Downhill Racing
Things are rolling aren’t they
Sorry I can’t speak for everyone, I can only speak for myself. I’m tired. The rottenness that runs through the center of life makes me tired. It can’t be cut out. It burns ok, though, when it gets fed into the fire. Unfortunately you have to have a good fire, with good firewood, hot enough to boil the water in the rotten, powdered wood. What are you made of? Ask the wood. Not me.
Being tired is a consistent trope in my story. I’ve written songs about being tired, I more often than not answer “tired” whenever anyone asks how I am. It drives my wife crazy. But that is not unusual. Probably does get tiresome.
It makes me think that Rheumatoid Arthritis was a long time coming for me. Probably years in the making. Our bodies are a mystery, we are too busy living to pay attention sometimes. We are trained to ignore the pain. No pain, no game. Tonight the pain is back. Came on a Monday. Left on Tuesday. Back again Wednesday. Luckily it’s localized to my left shoulder. I’m lying under a heating pad, listening to Grant on the radio, and feeling sleepy. Took a lot of drugs. I might put this down and just be. I don’t think I do that very much. Had to do the Steroid taper, six days of Methylprednisolone. Better living through chemistry! Since I don’t have my will trained to banish, or ignore pain I went the drug route. I’m not a Christian scientist after all. Not even a Christian anything. I’m reading the texts, not negotiating with them. Sometimes you cut bait.Sometimes you fish.
John 1-8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
WHERE DO I GO
Lately I’ve been getting out. Seeing people, reconnecting with friends. I’m not being systematic about it, but at this point in my journey through this sphere, I’m resisting anything close to obligations. I’m kind of reveling in the lack of schedule constraints. This is not entirely true. I do have obligations, but they are my obligations. I don’t just sit around doing nothing. I CAN do nothing, but I’m not obligated to! The thing is, I’m doing things because I want to. Transitioning to unemployment has not meant doing nothing. I think a lot of people get that wrong. You still have things to do. Deciding what to do is my challenge. Always has been. Even as I rebelled against the structure of every day life, the yoke of the job, the obligation of relationships, it provided guardrails that pushed me in a direction which I fit in all of my interests on the side. It also gave me an excuse for failure (I didn’t have time) which accounted for a graveyard of half finished projects, notebooks, interests. A convenient crutch.
A garage full of dreams. Half finished projects. Stacks of books, magazines in boxes, coffee stained pages in decaying notebooks, random sheets of paper notes, jumbled into drawers and stacked in an arbitrary fashion around the library. A mess that irritates the tight-assed (and my family for that matter!) I never (rarely) read the notes I have made, the ideas I have put down. I will, I promise. The urge to incinerate it all also competes for attention in my head. My messy mind. My messy existence. Repeating myself. When I was first trying to write songs I was living in my parents home, and, under the influence of Punk Rock I churned out 2 years of absolute dreck before I wrote anything I could stomach. I carted everything I had written up to that point out to the yard, and set it on fire. You could do that in unincorporated areas. Today, I would use the shredder. Same kind of ceremony. Less particulates. Don’t burn plastic. Dare me.
Finish Strong
No one gets a say, unless you ask. Or give permission. Every accusation is a confession. Every scrap of advice is worth the paper it is scrawled on. Purify it on the fire, or consecrate it with the shredder. If it is a sticky idea, you will remember. If it’s a mundane matter, it belongs on a list. If you complete it, start another list. Draw a line through it. Do one thing, just one. Draw a line through it. Keep the list going and handy. The list never ends. It’s your list. You are your own category. No one can write your list. No one can complete your list. It’s a hill you climb. Your scale. Climb to the top. You only have a few seconds there. Really, the blink of an eye. Then the descent. Going downhill is a race all on its own. It doesn’t matter how you got there. You only see the same people on the way down if you fall back the way you climb.
Finish strong. I dare you.
I have really gotten over my reluctance to ask for donations. Being on a fixed income is good and bad. No job:good. No income:challenging. Whatever. I’m into vegetables and hummus. And beans. 🫘 Rancho Gordo heirloom beans sound good right now. hmm. Time for a snack.
The fire is infinitely more satisfying than the shredder, I think. Of course, I’m analogue like that.