobweb clouds had begun to cover the sky. A harbinger; meteorological prophecy foretells of weather moving in, though it's to most cut south before doing an upslope upon the badlands of eastern Colorado. With the delightful feel to the air, one could be forgiven for questioning a storm of any kind being on its way. The way the weather's been period, comma, and explanation point, questioning weather other than dry is forgivable.

I sat back with some tea! earl grey! hot!-thank you for leaving that psychic auditory tattoo, Patrick Steward, you pigfucker-and some bluegrass on the radio. Potentially, there's a documentary from both! Nature and Nova I can stream. There's the historical society meeting if we board members can rustle up a quorum. Perhaps some jambalaya and sautéed greens for supper. The world is my metaphoric oyster, despite being many miles in distance and elevation from any of the world's oceans. As I relax, thinking of my wonderful mud day, the Talking Heads sing within the walls of my skull;

"Home-
is where I want to be,
but I guess I'm already there..."

So it goes... 

Conspiracies on Lovely Days

It really was a lovely day; clear and mild, the temperatures heading over forty quaint 'merican degrees on the fahrenheit scale with only the slightest of breezes. People were pleasant to one another. There were laughs and well-wishes and stories. The realization that slowly there'd be more light on the days following was enough to illicit a smile of wicked joy. It was beautiful. Perfect. Well, as perfect as it could get without being boring.

One of my volunteers wrote a bit of snark on a white board about the end of the world being rescheduled, and my daughter made some existentialist crack-as a former philosophy/theology major, I was so very proud. Given what some thought was suppose to happen, I suppose this couldn't be helped. And I did laugh. After all, it was really fucking funny.

Back during my roaring twenties, when I hung out in diners and coffeehouses, reading far, far eastern philosophy and getting entirely too impressed with my own intelligence, I had occasion to share my company with a few conspiracy theorists. At, first, it was interesting, but the novelty wore off. Quickly. Like religious zealots, there's no reasoning with that ilk, no matter how irrefutable the facts. A younger and more impetuous me did try once or thrice.

Be that as it may, on such a lovely day, I found myself remembering a few of those cats and something my father likes to say sprung to mind;

"Who's stupid?" 

Shift

It's getting to be that time of year when there's a certain sense of change in the air. A shift, which is almost imperceptible. Suddenly, the chill does not carry the same bite as deep winter. The light cast by the sun does not seem quite as harsh.

Back when I lived down below, I would wax euphoric at the realization that spring was just around the corner, and started looking for the seasonal omens to validate my belief. I used to think I could predict the way a season would be with a fair amount of accuracy, and maybe I could in that particular environment. Perhaps I was just too impressed with my intelligence, and, generally, when that happens, I tend to get a backfist of perspective, which I sometimes actively seek out.

Up here, I am more mindful of the chaotic weather patterns as the jetstream serpent slithers along the high peaks. The idea of making a prediction is almost as absurd as believing a politician's promise. I know, despite the chronological location of the vernal equinox, spring, in the flatland perception, for us is at least another month off. Maybe more, but that's just the way of it.

It has not been a bad winter in terms of cold, wind, or severe storms. In some ways, it's seemed almost like an extended late autumn interspersed with bits of early winter for spice. It's been a horrible winter in terms of snow. This late in the season, ski resorts are finally getting decent bases on their runs, but snowshoers complain the conditions are less than satisfactory out on the the trails. On walkabout, I've worn my gators, but hardly needed them. There have been omens of thaw, and I sometimes wear my mudding boots when walking to check the post. Mud, being mountain for spring.

As always, when I catch that shift, I become excited. Visions of hummingbirds and long warm days and shorts and sandals and afternoon rain dance about within the walls of my skull. I think it's the auspice of change. The cliche of renewal.

I can make my guesses of how soon it will be spring, and what the season might be like, but I've learned to not be so emphatic in my predictions. Those backfists of perspective keep me from getting too impressed with my intelligence. Here and now, the statement I'll make with confidence is the shift has come, and it is no longer deep winter.

Fragile Monsters

Yes, I can admit to a bit of possible sadism; seeing Sabina's reaction, all but screaming at the sight of small spider is something I find really fucking funny. I march over and take the arachnid, turning it loose, where it can scuttle off. This isn't done to save Sabina from her irrational fear of something hundreds of times smaller than her as much as the spider, which many Homo sapiens would outright murder because of some addle-brained primal fear and zoological racism. The ultimate hate crime.

So, I watch the itsy-bitsy spider clamber away, fascinated by its movements. Something I remember from when I had tarantulas as pets. Any biped would've been more than a match for it. Size not withstanding, spiders have no coagulants in their blood; with a simple nick, they can bleed to death. Few know this. They are actually quite fragile monsters. I cannot fathom why any monkey would be scared of one.

There was something I heard once, which I think is a grand backfist of perspective; you think a spider is scary when you look at it with two eyes? Imagine what it sees when it looks at you with eight...

The Ghost Dances

I'm not quiet sure what possesses me to do it; trolling memory-boneyards for the ghosts of the past. Curiosity, perhaps. That curiosity that has either gotten me into loads of trouble or lead to, at least, some interesting adventures. It's a flip of a cosmic coin and a roll of the bones as to the outcome.

Sometimes, it just happens. The lark. The curiosity. I start with a scrap of name and begin searching. It is said curiosity can kill a cat, but if the cat has more than one life, why should it fear a single death?

The whole time, I ask myself why. Wonder what the exercise is going to accomplish. I do not like to dance with the dead. I have no desire to encounter these specters within the realms of the flesh. There are reasons these things lie burned and buried.

Perhaps it is a matter of perspective and security; finding where they are in relation to me. It helps affirm a sort of likelihood of whether or not a fleshbound encounter might ever happen. Therein lies the illusion of security. But then the harsh reality sets in; if I can find them, then, quite obviously, they might just be able to find me, and that is a humbling realization as well as a harsh backfist of perspective.