Filed under: Sir Marshmellow Trowell
From the Journal of Sir Marshmellow Trowell
Nothing in the kitty the last few days. Such a process of elimination. That kind of thing is hard for me, because I have so much trouble seeing the range of choices in what would be a socially acceptable manner. More than anything else, it seems BIG, so large that the many possibilities dwarf my ability to comprehend.
I met with Alphonso for a few minutes, considering the implications of all this theory. The TV ran silently in the background, and for a moment Alphonso and I fell silent, seeing behind the facade on the screen, seeing that it spoke to the idea that there was some kind of quiet engine running behind the seamless image flashing on the idiot box. For whatever reason, the scenery around me crackled and sparked, momentarily losing the luster so lovingly applied in post-production. There were performers everywhere, standing around pretending to play a bit part in the most current episode of whatever was going on at the moment. Alphonso flew off to investigate reports of foreign soldiers in the sky above the front porch, leaving me to stand alone in thought, wondering why the alloys and admixtures of the moment triggered such an obviously delusional fantasy.
Moving through the house towards the television, I stopped and became transfixed staring at parallel images on the screen. Some music video was being held hostage by the mute button absentmindedly pressed hours ago. It didn’t matter. Silence only enhanced the effect, punctuated by cars driving by the front window, exclamation points after periodic silence. Things would have made sense if there was some measure of visual impairment, but me eyes were fine. A sense of deja vu with inappropriate paranoia swept my mind from the picture on the screen to the scene around me. I couldn’t remember what year it was, but all manner of references screamed out different years. The television said 2003. The picture of Richard Nixon bowling hinted the early 70’s, and the book on the floor said welcome to 1987. Without being certain, I was pretty sure they were fucking with me. I kicked the book on the floor across the room, and the wind ruffled pages quickly shattered the illusion of the moment. Something snapped, a dog barked across the street, and it was definitely 2008.
No reason to transgress into vague romanticisms about what it all meant. Those kind of trips usually lead nowhere, while time and tide wait for no man. It’s been happening a lot lately, coming and going without any pretense toward regularity, leaving just short of the moment when the meaning slides from chaos to clarity. At various moments, cracks in the concrete stairs grow into chasms, no longer meandering weaknesses in the foundation but full on emergency sized spaces requiring immediate attention from all manner of appropriate parties. Moments later the cracks return to their former size, and I have fingernail marks from gripping my fists too tight for too long. Mysterious forces are not at work. It’s what I already know that worries me.
I utilize only the most current of remedies. Treatment is not for the faint hearted, nor those demanding quick results. Long walks across varied terrain are important. The exercise is of secondary benefit, but the mind requires as many distinct varieties of surroundings as can be found. Comparables can be found, and once found, understood as examples of possible outcomes and resolutions worked towards. Movement eases the formations of theories. The wind blows an idea from a windowsill to a passing philosopher. He put it in a book, and maybe you read that book. Transference across vast distances and long periods of time. Thanks to modern technology, you no longer must be present for the planting to reap the rewards of the harvest. On sunny days, all of this is accompanied by the hum of the odd sound underneath Cream’s “Anyone For Tennis.” It’s nice, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Therapy is more than just walking and snatching the consideration of passing images. Combined with movement is the need to establish a way to silence all connections and play with the sundry amalgamations while still fresh in mind. Some people are comfortable with formulaic and established patterns of addition. Others, myself included require a bit more freedom to tease out and manage events such as the cracked stairs or television. Sound is a good friend to engage. With a wide enough tableau, any result under the sun can be yours. Everyone plays with sound. Match the sound to the thoughts of the things seen in your shopping store window. Dig across a few formations, maybe throw in the unspoken additive and see where the road goes. After a while the whole thing is internalized to some extent, and requires only the most minor prod before kicking into action. Control the speed with the means at hand.
We’re only fucked if you really believe that control is the ultimate answer. My assumption has remained locked into the idea that there are no such thing as an ultimate answer, or, for that matter, a first cause. Anything leading in that direction will somehow turn out to be the lazy tool of a weak mind, to quote Kevin Spacey. I think he was referring to adjectives, but can’t be sure. No matter at the present time. It just sticks in the craw like a misspelled word. None of this is germane to the previous topic. The seductive nature of a multi-track mind versus reality. As always, too much happening at once. Now you know why I don’t wear a watch.
With nothing to add to the previous thought, the tracking source of sunlight says enough time has been spent reviewing something as dessicated as this. After meeting with Alphonso and ascertaining where he’d gone since last manning his post, I enjoyed a good laugh watching him dart around the backyard every time the wind rustled a leaf. He’s only doing his job, which, if you believe what he says is all he really knows how to do. When I told him that that kind of specialization seemed to make life simple, he only scratched his head with an exaggerated bee gesture and stared at me with endless black eyes. Still, I couldn’t shake the thought that he was lying. He had respected the terms of our truce to the letter of the law. He doesn’t crowd me, and I won’t smack him with a novel. So he understands that much. Why the deception?
All things seem, from my perspective, to know exactly what they need to know in order to continue their existence. That seems a much better beginning than end, but the sun is in the backyard playing watchmaker and there is something else to investigate. I want to enjoy the seamless picture of perfect harmony. Maybe we need bigger windows, because I can’t see it from here. Off to find a better look.
Filed under: talking pizza boxes
Morning broke well into the afternoon, and felt like a cranberry bog. It didn’t shatter as much as dissolve, leading to the always odd sensation of being caught between morning and afternoon, unable to know which was which until one had fully replaced the other. It cast a tremendous pall on the day. After escaping the shower and shaving routine, I pushed against the leftovers of the morning and made speed for the kitchen, where a discarded Digiorno (possibly spelled wrong. Eff the fake Italian manufacturer.) was waiting for me on the counter. I recognized him from last night, having contained a delicious pie that was first seasoned with my own private spice mixture then baked according to the directions helpfully written on the side of the box.
Having eaten out the box last night, there wasn’t much in the way of sustenance left to consume. I was pseudo-hungry, like maybe but probably not really just bored. That kind of thing. If that makes no sense, just rest your certainty on the fact that the pizza had been delicious. The eaten out box on the counter was silent, which was something totally new to me. Usually pizza boxes have more to say, but those are cheaper boxes, and this was a DiGorno (eff them again.) If not the king of take home and bake pizzas, it was at least a member of the royal court. Some might claim the honor for the other brand name thick crust frozen pizza, but it is easier to call it a day than argue. Unlike the budget variety of factory made frozen pies, these faux Italian models don’t talk. I was mildly surprised, if not offended, being that I had spent at least an hour eating out the contents of the box. By the end of the experience, my mouth was covered in sauce and a few straggly pieces of cheese were draped from chin. SAY SOMETHING! The picture on the box only stared back at me with a satisfied (and if you ask me, smug) grin. There was probably a lesson in this.
Filed under: Sir Marshmellow Trowell
from the Journal of Sir Marshmellow Trowell
The little box that counts the words as they appear on the page is going crazy. My fingers are barely moving, yet the number jumps higher and higher. The counter doesn’t care whether the words mean anything. I checked by typing random words into the space, words that meant nothing to anything except the counter, which didn’t miss a beat. I wrote 56 words, and it counted it every last one. Other than that, I can’t see much use for the little box that counts words, but I respect the fact that it does not judge or analyze the words it counts. It is a quantitative genius but a qualitative mute. The counter is an idiot savant. My guess is that it doesn’t really count words at all. Just the spaces in between. Imaginative fucker, isn’t it?
Having spent the last few days in a capricious search for the answers to questions asked in hurried and careless manner was a waste of time. A kind of maddening rush ensued, whipping around from subject to subject and moment to moment, devoid of meaning except as a casual landmark referencing places not seen in dozens of years. They are close by here, an admission that being lazy and shiftless can become an end into itself. Without ever being forward or honest about the failure to probe the origins of the theories posed by long distance observations, the entire situation smelled like false hope mixed with lemon. It’s tiring to dwell on what happened, besides, I’m not really sure what actually occurred and what was a hallucination that hardened into memory.
My imagination is kicking in overdrive, preventing the kind of dispassionate eye towards later which would usually help me to make sound decisions rooted in solid evidence. It is a becoming a common experience to repeatedly flog my memory to get a better sense of the words spoken in the most recent conversations. Somehow all the random and strangely personal things that aren’t said are getting inserted into my record of the conversation, wildly divergent topics seem almost natural fodder for discussion under these relative circumstances. My place falls between the reasons for not cutting my hair and that time at the beach when I had my name engraved on a piece of rice. For all I know, that necklace is still drifting in behind the dash of that 92 Taurus. That’s where it fell, behind the dashboard when it slipped off while the navigator reached for the radio.
A lot to be said for the time spent considering how to spend time. The odd recollection wraps around the stuff we were just discussing to be apportioned into digestible chunks reserved for the best moments of life, like when the cop trailing behind you with lights and horns speeds by after pulling over the car. In the nervous excitement is the sense of invulnerability brought on by getting away with a crime you didn’t even commit. If a brain could spontaneously collapse in on itself, it probably would. Shouldn’t get nearly as much relief as I do when I remember how unlikely a fate this would be.
Morning has bled into the afternoon, the music has changed. It never did heat up today. Some days the oven just doesn’t work. So far as I’ve heard, there isn’t so much of a reason, just one of those certainties that occasionally bob and weave through the bullshit to join the exalted group with death and taxes. The realization is easily on par with knowing how to fire up a camp stove on demand, maybe fix a flat tire on a highway. It’ll be written off as an inevitable side effect of knowledge.
There is no denying these half-formed ideas. In the gentle fading light of a cool afternoon, nothing has any definition, more a fuzzy kind of disintegration where the sharp edges should be. Cigarettes just feel stale, and it’s too early for a refresher course on breathing. That might get the day moving, but the price is too high to pay after another two days of what a sadist might call sleep. More likely I’ll break down and use it as the springboard toward the evening’s festivities. This will of course produce its own flashback, but only if the proper admixtures are present. Only if lightning strikes thrice. Good odds, something to take into account later.
The general signals retreat, and the day continues on as if all is moving according to its own assigned path. I’m not sure if anyone really believes that, but it sounds very reassuring, especially amongst the unsettled nature of the present. Just like those rotten fuckers with good intentions to make me have to explain the basics AGAIN to a certain licentious miscreant hell bent on speaking to people uninterested in the story he is trying to tell. Well, everyone needs a hobby. I don’t get his angle, but then again, maybe he doesn’t get mine. Either way, it doesn’t matter. We don’t lately. He’s not in his usual spot. Good for me.
I’m getting tired of this confessional. Not exactly life affirming to know that the little box counting my words (or spaces) has less interest in what I’m saying than in how long it takes me to say it. It’s also invulnerable to being smashed with a brick or rock. It’s got me by the balls. When I surrender and save this tract, he’ll let go, only to grab for them again the next time. The number means nothing to me, but I question the methods involved. Split the difference and deposit the change.
Filed under: thoughtful trips
orig. written tuesday, january 25th, 2005
———————————————
I was relaxing with my back up against America, convinced in the righteous goodness of the warm trade winds blowing my hair back, warming my core with tidings of pineapple and coconut. The masterful mixture is intoxicating, brewed on a thousand palm tree lined islands, all playing in the roux. Tourist with island drinks, sporting tiny umbrellas and large clear ice cubes dance by as if pushed by some hidden hand. Everything is pleasing to every sense, and each subtle sensation is stronger, as if on a sensory binge. The vibe of the area is relaxed, sated in some strange way. We’re all already here, why be anything else? Nonsensical thoughts follow each other down my spine, and tingle my extremities. Synapse firing off in miscellaneous trail of images connecting to form the moving picture I am taking in off the veranda.
Boats are sailing across the harbor, trawling along at the pace of the flats surrounding this speck of landmass. Rough fisherman and proud natives one and all, serving the waters, and the fat white tourists, bleached from Our American Excess. We are down here now, and as much as it matters, we have always been here, and we always will. We sell the last truth you can find, and that is the truth everyone wants, because it is whatever you want it to be. Here in paradise, we sell in the passive, almost unaware we even do it, but, like most efforts, practiced in such a sublime manner as to be intoxicating and Beautiful at the same time. Everything is aesthetic here in paradise, mixed with soft and warm sand between our toes and the finest of fine in our hands.
From here, we can spit into the sea and throw epithets across deep divisions confronting us. Sunglasses and the sun work together, altering ever so slightly the perception to a shimmering Beauty that surrounds us, painting us in tequila yellow and a ragged and limp shade of blue never seen before. My own brown eyes light up, widening at the thought of perfection and hospitality, singularly transfixed on a star shooting across the sky, somehow visible against the bright lights of the sun, amazing in its antiquity. The smooth breathing runs ragged, and with the greatest of effort I roll my eyes slightly, to focus on the sparkling water and the dark outline of Manta Rays swimming across the waves.
It is my first time here in paradise, and I am unsure of how to act. To fit in with what I perceive to be the local custom, I drink rum and gin by the pool overlooking the sea. There is a bar in the middle of the pool, and to my own amazement, not a lifeguard in sight. There are several bartenders in sight. I charge the drinks to my room bill, and enjoy colorful drinks in tall glasses chilled with ice. Chasing the sun across the sky, my spirit soars, then returns, tired from the chilling night air. Soaking in the warm water up to my neck, I can barely move. The last vestige of worry floats away from my body and I am water. I flow around the pool, concerned only with oxygen and hydrogen in varying forms floating all around my body. My senses razor sharp and clear, I can feel paradise pulse against my skin, floating through me, cleansing me inside out from the worry of the world.
Declarations of insanity not withstanding, I mumble something incoherent about food and my desire to be filled with it, and the bartender has a hamburger rushed up from the kitchen, still steaming in the night air when it arrives, nestled against a kosher pickle on a bed of potato chips. I eat my king’s feast overlooking my temporary kingdom, convinced a week can last forever. The days stretch out before me; beckoning, inviting, warm and soft against the possibility of ever leaving this land, and I am unconvinced. I stare up at the night sky and see stars dance and the trade winds blow against my face again, sweet like nectar.
Filed under: Poetry
“miracle kilter”
was it not enough blanket,
or just too much feet
staring blankly into darkness
on a cold metal seat?
here I can sit and stare into my face,
the miracle kilter at a really slow pace
sleep off indecision,
walk away pain,
clear skies or dark clouds
always bleed the same rain
there’s nobody here with which to switch place,
a miracle kilter at a really slow pace
sunlight falls down
now I can see
colored rose sunsets
coming at me
there’s nowhere to run to, this isn’t a race
just a miracle kilter at a really slow pace
light brings on shadows
reminding us all,
most likely you’ll fall
here in the clear with no past to erase,
but a miracle kilter at a really slow pace
Filed under: Poetry
“Legerdemain”
I was standing by an audience
Watching angels dance,
Standing here immobile,
Totally entranced
Then the sky darkened
And the girls looked up in vain
To the sounds of thunder
Almighty legerdemain
Walking along a city street
Hucksters screaming loud
Looking just to land the fish
Swimming in the crowd
Most people know these types,
These gangsters in the rain
Another case of unholy
Affixed legerdemain
Sitting still in the movie house
Trying to comprehend
The way the hero action star
Manages to survive yet again
He offers up the money lines
Square-faced acting feign
The audience is transfixed
By the actors legerdemain
—————————————–
authors note: Written on a dare five years ago and rescued from the garbage bin in a moment of enlightened hope that there was something worth keeping. Still not sure what it was.
cf
Filed under: Poetry
“revenge”
the trouble with honesty is it’s always the truth
when to be perfectly honest a lies of more use
though misuse is the rule that defines the law
with so much to see something you never saw
what are you looking for, who do you see?
i’m so many people and none of them know me
It seems that again folly chases death
Do you know this story, or shall I give you the rest?
if you weren’t so perfect i wouldn’t be so insane
but for some fucking reason i can’t give you the blame
i don’t think it was any kind conscious choice
more likely just hearing the sound of your voice
the funniest part is how i’m willing to try
like throwing poodles out of windows, expecting they’ll fly
or looking for snowmen dancing in hell
(I’m pretty optimistic if you couldn’t tell)
of course on the flip side it could someday work out,
and I wonder if that’s what this nights all about
(four months later)
so the trouble with honesty is still the same game
whispers of truth that walk like the lame
now the only question i have left to ask,
should i be crying or can i look back and laugh?
i’m one less person than i was yesterday
a new one tomorrow for a new game to play
still, an Aphrodite smile i’d never ignore,
no matter how much it seems that i’ve seen that before
the best part is still meeting and flying around
to make it worthwhile to crash into the ground
that must explain the whole song and dance
we didn’t know better and we took a chance
———————————
authors note: Written three or four years ago during a brief lyrical craze. Further proof that people are stupid, and we are all people.
cf
Filed under: Poetry
“Visage”
A singularly powerful moment,
In an otherwise blasé affair
Reflections, impressions
Impersonal pretension
Illogic that’s all but unfair
Where is this going,
Where’s everyone at
What’s so amazing about this and that?
Where is the problem
Why can’t you see
That it’s a waste to keep being if you can’t just be
The last hours of freedom and highway
First moments of home from the road
Illustrious tension
Profound apprehension
Feel free to push but not goad
Where is this going,
Where’s everyone at
What’s so amazing about this and that?
Where is the problem
Why can’t you see
Put your toes in the water and drift out to sea
Repentance is numbness and tension
Repeated in so many ways
Distasteful mention
Of unlikely conventions
Fusion of leaving and staid
Where is this going,
Where’s everyone at
What’s so amazing about this and that?
Where is the problem
Why can’t you see
If you don’t profit from my words then I’ll take no fee
Filed under: Poetry
“ecuador comes to mind”
walking through a darkened hall
ecuador comes to mind
i see her there somehow before
another present time
when things were strange and different then
and we were feelin’ fine,
our time was spent on restless nights
when ecuador comes to mind.
losing myself in someone else
while she is spilling rhyme
looking around for something i found
inside that lady’s eyes
it slips my grasp, now lost control
graspin’ shadows from behind
all of this and more i see
when ecuador comes to mind
held so tight you can’t let go
of foolish thoughts of prime,
searching for some secret cave
warily spending time
the shortest distance between two points
so often not in line,
scattered thoughts and scattered lands
when ecuador comes to mind
Filed under: thoughtful trips
Huge tire tracks had torn up the sand, leaving little canals scattered in logical little patterns. Being no fan of machines operating on the beach, the effect startled me, seeming vulgar and obscene in the presence of the ocean. It was a hideous expression of the temporary dominance of wide-tracked earth movers. The tracks should have been left somewhere else. Nothing as soft as sand deserves this kind of fate. I smoothed a path through the scars as I walked.
My entrance to the city by the sea was the same as it had ever been, give or take a new growth of billboards sprouting from the side of the highway. Oversize signs had been calling out for attention almost thirty miles from the beach, their numbers growing from single signs into a long coagulated “Hello” greeting travelers as they entered this idyllic beach community.
Still, the town was mostly as remembered. The competition for gaudiest paint job hadn’t yet been won, but certainly not due to a lack of effort. On the beach, the waves still crashed methodically against the shore, and the air still smelled luxuriously salty. Tire tracks on the beach notwithstanding, the sand was perfect, fitting easily between my toes and requiring only minor efforts on my part.
Wandering on foot through this coastal metropolis, “remember whens” came flooding out, each a tile in a larger mosaic. The sense of clarity here was unconscionably strong. All else aside, I’d come here for that alone. The rest is just bonus, which is important. I am more than content to take this kind of easy living anywhere it can be found. Put more clearly, the beach is no place for truth, only possibility. Having kicked around long enough to know that unmet expectations are the side effect of any continued existence, my own limits dictate simplicity and movement as a precursor to reality. Formulaic archetypes aside, returning here is as natural as breathing.
The seaside town is done up for the coming summer. Soon hordes of vacationers will march through town. Until they do, the town has assumed an eery “throw a party and nobody comes” ambiance. The imported European labor has begun to populate the town, but the main group is still waiting in Europe, ostensibly looking forward to serving vacationing vacationing families extra large fries and escorting children around the mini-golf course. The help wanted signs hurriedly taped to various store fronts testify to their impending arrival. At all angles buildings freshly painted and patched up for another summer by the shore wait day after day for the crowd to descend. Over a decade worth of summers spent watching the bubbling masses come to mind. It’s easy to picture the place as a dream destination, but it says as much about the dreamer as the particular dream.
Soaking in the quiet atmosphere as the sun shuffles and jukes around patches of clouds, I made my way to the beach, anxious to be away from the monstrous guardians of the boardwalk. The next few minutes were spent spreading out a yellow beach blanket onto the sand, then anchoring it down with unused flip flops, car keys, and water bottles. Away from the few people out for a walk by the shore the day turned distinctly peaceful, one of those feelings unreachable by any drug but seemingly appearing under the right combination of time and place. It was a moment of easy comfort and quiet stability. None of my questions had found answers, and none of my worries had been solved, but it was somehow calming to sit in the center of tireless change and feel timeless.
My kingdom stretches to frayed edges of my trusty yellow beach blanket. The weights keeping the blanket from floating away in the stiff breeze are merely sentries guarding the sandy fort. From my perch against a dune I can see thousands of feet of water attacking the sand, being continually repulsed by the remnants of giant boulders long ago smashed into harmless grains of sand. In this eternal game, rooting for the underdog is a guaranteed win.
The beach blanket empire is a temporary home with a good view of permanence. When I confront this kind of strange assumption, it requires a certain amount of illogical reasoning set to the tune of this empty beach. I have no claim to Hegelian synthesis, nor any desire towards ideology, though I’ve always imagined both must be a source of comfort. In my case, the answer is the same as the question. The beach blanket has seen every one of my moods, and doesn’t seem to mind a small amount of random daydreaming. It holds the sands of dozens of beaches in it’s yellow fibers, and has been laid down for every reason under the sun, and maybe one or two under the moon. A proud yellow rectangle, loyal to a fault, and liable to be kept until it disintegrates into a pile of fibers under the combined weight of many years.
The drive to the beach had been conducted in slow motion. Even as my spirit demanded speed, the whole design of the day argued for a slow pace and unhurried motion. No amount of stalling would cause the beach to rise up as one and move to another location. There was no reason to turn down a little extra time to digest the latest hints found buried in text and animation. I had no barometer to measure progress, save a growing confidence in the fruits of mangling reality and perspective. The pace of the afternoon would reflect the pace of the movement required by my arrival. I drove under the speed limit, and traded cigarettes for laughs. By the time I reached my destination, I had plenty of both.
With all the constant crooning and false positives, the noise around me had to be silenced to ensure all energies were devoted to the next cause. It was glorious to depart the inland empire for the temporary castle on the sand. I could barely acknowledge the haunting and empty feel of what can be derisively called “home” for the time being. I couldn’t acknowledge it because I couldn’t ever admit how much of the situation was my own making. The world might stop. It was doubtful, by why take chances with the fate of the world hanging in the balance? I drove slowly, and arrived at this sunny locale like a palm frond blown in by the midday wind.
The sand around the castle fell under attack as terns and gulls arrived to beg for food I didn’t have. They’d have much better luck with the summer tourist crowd. Or maybe not. There would be no easy meals to be found at the castle, though I could easily sympathize with their quest. The birds posses all of the bravery you’d expect from creatures able to defy gravity without making any attempt to understand why. Ballsy, but stupid. Always doing what they could to ensure they could go on doing what they did. Even with the constant shrieking, they were pleasing to watch. They eventually decided to ignore me in favor of fresher fare from the sea.
From my sand bunker, I turned back towards the shore to watch the water. Out past the breakers, the water slid by heading North to wash the coast of Maine and points beyond before departing towards Europe. I gave brief consideration to following the water from land, but brutally cold winters were a bummer, and rejected out of hand. Instead, I spent some amount of time following the flow of water as it moved past my beach buoy, another in a long line of landmarks in the perpetual trip around the world.
The water licks the horizon. The optical illusion was as real as anything else you’re ever likely to see, even though we know the water does not simply fall off the edge of the world. There are limits to how far we can see while riding the big brown ball, and besides, vision can be trusted only so far. In this case, only to the edge of the earth. My own repetitious conclusion was to test the winds and enjoy the view. My castle on the sand is filled with supplies; the cigarettes fresh, and the water cold (but warming in the midday sun!)
I might have stopped along the road and purchased a small bottle to nip from while watching the sun shoot across the uninterrupted sky, but thought the better of it. As much as one might “understand” a drug, it can be used as needed to produce certain results. Unfortunately for me, I don’t understand alcohol nearly as well as other things, rendering it useless in this atmosphere. There was no sense seeking clarity while adding in variables to the day’s equation. I’d already obtained what I really needed, and the day had been set up beautifully with the proper mixture of the various and sundry. The blanket seemed a brighter shade of yellow, but maybe it was just the sun.
Leaning back into the blanket covered dune, I watched the afternoon parade of birds and ships and waves. All the while, spring was doing her best imitation of summer. She’s not really that good at it because spring warmth can’t mimic summer heat, but again, the effort is applauded, and it’s the thought that counts. The weather seems supportive of my trip to the lands end, even though I am pretty sure it’s only my powers of personification rather any real personality of the season.
I start laughing at the beauty around me, thinking again about past trips; years ago here with people I would barely recognize if they passed by the yellow palace of the beach bum; events so distant they can no longer be placed on the time-line but merely approximated. I laugh at the increasing variance between knowledge and reality, the humor of recognition that there is always the opportunity to make decisions on the same pretense as the manager of an over populated asylum. Wash, rinse, repeat. Outcome predicated on following the steps as directed. An entire case composed of circumstantial conclusions.
The kiss of the wind is what stays with me as I move on. It seems better, and easier, to keep tabs on the winds and let the ocean be. The wind can be scented with anything from saltwater to lilacs to a heightened sense of impending calamity. The ocean just sloshes along the coast, dependable and transitory without any help from me. I know the shore isn’t eternal, but it will outlive me by a factor of thousands. It too requires only periodic visits from me to make sure it hasn’t moved around too much. Not that I can put it back to the way it was; once moved it can never be returned to where it used to be.
For a little while longer, the chief wampeter of the yellow beach blanket empire will monitor the sky and surf, and that is more than enough work for anyone. When we beat feat to return home, I’ll leave the slow moving water to its own wanderings and the sand to its tire tracked fate. Below me, in the folds and frayed edges of the yellow beach blanket are grains of sand from a dozen beaches, riding along with the leftover detritus of hundreds of road trips and sudden unplanned excursions. The yellow castle is built on top of a museum holding my favorite collection. Things I can’t remember symbolized by things too small to see. These days, I don’t snap the blanket in the wind to clear off the extra sand and sea stuff. Whatever stays in the fibers of the blanket is free to come along. The stuff that isn’t supposed to be here will be brushed off by the wind, or the trunk, or nothing. Some of the stuff just falls off. Some stuff is too important to leave to anything but chance.
Parting ways with my comfortable afternoon lodge, I tried to chase the sun West. As always, he moved faster than I was prepared to drive, and the day ended the same way it began; in darkness. The same slow pace of the day endured all the way home. Upon arrival, I found a smuggled a note sent from the me at the beach to the me back at the foothills of the mountains where I serve my time. It made little sense, and could not be understood at first reading. Maybe the beach bum in me has little concern for being obvious or forward. It read:
“I’ve always been a late bloomer. The older I get, the more obvious it is. Anytime I get lost in the circumstances of some frightened and frenzied moment, memory and humor remind me that at my best moments, I am still a child in the broadest sense of the term. It’s the difference between a ticking clock and an alarm bell. They share the same source but speak very differently. The latter alerts us to action, to SOMETHING THAT MUST BE DONE NOW. The former quietly marks time’s passage as if sanctified by counting of seconds, minutes, and hours. The best places, the places I love as moments of sanity, have neither the alarm bell nor the ticking clock. Nowhere else can it be made so beautifully apparent that adherence to happenstance is the most admirable trait. There is nothing shameful in arriving at enlightenment a little later than others. Without a watch, I’m never sure how long it takes. Not everything is anything until it clears a path to sure-footed movement in a new direction. For the moment, the royal beach bum is hungry, and after one more cigarette must say goodbye to the castle on the beach. Until next time,
you at the beach”
The last thing to run through my imagination before falling into a deep sleep was the wind. Every so often, it carried a little salt and sand to places far from the water. I had a good sense of when the wind said things were OK, and other moments when the salty breeze required my presence to watch the water lap the edge of the land. A fair give and take, making it a hard bargain to find when clarity and sometimes sanity is desired. I wonder if I could stop a bulldozer on the beach? The tire tracks have no business there, and nobody else is coming forward to hold the bastards back.
