Whistler

From that walkabout back in October Whistler and I did to the ruins of the Illinois Mine, off the the 730 trail. And just last week he went on walkabout with me...

You'd never had known it, but we didn't always get along. Until four years ago, he was edgy and standoffish around me. My father would say he was my mother's dog, contrary and an overall pain in the ass. My mother would say he was my father's dog; aloof with a strong dislike of people.

"No wonder you two are such good friends!" The bruja said when I gave those descriptions, Whistler sitting companionably at my feet. Fucking woman.

After my mother died and my father decided to leave the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands of eastern Colorado, he began to get rid of all of the dogs. He'd parted with most of the kennel stock when my mother got sick, sick. Whistler and Chevy, the Grumpy Old Men, retired from their showing and herding days, were now the house dogs. The place my father was moving to did not allow dogs, and it fell to me to take them.

"I may be your way to life," I snarled at Whistler in a moment of jungle rules during that chaotic time of my father's move. "Show me some fucking respect!"

Chevy was brought up to the house first, then Whistler. He was still standoffish toward me until he saw Chevy, his three month younger half-brother, again. The way Whistler ran to him, it was like one of those syrupy bitch films where the couple crosses a beach to fall into one another's arms.

After that, we were as thick as thieves. Whistler, having some separation anxiety what with my parents leaving him in one form or fashion, was my canid shadow. Only the slow march of years would limit just how far he could follow me.

***

At first, it presented like IVS, the uneasy movements and the head-tilt. With that condition, you hide and wait for three days to see if the dog gets better. As the days passed, his condition worsened. Suddenly, his back legs stopped working. I wondered if it wasn't tick paralysis, but there were no ticks on him. Then, he turned down food.

It doesn't take a physic or someone who has been involved in the medical field to know what that meant...

The vet figured his something went wrong within his spine. That he'd been actively dying the last few days and it would be abject cruelty to keep him alive through the weekend. Whistler's mind was fully intact, but not his body. Were I to antropomorphise, one of the last looks he gave me was as if to say the number was up and it was time to say goodbye.

"Oh child of the noble family, Twist, listen, and be without distraction; you are about to enter the bardo. You may choose to be reborn, or you can choose to attain the ultimate liberation of enlightenment," was the Tibetan death prayer I whispered in his ear after he was give the hospice dose. "Om mani padme hum."

I used to figure when the time came, I'd have Whistler cremated and scattered his ashes across the many trails he walked with me. The time has come and Sabina and my daughter helped me bury him out back. I took his collar and a lock of fur and will leave them somewhere along the Bull's Head. That was last trail we walked together.

Because of his arthritis, I always figured Chevy would go first, not Whistler, who was so much more active. Chevy, arthritic and oblivious, lays at my feet. I wonder if he comprehends his brother is gone. My mother had Chevy trained as a therapy dog once upon a time. I wonder if he knows how therapeutic his presence at my feet is here and now.



Roger Clyne wrote this after scattering the ashes of his best friend...

The Realization of Vision

I still remember the dream as though I just had it; we were in a house out on the badlands of eastern Colorado. The place bore a striking resemblance to my parents' farmstead out on Road Twenty-One, the one my father said could house myself, my brother, sister, daughter, mother, grandmother, and him and we'd never be tripping over one another. Despite its location in such a flat expanse of khaki, craft fairs, ranchers, and tractor pulls I always kind of dug that house if for no other reason than that kitchen.

You were standing in the great room, looking out a window, dressed in a simple black skirt, boots, and your Mansfields t-shirt. I did not have to announce my presence, you turned as I walked up. There was thin smile on your lips and a sparkle in your big doe eyes, which shine like abalone shells.

"You want to go out tonight?" I asked, meaning one of the juke joints we would frequent back in those down below past lives. "Reckon the whole Hee-Haw Gang will be there."

"I don't know," you replied. "Let me think about it."

"Okay," I said. "I'll go make dinner. Vindaloo?"

"Sounds lovely," you said, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

The day of that dream, I'd come across a loft in the historical district, where I lived in the greater metroplex, that was for sale. You and your x were looking for a weekend place, closer to the monoliths of downtown, to crash when out gallivanting. Funny. Back then I figured a weekend place was away from the borders of a city, but I was younger and impetuous.

You were over in Grand Junction, helping your parents pack up to make the transition to full-time Arizona residents. I was thanked for my armature efforts at reality and told of a photograph of you in a sombrero. When I saw it later, I almost laughed myself sick. On your way home that night, you swung by my place to give me a paper wasp's nest because you said it made you think of me.

I never told you, but that was one of the sweetest gifts I ever got from a girl. I didn't mention the dream I'd had with you. At the time, it would've been awkward, at best, and wrong action, at worst.

Although, I did eventually tell you about that dream. It was that night you got me drunk. Yes, you. I wanted to drink lemonade and read the bible. I wanted to walk with the lord. You weren't having that, oh no. You kept pouring wine down my throat, and what was I supposed to do? There are children-children!-who go to bed sober in India. I had to think of the children.

Don't look at me like that...

That was the night I tried to warn you about me. Oh, sure, we were fine friends, but anything else could be a bad scene. I am, at best, misanthropic, and you've always been far too extroverted for that. There are those who would say-quite baselessly, I might add-that I'm paradoxical. A girl of your regal bearing didn't need to be getting beyond platonic with a quirky bastard such as I.

Not that you listened, oh no. Instead, you took advantage of me. Yes, you. I tried to end the evening with me discreetly going to bed. To sleep. You were there, naked, jabbing your tongue down my throat, and what was I supposed to do?

I said don't look at me like that...

There have been times when I've questioned the sanctity of my dreams. That one about me and you in that badlands house. There were those dreams I had during my roaring twenties with the Buddhist motif, which I postulated to a street preacher were not unlike what the apostle formerly known as Saul, who changed his name to Paul, went through on the road to Damascus. I would dream of nowhere never-nevers with interesting geographies that operated in a wholly different manner than what some might call the real world. There are thousands of little omens over the years and lifetimes I've never mentioned to anyone.

Although, I should've known with you that night I saw you in the gin joint in the cowboy hat, but that's another story. Then again, I've never claimed to be psychic. The cats I've encountered who say that they are most assuredly are not.

And perhaps it's that; the questioning. It is not within my nature to take things without question and on blind faith. Remember, heretic. I get curious, I dissect. When it comes to finding the satisfactory answer, I can be relentless.

I wonder if those dreams and omens are nothing more than my own confirmation bias. Looking for patterns within the Tao of Chaos. False facts to fit my perception of reality.

Then I wonder how much it really matters. We are where we are now. That's not a dream. It is so spit-shiny real sometimes it borders upon surreal.

It has been quite some years since I had dream and you gave me the paper wasp's nest because it made you think of me. That house, which was based on one my parents lived in, is long gone. The badlands of eastern Colorado all but ceased to exist for me when my father moved from the Rub 'al Khali after my mother died. Much like North Carolina got buried with my father's mother. Other than memory and stories, neither of those places are truly real anymore. Dreams to be forgotten upon waking.

The house we live in is in a place you jump off the end of the world to reach-and here, there be dragons. I still make us dinner because that's what I do. I don't bother to ask you about going to those juke joints, instead about roadtrips and walkabouts.

It has nothing to do with visions, but I already know your answer...   

About the Queen and the Princess...

Back then; all hail the vampire queen!

Back during that summer, the night would almost always start the same; I'd meet Lee at the shop where he worked with a bag of take-out Chinese from across the street, sometimes getting a tattoo or a touch-up out of the deal. After he closed up, we'd go back to his place so he could change clothes. I would harass him he worried more about his appearance at the juke joint than most women and he'd remind me it had been some years since I'd known the touch of a woman, period, whereas he might've gotten laid, twice, the previous night. Once finished, we'd stuff my pockets with bottles of cheap Mexican beer and head out across the Hill to the vampire den.

It was great being twenty-nine years old in the city...

Lee knew the guy at the door and had slept with at least one of the bartenders, so we never had to worry about cover. The song Shake the Disease from Depeche Mode seemed to always be starting up as soon as we walked in, followed by either Indigo Eyes or All Night Long from Peter Murphy. I found this fantastic, or, at least, interesting, our time of arrival and the timing of the DJ's set. Lee would dart for the bar for our first round and I would light up a pensive cigarette and head into main room to assess the crowds and scope out my perches for a night of monkey watching.

That particular night, we were on a mission; five nights before, Lee had introduced me to a girl that I didn't want to strangle within the first few heartbeats of interaction. In fact, at the time, I wanted this girl to take me home and read me Nietzsche. The kicker was I did not copy down her phone number right, and was unable to get in touch with her to even ask her out for a film and an ice cream cone. If this would've happened to anyone else, I might have found it funny, but it didn't. This happened to me, and it simply would not do. I was playing odds between Lee knowing pretty well everyone in the vampire caste, the rotation of nights at the gin and juke joints, and strange luck that I might see her again. I at least wanted to apologize for not phoning, what with having been raised with manners.

Lee was talking to some vampires at the bar with two beers in his hand, and two tumblers of whiskey on a nearby table. I retrieved my beer and whiskey with an inclination of my head. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her; not the girl I was looking for, but someone who definitely had a certain bearing to her. Her two-tone hair was a combination of silvery blond and swirls of black stripes that got me to think of the coat of a zebra. A crass and vulgar man might've noticed how...flatteringly...her corset hugged her frame, but being neither crass nor vulgar, I noticed her big iridescent doe eyes, which glittered like abalone shells in the half-light. There was something rather regal about how she brought her clove cigarette to her lips.

"Hello, my pretty," I whispered to myself. "Ain't you about striking?"

It wasn't love at first sight. Nor lust. But I approached her. It'd been a few weeks since I'd had a clove and it never hurt to ask. Vampires could be fairly giving of those little Indonesian death-sticks.

"Can I get one of those?" I asked her, offering her two of my 'Merican Spirits. The gutter-punk rate of exchange; two regular fags for every one clove.

"Sure," she said. "But I don't smoke regular cigarettes."

"Thank you, Ma'am," I said, taking my newly acquired clove and lighting it. "You saved me two cigarettes for later. Kai pei."

I said something to her boyfriend, a barrel-chested man in a Motley Crue t-shirt, but he blew me off. A gothic aristocrat, a vampire snob. I was not impressed to rocket science, an opinion that never really changed over the years. In fact, only soured further as time went on. With a shrug, I ventured back into the main room to continue my fruitless search and do a spot of monkey watching.

My most vivid memory of that night, aside from the girl I bummed the clove from, was when another Peter Murphy song, I'll Fall with Your Knife, came on. The dance floor was packed and beheld simple smiles of bliss to the tune, to the heat of the night and comradery, to the moment. I'm a sucker for those moments of pure and simple humanity. It gets me to smile, to almost have hope for the species. Almost.

The world has gone around the sun ten times since that night, and I still smile longingly at the the opening notes of that Peter Murphy song...

The jewel-eyed girl had once dated Sabina's musician x, that barrel-chested bass player of a local band of some repute. At the juke joint, I could set my watch to their arguments, and yet they were one of the couples, even if it was all about facades. Being one of the popular kids, I would refer to Sabina as the vampire queen, sometimes, even to her face.

It was nearly a year and half from that first night I bummed a clove from that we really talked. It was shortly after my grandmother died, and she expressed sympathies for someone she never met and would never know, but I was still comforted. Of course, it was when we were both dancing with the dead for money that our acquaintance began to grow. We even had a death-pact at that place, but that's another story. First, it started out as a friendship with some unintentional challenges, but some indeterminable time later morphed to something else entirely, which Sabina will say is all my fault because once I innocently, wholesomely, threatened to stab her in the gallbladder.

Never mind that she's the one who started it...

I had mentioned to her working up the escape velocity to leave the vampire caste, or at least go on sabbatical. Sabina encouraged this under the auspice of Jibril having died, moving on to something new, and whisper games of Machiavellian drama some of our x's would play. Up in the mountains, in a stretch of landscape we came to know as our Kashmir, nestled within our own Sahel, when I mentioned wanting to move there, she was right there with me, being as tenacious about putting the greater metroplex behind us, and starting a new life.

Once, before much of anything happened between us, I dreamt of the two of us living out in the badlands, a place that looked a lot like my parents' house, in fact. In the dream, I asked her if she wanted to go to the juke joint and she said she'd think about it. The night I confessed this nocturnal hallucination to her might've been the first night she ended up in my bed, despite my efforts to stop her. Years later, having just moved to the mountains, but visiting my parents out in the Rub 'al Khali, I thanked her for moving to a never-never with me, but also that it wasn't those badlands out in eastern Colorado.

Depending on the day and my bent of superstition upon the sanctity of dreams, I might call that all a vision...

I could rhetorically ask if anyone else would've been crazy or strong enough to make such leaps with me, but I already know the answer. No one else could've been because it could only be her. She was the only one who could read me ancient love poetry whilst the Misfits sang Die! Die! My Darling. It was her actions and reactions to the factors at hand. That's just the way of it.

Ten years from that night with the bummed clove and the moment of pure and simple humanity with Peter Murphy as backbeat, and I have a hard time remembering why I found cigarettes so interesting, let alone urban living. It was another time. A past life, not the present one.

The vampire queen is pretty far from being vampiric these days. She'd probably punch me in the neck, or at least say something sponsored by the letter fuck if I called her that now, and I'd not blame her, much. Although, she never minds it when I refer to her as my mountain princess. Strange.

Of course me and royalty of any kind often get on like oil and water, thus adding to queerness of how I pulled this off without drugs or torture...

Years and lifetimes later, she still puts up with my aberrant paradoxically misanthropic ass. Sometimes she suggests a walkabout before I do. When that  happens, as with thousands of small things, I catch myself smiling  inwardly. Most cats, if they say they're embonded to someone from a past life mean something flaky and ridiculous like Atlantis. Hypocritically, I can say I met Sabina in a past life and she's stuck with me through the innumerable psychic incarnations since and I'd be honest about it. Perhaps that means something. It could mean nothing. In any case, I can say for us, because there's always been a sense of balance, it's worked both ways.

  
 These days; the mountain princess, a blurred photograph of the elusive wild Sabina in her native habitat...roar...

A Mourning Ramble

We stood in my grandmother's old house. It was said she was either crazy or masochistic for staying there after my grandfather died. The house became a museum to her mourning, sometimes terribly cold, and you could get yelled at for touching things that had been left just as they were the day he left.

I was telling my mother how my father had to leave that house out in the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands of eastern Colorado. Without her there, the isolation and loneliness was all consuming. Had he stayed, he woud've acted out one of my worst fears; that, with her gone, he'd have crawled into a bottle and never come back out.

My mother nodded, understanding my father's need for dynamic over my grandmother's need of stasis. There was a look of sadness in her eyes, though; leaving all that land and the all the other creatures they shared that farmstead with. The quiet and the immense scope of the sky when you get out somewhere that flat. I felt for her, but it was all over now.

The sound of movement pulled me away. Two of the cats were running and playing through the house. Milarepa was making sounds indicating she wanted to join in the fun. Sabina made some half-awake sound, which warned me of grumpiness should she awaken right then. I was back in the mountains. My mother was gone. It was time to face the day.

I got up and threw some clothes on. Took care of the hounds and ushered the offending felines outside to continue their mayhem elsewhere. I put on Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain, because it's the album I listen to on this day at one point or another, and thus it has been for the last couple of years. I listen to Bunny Bergman's version of I Can't get Started on the anniversary of my grandmother's death. So it goes.

There was tea. Jasmine. Once upon a time, it was said hot jasmine tea cold fix anything, even that, which was not broken. The Bruja showed me what a bunch of who shot john that was. Back when she was going, I was all but mainlining tea, and I still had to help my city friends bury her. When my grandmother was walking on, I drank a fair amount whiskey. With Jibril getting sick I was quite fond of cheap beer. With my mother it was water and the occasional glass of wine. One thing this has taught me is the drinking of anything does not help, but it does very little to hinder as well.

Over the last two years my sense of belief has been in a state of flux. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke; how do you get a heretical Tibetan Buddhist to question his dubious faith? Being glib, I could say the heretical adjective is a good start, and dubious helps explain a bit too. The more serious answer has to do with this recent double-whammy of mortality I've dealt with, because there is no statue of limitation on grief, and anyone who'd tell you different is daft or try to sell something. 

I believe there is magic, but it's nothing like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. There is divinity, but it's certainly not some anthropomorphic entity that keeps tally of the monkey-made concepts of naughty and nice like fucking Santa Clause. Realizing that in the face of universe filled with harsh and unforgiving beauty and tossed along by the winds of chaos often keeps me screaming. 

My mother has been gone two years to the day, and I am obviously still trying to figure out how to approach the subject. I sip my hot jasmine tea and listen to Miles Davis. Later, Whistler and I will go on walkabout to the Bull's Head. There I will leave a tattered string of Tibetan prayer flags, more out of habit than anything. I have never preyed, unless it's been in the context of the foodchain.

Her ashes are scattered in these mountains, not very far from my house, though up on the tundra. In that, I find a queer sort of comfort. It's as though she's close in more than memory. Perhaps, if I allow for the superstition, as I wander out into the bush to get holy on this somber day, I'll hear her voice on the mountain wind, singing to me.

Deux

Two years ago, I began by telling a story of my concept of Kashmir. It was an old in its context, and it went unnoticed, but I sometimes feel awkward when I am the focus of attention. I have purged words from my skull forever and a day. One of my friends calls this a rare gift I should share. When I've referred to it as a curse, another of my friends tells me not to be so melodramatic.

Some things are started with predefined goals, whilst others it's a case of seeing where one ends up. I tend to think this was the ladder rather than the former. Although, to paraphrase someone I used to know; I think I was looking for a new mythology. See, I'd self-published a book a few years back. A angsty dark thing that was great for my twenties and early thirties living within the borders of the greater metroplex, but I was neither that age or in that location anymore. Unfortunately, there were a few cats I knew who could not or would not accept that I wanted to move on. Somehow, I was betraying them.

But, perhaps it was a matter of context. By the time I started purging words my skull here, I'd lived in the mountains for a few years. Different geography. Different reality. I wanted to tell stories about being out in the in-between places and exploring deeper into the American Maghreb. Sometimes, starting out, I would joke were I crazy, or stupid, enough to try for publication once more, perhaps it would be upon the pages of the Mountain Gazette.


That day I vomited out my first story here, my mother was languishing in a sickhouse. Five days later, my brother and I would be standing over her body, trying to reconcile the very harsh reality that she was lost and gone forever, and ever, amen. I did tell stories about losing her and trying to come to peace with it, but, at first, not here. I didn't want to drag any random strangers from across the spider's web of cyber into my mourning. That lasted for four months, and then all bets were off.

I told stories about my mother. About helping my father move from the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands of Eastern Colorado. Stories about living in the mountains, walkabouts through our little Sahel, and observations of the weather. Tales with my daughter, Sabina, and the other species of quadruped we share our tiny house with. I started telling other tales again, ones spoken in the tongues of fiction as well as fact, because it's all true; even and especially the lies.

Somewhere in there, I think I found the shape of this, even if I've not found the words to articulate that particular concept. At its simplist; this is mine. My little bit of terror and shock and awe I inflict upon the rest of the cosmos. The simple fact anyone else looks is really quite humbling. Once upon a time, I thought it would be cool to be famous for the words I purge from my skull, but then I remember how mortified and uncomfortable I became in my own skin when someone announced, quite loudly, how I'd published a book to a room full of strangers. That's when I learned I'll never be a rock and/or roll star.

I've just finished a story arc and have been queried as to what I might do next. Rest assured, it's just as much of a mystery to me, but that could be half the fun of it. A very long time ago, I once told someone that some stories write and/or tell themselves and the storytellers are just along for the ride. It's a bit of wisdom, cosmic in its significance, perhaps, that I truly believe.

The Edges of the World

Here, there be dragons, is the old saying. Explores and travelers used it as a warning of going too far. Back then, there was fear and loathing to be found beyond the end of the world.

It was two days before Christmas, when I was seventeen, that I first traveled past the edge of the world. We were moving back from the North Carolina, and had finally made it across the snow-swept polar-cap cold wastes of what was once, centuries ago, called the Great American Desert, but is now called the midwest, through the city one mile high. My parents had purchased a home seven miles to the east of a small township called Parker. We were almost home.

Along the last road, along the second to last mile, there stands a hill. One of those rollercoaster types with sheer drops on either side. I was driving when my sister, grandmother, and I crested it. Motley Crue's Home Sweet Home was playing on the tape deck, and now, I realize how vaguely poetic, and a-lot-bit cliche, that was. It was early evening, a few hours past nightfall.

What we saw at the top of that hill was darkness. An expanse of utter blackness, peppered with just a few lone monkey lights as far as one could see in any direction, before touching the horizon, and giving way to the vastness of the cosmos. This was the badlands. My sister and I drew sharp breaths at what we saw, which caught in our throats as we descended the hill.

"We've just passed the edge of the world," I said. There was genuine reverence in my voice. "They say there are dragons out here."

"I believe you," my sister said. My grandmother, who had been napping, or pretending to whilst her grandson played his rock and/or roll music, chuckled softly.

Years and lifetimes later, that place around the dawn edge of the world has become a little more populated, though it's still rustic. The hill stands almost as a silent sentry to what lies beyond. My sister told me once she never saw the dragons I spoke of, but to this day, has no doubts they're out there.

My parents eventually moved further and further east. Their Kashmir was far beyond the edge of the world, into the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands of eastern Colorado. They never feared the dragons. After all, my father has probably stared them down. Of course, once, long ago, my daughter and I had a dragon for a pet, but that's another story.

Once my mother died, the Rub 'al Khali, so far past the dawn edge of the world, was no longer Kashmir for my father. I helped him return to the world. These days, he lives in one of the western buroughs of the greater metroplex.

In the kingdoms of Islam, Morocco represents the edge of their world, or it did once upon a time. It was called the land furthest to the west. The edge of the world.

My Kashmir is a sort of Morocco, but an acquaintance once told me we have our own Africas. An odd parallel to Kashmir being different for everyone. The township live in is the last settlement before the Roof of the World. The Small Tunnels, fifteen miles down valley, at the eastern edge of our Sahel, represent the twilight edge of the world.

"What's beyond the edge of the world?" I was once asked.

"Dragons," I said. Whether or not I'm believed these days is another matter entirely. Once upon a time, I was.

Smoke

My father once made the heartwarming observation that the only thing worse than a streetwalker who found religion was a reformed drinker or an x-smoker. They can preach in ways that would make a doomsday zealot cross their legs and blush. Something, which could drive one to drink and smoke just out of spite.

I guess that's why I've tried not to go on to much about when I decided to abstain from tobacco. When I got past my drinking-to-excess-a-little-too-often phase, I also opted to try and keep my mouth shut. These were my choices, and mine only. I do not like when one tries to shove their opinion down my throat, therefore it would be wrong of me to do that to someone else.

With some amusement, I've noticed a great many of x-smokers who do speak say they do not miss it. Either that, or wish they'd never started. Here was this great evil that so consumed part of their lives in the guise of Joe Camel or the Marlbero Man. Horrible.

I never minded smoking. Oh, sure, having asthma made it not only slow-suicidal and a little difficult to breathe sometimes, but so can very cold days or being in a city when the smog is up, but I took it as part of the deal of inhaling something burning. I enjoyed the sensation of the smoke slithering through my lungs, watching the patterns it made upon the air currents upon inhale and exhale. There was the certain bond smokers have. Just like heavy drinkers, or perhaps heroin addicts.

Yes, I have that bit of the junky in me...

In the two and half years since I had the urging to abstain from tobacco, I have smoked now and again. Fuck, when I was helping my father move from the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands, we shared a pack of cigarettes a day, it seemed. I'll have a few with him when we visit. I've bought my father packs now and again, but never one for myself. Somehow, that would be defeat. That would mean I'm a smoker again.

But I do miss it. Like a junky, I can start to rationalize. One or two fags a day wouldn't be nearly as bad as the half to whole pack a day I could chain-smoke through years ago without an afterthought.

It comes down to the price to be paid. As I have said before; all things for a price is but the nature of the deal. Only cheap things can be purchased with folding paper and jingling coins. It is blood and karma that is the true currency of the cosmos.

The kind of cigarettes I like cost six in paper for a pack. That's a package of good tea. The fixings of a good meal. A budget bottle of wine for a social occasion. Perhaps even a few decent spices.

However, the reason I've not taken up smoking again, no matter how much I miss it, how badly I jones sometimes, hits me between the eyes and smack in the chest on walkabout. Those times when I take a steep grade at a brisk pace, wanting to get to a flat spot to take in the view. My breath becomes labored, the atmosphere turning to fire within my lungs. I get where I want to go, catch my breath, and take in my surroundings.

And somewhere within my psyche, I remind myself why I abstained from smoking, and the six in paper price for a pack is hardly the reason...

The Equilibrium of Geography

Sabina and I were still dancing with the dead for money when we first moved to the mountains. In order to have our dream of Kashmir, we decided it was worth it to commute back down below to the greater metroplex. One way, this was a drive of fifty-seven miles. There was a drop-off for public transportation in a township thirty miles east, in those borderlands of the front range foothills, but it ran banker's hours and not on the socially constructed weekends, which would not work for when we danced with the dead for money, because neither of us were allied with the powers that be.

So, the commute was part of the price to be paid for living where we wanted to live, and all things for a price. That's the deal. I firmly believe it is only cheap things that can be purchased with folding paper and jingling coins. The currency of the cosmos has very little to do with the economics of humanity.

Sabina got out of that gig before me, leaving me to make the trek alone. During the year from when she stopped traveling down below with me to dance with the dead for money and my own release, my resentment for the greater metroplex grew. I had already fallen out of love with the place back when Sabina and I had discover and decided a funky little mountain township ten miles away from the Roof of the World was our Kashmir. The fact I was having to still deal with the place out of obligation was metaphoric salt in a proverbial wound. And as my resentment of the place grew and festered like maggots in an infected wound, it's pretty well a given there was resentment toward me.

If you hate the city, but love your fucking mountains so much, why don't you just stay there and never, ever come back? That was the implication. Even from some of my oldest and dearest friends. Looking back, I cannot say I blame them.

Of course, some of it may have been a sense of betrayal. The fact I had come to the metroplex from the badlands of eastern Colorado a full ten years before to find my fortunes and became so immersed in the ways of the urban, only to quite suddenly decide I was over it and was fucking off back for the in-between places, only this time where the terrain pointed up instead of being flat, was probably more than a little jarring. There was a time I would try to find an explanation. A rationalization as much for myself as anyone who might have asked. Here and now, I find that to be a waste of time. It happened, and cannot be made to unhappen.

I can remember when I was eighteen, and decided that one day I wanted to live amongst the monoliths of downtown and be published. It started then; my resentment of the badlands, of wild places. The slightest thing about the geography would irk me, giving me further reason to hear the siren's song of the city. When Sabina and I found our Kashmir, the same thing began to happen with the greater metroplex; every little thing that ever bugged me, but I dismissed because I was living my city dream, became unbearable.

My father did the same thing when he decided he could no longer stay in the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands, with my mother's phantasm hanging like cobwebs and badlands dust in every shadow and corner, but with no tangible presence. Everything he despised about that far-flung place grated on him, where as the part of the metroplex he ended up moving to bordered upon paradise. Cats I've spoken to who have decided to leave the Sahel speak in similar tones of an area I believe houses my place in the world. This just tells me my reactions of geography are far from unique, but instead, validation for those grand leaps we all make from time to time.

When I go released from dancing with the dead for money it was a mixed blessing. Sure, I no longer had to commute. But I had to find a new way of acquiring money. Still, I was no longer so obligated to the greater meteroplex. My only reasons for going down there would be for family or friends. One of my friends even speculated that, given time, my ire toward the metroplex might fade.

It has been close to a year and half since I danced with the dead for money and I do find I can think of the greater metroplex now without a growl and an almost Tourette's-like compulsion for some potent intoxicant. In recent hops, I've even found a certain sense of nostalgia. It seems time, distance, and lack of obligation have allowed for a peace to be cultivated.

The last time I was down was for the memorial. There I saw cats of whom I'd neither seen or spoken to in years. Some, since when I stopped visiting vampire dens to monkey watch, and others from when I moved. We embraced and talked, as is the custom at such events, but there was something unspoken, which passed between all of us that was in context of my being there; it's been years and we've all moved on...we can only progress from the here and now.

"It's weird seeing all of these people," Lee commented at one point. Like me, some he'd not seen in a few years.

"You're telling me," I said.

He shot me a look as if to say with me it was a given, seeing as I'd fucked off for the pointy lands and the Sahel. The look I gave him conveyed the fact we were, effectively, at a funeral, and it's to be expected to see ghosts at a funeral. Although, not all specters are cloaked in grave dust and rattling chains, and those are the ghosts I tend see with more frequency and endeavor to make peace with.
 
Perhaps it was being in the presence of all those phantasms that gets me to realize that one friend's speculation just might be spot on. My thoughts of the greater metroplex are no longer the stuff of murder thoughts and tirades proudly sponsored by the letter fuck. I get nostalgic for the greater metroplex in the same way I do for my university days or living out in the badlands or, even sometimes, my time down south; the type of nostalgia I must temper with reptilian objectivity, being mindful to scrape away all the rose-tint, both good and bad.

And I can admit, in a recent moment of nostalgia for the greater metroplex, there were certain aspects I missed. But it's not my Kashmir. It never was. Just a stop along the way. For all the aspects I miss, I cannot go back there, although that's a given. Along the flow of the dynamic, one can only go forward.      

Year One, the Lament

One year and sixteen days ago, I finally got through. The phone to a sickhouse room had been ringing off the hook almost hourly since I had gotten the news. The individual I was trying to reach was not answering. My father encouraged me to keep trying.

Her voice carried the accent of intoxication; that point where one either passes into a dreamless state of unconsciousness or vomits the diced carrots they never even knew they ate. She sounded tired and worn. All but beaten, broken beneath the blade. There was morphine and a cocktail of other poisons coursing through her body. The disease that had been devouring her over the course of almost two years was in the midst of finishing its meal, though we all desperately hoped for different at the time.

"This is not my last rodeo," she told me.

"Ride 'em, cowgirl," I said.

Fifteen days later, my brother told me her kidneys were shutting down. The number was up. At most, she had another three weeks.

That day, I went for a walkabout with my daughter, Sabina, and a friend of ours. We went and got Himalayan food and listened to records from my childhood, which were recorded at Caribou Ranch, which was in the immediate area. Sabina and our friend would chide me for reminding them of how they were older than me because of my age compared to theirs when those albums came out, but my daughter made us all feel ancient by reminding us she wasn't even an idea back then.

I needed that. I needed to get my head together and come to grips with the facts at hand. It was cathartic.

I was trying to figure out how to get my daughter to see her grandmother to say goodbye. At the time, the sickhouse was quarantining against anyone under eighteen because of a particular strain of influenza. I found myself dealing with near-psychotic rage. Rage at the doctors and the disease. The perceived unfairness of it all, despite the fact death happens, and that's just the circle of life, and fair has nothing to do with it.

That night, imperceptibly fading into the next mourning, I raged about the house. Ranting, though it did not receive raves. The focus of my ire was my mother herself.

"She lied to me! She said this wasn't her last rodeo! My daddy always said women lie, but that's not supposed to include my fucking mother!"

In the all the time we've known one another, Sabina has only seen me that psychotically angry one other time, but that's another story. As with that other time, she stood firm in front of me, grabbing me by the shoulders, and shaking me. She fixed her gaze with mine, not backing down when I growled predatory at her.

"Hey! She didn't know!" She said. I found there was really no choice to accept that.

Thirty minutes later, my brother phoned. That was it. All fall down.

I went to the sickhouse. Biologically, what I saw in that room was my mother's body. But that spark that made my mother my mother was gone. I was looking at cooling meat. A shell. It was cathartic in the respect that it showed me beyond a shadow of a doubt she was gone.

My brother and I went with my father to the house he shared with my mother. In the cold dark of the small hours, we drank beer and listened to Miles Davis. Though it was such an awful time, in those moments, that listening of Sketches of Spain was some of the most righteous jazz I've ever heard.

That was one year ago, but it might as well have just happened. My memory is such that everything is still so vivid. It's days like this in times like these I despise my ability to recollect. The mental flagellation is not something I ask for, but springs up out of the nowhere of subconsciousness, like some primeval ambush predator along some nameless African river.

I look back over the past year and feel the metaphoric hole in my life where she should have been. It's cold, like the airless void between the stars. Despite what I saw in that sickhouse room, part of me still finds it all so surreal.

She can't be gone. She said it wasn't her last rodeo. She wouldn't lie to me about something like that. She was the one who used to say lying hurts.

But she didn't know. None of us really did. In retrospect, we can all pick up the clues we missed in the heat of those last moments. We had our suspicions at the time, but we also held unto our desperate fool's hope. So it goes.

Yeh, so it goes. Here it is; one year to the day later. The sun has risen and it will set. Life has gone on, but she's not been involved in any other capacity than memory. When it comes down to the brass tacks and bedpost, the memory is all any of us have of her. In that, is her immortality, even if we are only immortal for a limited time.

Empty Spaces

I dreamt of my father. We were at the house out in the badlands of eastern Colorado and he was rushing my brother, sister, the Grumpy Old Men, and myself into his auto. My mother was still inside. It seemed rather shocking when my father got into the vehicle and started it up whilst my mother was still in the house.

"What about Mom?" I asked.

"We've got to go!" My father snapped. "She can catch up."

My eyes opened up to Chevy. He nuzzled me gently. He was letting me know that the hounds were all hungry and going outside to use the loo would be nice too. I got up, the dream clinging to the mathematics of my thoughts like cobwebs and tree sap.

My ten-pence dream analysis? Perhaps my father is running. Whether it's from a phantasm of memory or just from himself in general is conjecture.

He has spoken of loosing that loving feeling for the new place. Too many children. Too much noise at all hours. He already wants to move again.

I cannot help but wonder if my father has been caught up in the if only's. If only I can get out of the badlands. If only I can be closer to my kids. If only I get rid of the animals and start over.

He got rid of the animals and moved and is closer to my siblings and I. And then reality set in. There are still the phantasms and the memories. All that time and all the empty spaces.

My sister postulated my father sits at home by himself and it drives him nuts. He's got his guitars, films, music, and books, but he doesn't always have someone to talk to, or even just wish he could have alone time from. It's as if he's run out of distractions. Perhaps he is listless and drifting.

I can somewhat empathize, although it was not a mate that I lost all those months ago. Still, there are days I struggle to keep from collapsing into a sobbing ball. Sometimes, I feel that listlessness. Detached and hollow.

Mentioning my mother is gone is something I wish I could avoid, but it's there. It happened. I cannot deny it. I guess it just bothers me when it does get mentioned in front of a stranger or someone I've not seen for awhile, and the social awkwardness of them trying to express condolence and me pretending to accept it has to play out like a fucking dog and pony show.

I am not sure what to do for my father, or if there's really anything I can do. Folk wisdom states we all grieve in our own special little ways. A trite fluffy-bunny approach, but I begrudgingly admit to seeing the truth to it. It seems a given my father is still grieving because I know my sister and I are.

My brother too. I theorize that's why he made sure to be overly busy with landscaping projects and said my sister outlaw was being so needy about having quality time with him when my father was moving, and, thus didn't help; he was trying to distract himself. Throwing himself into work as way to deal with the empty spaces of my mother's death, leaving my father, sister, and I to deal with the emotional wreckage and shrapnel that was stirred up with the move.

Thanks, ti ti, but so it goes...

In just a few days more than a month, we'll all be heading into the outback to scatter my mother's ashes, as per her request. My father has mentioned how this event has just hung over him like a pall. Perhaps that is what my father needs to deal with the empty spaces and place the final bit of closure on this whole thing. This, like my speculation with my brother, is a theory. One, which will not be proven as fact until just a little over a month from the here and now.

The Precipice of Exile

Whistler, the other half of the Grumpy Old Men, and Chevy's half-brother. I guess, now, should missionaries, traveling salesmen, or any other unwanted company show up at the House of Owls and Bats, I can call out;

"Release the hounds!"

I'm sure the pre-Holocaust shotgun my father gave me, which once belonged to my grandfather, could be of some use too...

Boxes. Furniture. Badlands dust. Artifacts. Innumerable hops between the Rub 'al Khali and the greater metroplex. Heat. Rain. Fitful sleep and sore muscles. Beer and blues. Time away from home to do the right thing.

It doesn't matter whether it's me or someone else, I despise moving. My father is in his new place, though. To say he's tickled, that he's like a fox in a chicken coop would be gross understatement. For that reason, to see the smile on his face, the gleam in his eyes, I would make a thousand more hops.

Albeit, begrudgingly..

There has been blood drama of a short. My brother. See, out of the three of us, my sister and I have been helping. The consensus is I've done the most, my sister being limited what with caring for a two month old. Whitie's contributed too. My father took us out for seafood to show his gratitude.

My brother cannot be bothered. He has his reasons and rationals. Apparently work and time with my sister outlaw are far more important than helping our father. Even when he took vacation time.

And I am upset. Disappointed and perhaps a little angry. I have made it plain to my father, sister, Whitie, and Sabina-who deserves sushi and a metal for looking after the dogs, r'ts, and cats whilst I kite about in the name of helping my father-that I do not want or need to speak with my brother any time before we scatter my mother's ashes, on what would have been her birthday, after my birthday. I want that time for the murder thoughts to abate, because here and now, Cain and Able don't have shit my brother and I.

Mei fei tsu. My brother's actions are his own. Not mine. Late at night, when the demons come to tea, he is the one who must own up to consequences of those actions.

So it goes...

And thus things have changed. Things continue to change. My father is out of the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands of eastern Colorado. My sister and Whitie are looking at moving to that side of the greater metroplex. Within a year, at most, my father, sister, and I will all be closer to one another. I might find myself traveling down below a little more often. None of us know what my brother might do. Presently, we all have a very hard time caring, but, blood is a funny fucking thing.

What matters most is that smile on my father's face as he watches his new place take shape. The gleam in his eyes as he blares the Beatles Rubber Sole and James Brown at levels that would have offended my mother. He might still get lonely, and he knows that. For that reason, I cannot say if his exile has ended or has only began. I will say, to help him, I would move him again, no matter how much I bitch about it. He's my dad, after all, and that's blood, and blood is a funny fucking thing.

Interesting Times

Once, well, because somehow I was getting paid for it, I was at a ra-ra propaganda rally where some cat in a suit and sterilized organs stood up and said he wanted to give a Chinese blessing; may you live in interesting times. I must have been quite out of my mind, because my hand shot into the air before the last words faded from hearing. He seemed excited someone wanted to speak to him so early on.

"It's a curse, Sir," I said, recalling the way I had been told that little saying. "It basically means you hope one's life is filled with chaos and strife. Kind of a hateful way to start things, don't you think?"

And, after the ra-ra propaganda rally I had to talk to an overseer. It didn't matter if I was right, or, at the very least, honest, I had embarrassed the cat in the suit with sterilized organs in front of everyone, and that was uncalled for. Courtly and corporate intrigue politics made manifest.

It also served as reminder of another reason I'm often the quiet one. Someone I knew once said when I did speak, my words were those of ambrosia and acid. By uttering a sentence, apparently, once or twice, I've drove others to migraines, although that's hardly my fault. Another aspect, a flaw, I admit, are the occasions of what another friend would call alligator mouth being unable to cover hummingbird ass. I like to think I've gotten better at that as I've grown older, but I still sometimes slip.

In the small hours between late night and early mourning when my mother died, I was driving to the house that now only belonged to my father. I had no tea with me, only water, but the demons came anyway. In those dark moments, heading into the badlands, I had a lot of time to ruminate.

"I cast my lot to the winds of chaos," I said to the shadows. "This is the only sane course of action. Roll the fucking bones."

I don't think I've ever lived in boring times, despite what a few critics who weren't getting their way might say. Still, these days, these last few weeks, leading up to a month, fit more into what a cat in a suit thought was a blessing and I was told was a curse. Of course, blessing and curse are just different sides of the same cosmic coin, thus balance is maintained.

My father moves as the Gregorian calendar sheds its metaphoric and metaphysical skin. There has been a fair amount of chaos to the whole affair. Even stress, something I take such great pains to avoid, I find sometimes trying to seep into my zen and put me off my fresh-fried lobster.

It seems pretty well a given I'm getting the other one of the Grumpy Old Men, a black tri, named Whistler. Even now, I try to figure out where, in a five-hundred eighty-five square foot house-only fifteen more square feet than the Temple of the Jinn, back in the city-I'm going to make room for another dog. Of course, I'll make it work, because it is the right thing to do. Still, it's a few days and a roll of the bones before I know for certain. My sister and Whitie might take Whistler instead.

I might also start receiving a substantial amount of paper just for being a beautiful and unique snowflake and not get fucking laughed at when I describe myself as such...

Mei fei tsu. This is a time of transition, and, as I learned, once, quite painfully, those times are never easy. I suppose if they were, it would be kind of boring and the lesson would be missed. A time of transition is never really good or bad, persey, although, in that context, good and bad are monkey-made concepts anyway. Times of transition are, however, rather interesting. Of course, whether or not those interesting times are a blessing or a curse is all up to flip of a cosmic coin and roll of the bones.

Boneyard Two-Step

Chevy, one of the Grumpy Old Men. Aside from the recent artifacts and photographs, what could be considered my inheritance from my mother...

My father and I were watching a documentary on blues guitarists. It seems as inevitable as the sun setting in the west that the story of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the Devil came up. All my father could do was chuckle ruefully and call bullshit upon mythology.

"There ain't no Devil," my father said. "I know because I tried to sell my soul to him for twenty years. When your mother was sick, there were plenty times I invited him over to make a deal; me for her."

I'm not sure who to resent more for that; my father? My mother? Or perhaps that mythological infernal pussy who's wife I fucked, as I once told a homeless man? Does it matter?

A two and half day stay in the Rub' al Khali. Beer and blues. More boxes. More things thrown away. More artifacts acquired. Another dog.

Twisted in its symmetry, I used to ask my mother if once I got a places with some land, and it was time for me to have a dog again, if I could take Chevy. This was back when I lived in the city. She would tell me no, sighting that he can climb a six foot fence without much effort. Nevermind he is a certified champion, well-trained, incredibly gentle, and trained as a therapy dog, he might want to run.

That argument started eight years ago, and, no, I don't feel good about winning it. The technical term, whelps, is monkey's paw. All the things I've brought back from the badlands recently fall into that category. The price to be paid.

And all things for a price, that is the nature of the deal...

My father moves in a week. My next week is already packed with some other obligations, so I can only guarantee being around for moving day. In a way, I'm kind of grateful for that, giving me a chance to catch my breath and not get a mouthful of badlands dust. Moves are pain in the ass anyway, but this one has been less than fun. To say I'll be happy when it's done and over would be cliche, but a friend of mine once pointed out the beauty in cliches, sighting the little nuggets of truth contained therein. So, I reckon when I say I'll be happy when it's done and over I'm speaking true words.

The Phantasm Waltz

A set of Canadian song lyrics have played within the walls of my skull over the last week, a mantra of what I've been doing;

"Where would you rather be?
Anywhere-
Anywhere but here,
When will the time be right?
Anytime but now..."

We put things into boxes and bags. Eat, drink beer, listen to loud music, and talk, sharing memories of a closing chapter. Along with artifacts, I am getting at least one of the grumpy old men. Maybe both of them, depending on Whitie, which is fine. I'm willing to make it work.

Once, during the course of conversation I saw something that always terrifies me in how powerless it leaves me feeling; my father moved to tears. As good as my memory is, I cannot recall exactly what brought it on. Then again, that's grief. Like chaos, the melancholy strikes down out clear blue sky without the rhyme or reason hominids try to assign to everything to make sense of the universe around them.

"There's no way I can stay out here," he said to me.

"We'd have to drag you out in I-love-me! jacket," I said.

"No," my father said and pointed to the chair he plays guitar in. "I'd just sit there and drink."

A warning of one of my deepest fears being laid right out before me...

Intermingled with the scent of badlands dust and memory is that of the phantasm of my mother. Sometimes, I swear I catch a residual smell of the disease that devoured her. I cannot even describe that reek, but I know it. There has been more than once, as I've engaged in these ghost dances, I've cursed both my sense memory and smell.

Another Canadian rock mantra;

"Are you still holding on?
Can't you just let go?..."

Well, where do we go from here?

These have been good days to let go. However, recently, I observed the only thing I cannot truly let go of is my ability to remember things, and the vividness of some of those recollections. Right down to the song and emotion, the scent and taste in the air. Once, it was said unto me that my memory can make an elephant cry. One of my best friends once stated if I didn't have instant recollection of an event, I had it documented in a notebook somewhere. I can admit to once or twice telling someone if I do not remember something, chances are, it didn't happen.

Like emotion and naked facts at hand, how I choose to reconcile and deal with the memories is important. Late at night, when the demons come for tea, I would rather be able to own up and accept, than let such things crawl about within the walls of my skull, slowly devouring me. I've had a few relatives now that were eaten alive by something, and I have no desire to join them, and not being a joiner by nature has little to do with that.

As I meditate upon these memories and this most recent death, I realize that great many of the deaths in my experience have taught me lessons. From my great grandmother, that, sometimes, it's okay to be relieved when someone walks on. My father's father taught me to mindful of the drink. From my grandmother, I learned we are only immortal for a limited time. My father's mother taught me if one holds a grudge, you've given that cat all the power in all the world over you, becoming their bitch. From Jibril, to fucking live, no matter what your circumstance, because when that number's up, you're ashes on the wind, that's the deal. My mother taught me this queer form of acceptance, being reminded of the role of the bones chaos, and that I do not require other influences to deal with it all.

There is still another hop or two out to help with the packing. Then, the move itself. I find myself conflicted every time I go out there. Part of me wants to just burn that place to ground. It's nice to see my father, but the context of it is something I cannot say I enjoy. There is a void and cold spot out there that is like an undertow for everything. I catch a scent intermingled with the dust, which gets me to growl. Every so often, I think I see her out of my peripheries, and it's not one of the photographs we put into boxes.

It would be cliche to say there are million things I wish I could have said or still say. And, I realize, even if I had the lifespan of star, it would never all be said. All the stories would never be told and all memories would never be shared. That's the way of things, and I am learning to accept that.

So it goes...

Badlands Ghost Dance

Sometimes, when meditating of my father's impending move, in my mind's eye, I see a phantasm of my mother. It's that muppet mannequin shell of meat my brother and beheld in the sickhouse room that stank of death, disease, and antiseptics. It is with a chill and growl a face this specter.

...Fucking what? Are we to leave him out there to rot? To slowly go mad out there beyond the end of the world? What else would you have us do?...

I came away from my most recent visit to the Rub' al Khali in possession of artifacts, photographs, antique books, and the knowledge that my father has apparently been dating. The scent of badlands dust lingered for days, teasing my allergies, whilst I tried to think of places to put my new acquisitions. The full implication of that other bit of knowledge still ferments within the walls of my skull.

"Well, he is a randy old man," Sabina said when I told her.

"Don't ever say that about my father again," I said.

"I'm sorry," Sabina said. "Should I say; really? That sweet bible reading, ice tea drinking old man?"

"There have been only a few times I've ever wanted to really punch a girl. In the neck." I growled. "Just thought I'd mention that."

And she giggled. Of course, my father has at least waited until my mother had been gone a few months. In recent family news, one of my southern relatives was not so classy. Yet another reason to avoid that aspect of the bloodline.

My father and I had a good day together. We grilled corn and steaks. Talked and listened to music. Watched a film and had a few cocktails. We both agreed it was enjoyable and nice to spend time together.

"Saturdays are hard for me, Son," my father said. "Everyone who's ever died on me, did it on a Saturday."

Thinking of my grandmother, my mother, and both his mother and father, it's an eerie thing to note...

He cannot wait to get moved. The loneliness and isolation chews at him like maggots in an infected wound. Perhaps the Rub' al Khali was once Kashmir, but that was before my mother took ill. Before the malignancy ate her alive. Now, the badlands is a nothing more than a void. A place of too many empty spaces.

I'll be happy once my father gets moved. It's becoming more and more obvious how good it will be for him. I also think it will be good for the rest of us in the family to put all of those ghost of the badlands behind us and close the chapter.

Pre-Hop Jitters

The next time the sun rises is the hop out to the Rub 'al Khali to help my father. It could conceivably be one of, if not the, last time I go to that house so far out into the badlands of eastern Colorado. Apparently, this is not going to be as much of an excavation as either of us had initially anticipated, and I'm rather fine with that. My father told me he'd pay for my fuel and make supper. Apparently, the day of the week we're doing this thing is rather hard on him, and he likes to have dinner company.

My feelings on this excursion are rather mixed. I look forward to seeing my father. It's always nice to listen to music with him and share a meal. I do not look forward to the work and the context behind it. I catch myself wondering if, even if just in metaphor, my mother's phantasm will be about, watching us get my father ready for what could be the ending, or maybe even the beginning, of his exile.

Move On

And thus, it has come to pass, my father has secured residence back within the greater metroplex. Not too terribly far from we lived up until I was thirteen years old, in fact. He remarked about the auspice of full circles. In a little over a month, he will be putting the Rub 'al Khali behind him. Perhaps forever and ever, amen.

"I need to get out here," my father said. "I'm turning into an old man. I can see it in my face."

I am happy for him. He needs to move on. Out there, in the badlands of eastern Colorado...that was my mother and the life my parents had together. My mother is gone now and my father needs to keep on living. He'll be closer to my brother and sister. It'll only take me perhaps an hour, instead of the usual two, to visit. You can catch the excitement in his voice.

Sometime in the near future, I'll be making the hop to the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands for what I hope will be one of the last times. We'll be cleaning and packing. In some ways, I imagine it'll be like when we moved my grandmother or when we'd go through her storage unit after she walked on, or when we were packing up my mother's clothes; a mixture of sadness and catharsis. So it goes.

I am happy for my father. Another aspect of starting over, like phoenix raising out of the ashes of loss. It'll be nice for him to be closer, instead of a daytrip away. Still, I confess, part of me dreads the upcoming excavation, and the possible ghosts of memory it might stir up.

Leaving the Badlands

...Around a year ago, we were all out in the badlands, the day before the holiday, because of other family or professional obligations the next day. She never liked that. She liked to celebrate a holiday on the day it falls on a calendar, but what can you do?

It was or month or so since the last bouts of chemotherapy. Her hair was slowly starting to grow back. Although neuropathy made her shuffle when walked, giving the appearance of locomotion of one much older than herself, she was feeling better. In good spirits. Her daughter was going to be walking down the aisle in less than a month and she was excited.

It never occurred to any of us it might be a last time. It never does, because you never really, really know for sure. But what can you do?

So it goes...

My father speaks of leaving the Rub' al Khali of the badlands of eastern Colorado. Oh, sure, back when my mother first walked on, he put on the bravest face. He was staying out there. Just as I love living in the mountains, he loved living on the badlands. He was still waiting to see John Wayne come riding up over the next rise. It was quiet and no one bothered him.

It's hard to say who he was trying to convince; all of us, or himself, but it probably doesn't matter...

Whether it's the loneliness or being snowed in during one of the last heavy storms is both debatable and irrelevant. My father told me he wants to move. To be closer to all of us, relatively speaking.

My father is sixty-two years old. In the last sixteen years, he's had two heart attacks. Out there, his nearest friend is six miles away. Since my mother has walked on, the dogs-save two-chickens, and sheep have been gotten rid of. There's really no more reason to have sixty acres of land.

We all agree it's for the best. My father's age and the possibility of something health-wise happening. Back when my mother was dying in the sickhouse, that was something my brother would talk to me about. My sister echoed some of the same thoughts when we chatted after Easter supper. I agree with both of them, although, even though I have assurances, I still sometimes worry that loneliness is going haunt and chase my father wherever he goes and he's one day going to crawl into a bottle and never come back out.

Of course it's all wait and see. See what the time and seasons hold. That house out in the Rub' al Khali is more isolated than where I am in the Sahel. With my mother gone, it might be fair to say that the badlands are not his Kashmir, and that perhaps leaving them might do him a world of good.

Meditiations on Aging

Ever had one of those moments of looking into the mirror and realize you've aged? Maybe it's after some comedy, tragedy, irony, agony, or ecstasy. Something that hits between the eyes, like a two-ton heavy thing, the mourning after one of those wild nights out or on a birthday. A solemn moment of so-it-goes acceptance before burying one's face in a big pile of sh...aving cream.

A week ago, driving out to my parents' house, I was blaring L.A. Guns. Man, that took me back. A deja vu of twenty years ago, after my family moved back from the rural south, tooling around the badlands of eastern Colorado, listening to some cock-rock. Of course, I was going to be leaving my parents' house at some point and going back to my own. After L.A. Guns, I was going to be listening to some Italian pop. My hair might still be long, but these days, there are streaks of gray amongst the dysfunctional calico.

There was a period where I existed in sort of denial of my chronological age. I didn't really lie about it, but I didn't come right out and say it neither. Back then, when queried, I would answer by saying I was twenty-one for however-many-years-in-a-row, like it would make me come across as younger than I really was. I must admit, it was sometimes amusing to watch the cat who asked me do the mental gymnastics of the math within the walls of their skull.

But one day, a mourning after a party, when I was realizing I was not nearly as young as I once thought, but not so old as fuck off somewhere, being all nostalgic-like about back-in-the-day, and play golf, I realized it might just be okay to own up to my chronological age. I found it to be far less painful than I initially anticipated, and, upon reflection, I find myself happier or, at least, more at peace, because of it. Of course, more than one cat has remarked I look younger than I actually am. I joke it's because of clean living and mainlining Oil of Olay.

I do find time to be an abstract. Sometimes, I feel as though millennia have passed from one epoch of my life to the next. There have been instances when it seems like but hours, maybe days, have elapsed from an event, which may have happened months ago.

And I had one of those moments, this very mourning, right before shaving. Noticing a couple more crow's feet near the eyes. Another cobweb strand of gray hair amongst the dysfunctional calico. For a moment, perhaps as long as the space between heartbeats, I just stared. Perhaps there was some shock and awe, or maybe it was just solemn moment of so-it-goes acceptance before burying my face in a big pile of sh...aving cream. It seems so long ago now, I can no longer tell.

Aging doesn't bother me as it once did. When I was younger, I saw getting older, as, well, getting old , and, therefore, getting closer to death. I eventually learned death didn't really care if it was young or old, sick or healthy, rich or poor when it happened. My father is in his sixties, and is still going strong, just a little older, wiser, and more experienced than I. I have met cats who have been over one-hundred twenty since their fifth birthday. After that one joe job, where I danced with the dead for eight hours at a stretch, I learned one does not really get old until their eighties. Further proof to me that time is an abstract.

I am where I am; no longer a whelp, but yet to be an old man. And I'm rather fine with that. It's where I'm supposed to be along the abstract of my timeline. Having not mastered quantum physics and the manipulation of space-time, I can't really be anywhere else.