The World Of Weed - Part Two

Part Two

When did I first start smoking marijuana?

I’m trying my hardest to remember when I first smoked marijuana.  For the life of me, I cannot remember right now. You’d think something like that would stick in my head. It will come to me somewhere along the way, I’m sure, when I’m not thinking about it. It usually happens that way. It might be next year but it will happen when least anticipated.

What I do know is that at sixteen years of age I was rolling and smoking weed regularly. I kept my bag of weed inside a birdhouse sitting on a dresser in my room at home. My mom found it once when she was snooping around, just put it back when she found it, and nonchalantly told me, “David, I found your stuff when I was dustin’ in your room. I put it back where you had it.” It makes me laugh thinking about it now.

Ah. The memories. Smoking out back of the house at night and copping a nice high then just sitting there looking at the stars while listening to those sounds … to the symphony … being played by the night creatures. Is it any wonder that I still thrive on stargazing and listening to the seasonal symphonies that have not changed over all these years? I dare say that it is not at all coincidental.

Those were extremely interesting times to come up in. Those of us that couldn’t toe the line being drawn in front us in that revolutionary era, stood up to a hell of a lot of resistance and abuse. A good friend, I will leave him unnamed, had a little pot on him. He ran from the town cop. Town cop shot him in the back of his right leg. My friend limped until the day he died from something totally unrelated. Town cop went on to become a deputy and retired with County benefits.

It’s crazy the things that we remember. Just like my friend here. I think I’ve mentioned him once in conversation over all these years. And I have certainly never written about him or that incident that only served to polarize us, drive us closer together, and add fuel to our motivation. Those memories, and so many more, are in there resting deep within the recesses of my mind waiting to be tickled into coming forward.

As I recall, there were quite a number of close peers that discovered weed around about that same time I did. Oh. And all this coincidental with a family of first cousins moving to town from, of all places, CALIFORNIA. That West Coast counter-cultural mindset came to sleepy little Fairhope. Ha. Smoke some weed, listen to some good music, and watch Creature Feature. Sometimes the bunch of us cousins would pile up in my Malibu, or Warren’s ancient Volvo, tie on Steve’s surfboard and head to the beach at Gulf-shores. We were living free and harming nobody.

My goodness. What about Jimmy C?

We grew up on neighboring farms. I was out for a ride one night and bumped into Jimmy somewhere. It may have been down at the marina by the river. I just can’t remember for sure. He was in their farm truck … a white colored International. Tough trucks but the ugliest ever made.

I was driving my ’64 Malibu that I bought used from Marvin Berglin’s Used Cars across from Gaston Ford. Berglin’s was on the corner by what was once the Organic School of Education. I made payments on it from my earnings working for Wood Acres … forty dollars a month … until it was paid for. Mr. Wood paid me sixty dollars a week for my time after school during the week and on the weekends. Working at Wood Acres beat the heck out of bagging groceries and stocking shelves at City Market or assembling bicycles and lawn mowers at Western Auto in town for sixty-cents and hour.

I didn’t know Jimmy smoked weed. He didn’t know I smoked weed. But it only takes one question to find out. And I had my baggie and rolling papers in my pocket. 

Well, Jimmy and I got high and rode the dirt roads in that old International for a while. Ah. That’s the last time I ever saw Jimmy. I have no idea about what may have become of him. But I do know this. I’ll never forget my friend Jimmy C. And I will never forget the night we smoked marijuana together on River Road.

Ah. Recalling these things. Allowing myself to travel into these deep caverns in my mind. Reliving, albeit briefly, moments in my life that I’ve not given thought to in I can’t remember when. Reliving moments in my life that certainly had a rather large effect on this mindset that has served me well all these decades. Those times when I drifted away from this mindset to appease others always met with much less than undesirable outcomes.

The photo? I was in my mid-forties and playing a little gig at Peter's in Newton, New Jersey. I was quite thin back them. Kansas had been very hard on me.

 

The World Of Weed - Part One

November 15, 2023

The World of Weed - Part One

I remember it very well. 

It’s just like it was yesterday. These days, these memories are as fresh as they were when they occurred.

It was on a Saturday during my sophomore year at Gulf-Coast Bible College in Houston. I was in the dorm parking lot cleaning out my car. It had become quite a mess. Once the surface stuff was dealt with, with time on my hands, I decided to give that little Pinto hatchback a good deep cleaning. Oh. That little hatchback had seen some good times … if you get my drift.

I started by going through the glove compartment.

It was there that I found them … my “Marijuana Grower’s Guide” and a baggie with a small handful of “roaches”. By the time I was finished, I had picked another smaller handful of seeds and roaches from under the seats and out of crevices and creases. I had blue suede leather covers on the bottoms of the front seats. When I lifted them, the factory seat covers were full of burned holes where hot seeds that had fallen and landed. I showed them to one of my classmates and he laughed so hard I thought he was going to piss himself. That was over forty years ago now.

For those who know me and never knew, I feel certain that the self-disclosures being revealed in these pages that I am writing these days, is filling in a lot of blanks to questions most are afraid to ask me. If people don’t ask, they never know and live on assumptions based on ignorance. If you want to know, ask. I’ll give an answer. You may not like the answer. But that’s none of my affairs.

There are a lot of things I’ve never been public about over the years. There are a few with whom I have made personal discloses face to face. 

There are reasons for that and a “sense of shame” is not one of them. Shirli knew everything about me. I knew everything about Shirli. We had no secrets about our pasts. The primary reason I’ve not been vocal about these things related to my past was to keep Shirli from experiencing any kind of “bound to arise” repercussions that seem to always follow me around. 

There will always be those “nose up in the air” people who think theirs doesn’t stink. 

Hello. Yes. Yours does, thank you.

Over the years I’ve lived in pedestal church environments where these kinds of self-disclosures were viewed as inappropriate for someone wearing the “Reverend” title.

The one time I was openly honest at a church youth camp, and that to help some youth that were on troubling pathways and heading toward disasters in life, I had a church board, of all things, ask for my resignation. I thought about, prayed about it, sought wise counsel, then wrote the resignation letter. Me? I wanted to stay and fight to the death. But wisdom insisted that I get my wife and children out of that hellish environment and shield them, as best I could, from anymore assaults from “those” people.

I have a lot of eyes on me these days. 

A lot of the eyes are eyes that have been watching me all along. There are a lot of new eyes too. The grand difference now is that I don’t answer to church boards anymore and haven’t since the turn of the millennium. That’s almost a quarter of a century. And, quite frankly, at this point on the continuum, I am really no longer concerned about what anyone thinks when it comes to the details of my life. 

Those that I refer to as my “Most Important” people are solidly in place. I am secure within myself, thank you very kindly.

By Invitation Only

November 14, 2023

My faith was solidly intact going into this horrible ordeal. I cannot say that my faith was shaken. I will concede that everything else about me was shaken and turned upside down on its flippin’ head.

Becoming oriented toward life as it is now has been a lot more than challenging. The words that most people would speak to me during that season came not out of any sort of common personal frame of reference but were more like well-rehearsed clichés that simply fell on ears no longer tuned to clichés or similar responses. Most people don’t want to feel your pain. Thank God that there were a few close people, and them harshly grieving the loss of Shirli themselves, who were not afraid to enter into this world of pain with me. They have been literal life savers for me.

It boggles my mind still. Those who I tell, find it hard to believe when I tell them the number of my biologicals that took the time to call or otherwise check on me after Shirli died. That number is pitifully shameful in anybody’s scheme of things. I’m not going to say that “none” is the number. It’s possible. I was in a bad way for a LONG time. One or two may have contacted me and I simply am unable to remember it. I do recall a couple of times that I initiated calls because I needed somebody that bad.

Where was my FUCKING FAMILY when I was languishing so fucking low that I was seriously contemplating ending it all with the squeeze of a fucking trigger just to put an end to the fucking pain! So, the most graceful way to say it is that I simply do not remember it. But, knowing myself as I do, had anyone made the effort, I feel certain that I would remember something as monumental as that. Oh, my language? Poor sensitive eyes and ears that you see and hear through. I believe it was Mark Twain who said, “Sometimes profanity offers a release denied even to prayer.”

I thank God every day for my little Tribe and some heart-kin that were daily peeking through my window blinds. What would I have possibly done without these in my life?

I have, of late, reacquired the attitude expressed in a line of a song that I wrote years ago for a former wife. We’ll call her Mrs. Number Three. The line simply says … “When the phone don’t ring, it’s me again.” Some things simply must be put into the rearview mirror. After a few curves and hills, they find themselves relegated to a file folder up there somewhere in my head labeled “Leave Alone Henceforth!”

It simply must be this way and with no apology from me. 

I have nothing to apologize for, thank you. The onus in the apology department is on that other side of the fence. There is no just picking up and going on as though there isn’t the proverbial elephant sitting on the couch.  And, lest anyone forget, rebuilding bridges rarely happens. So, with the bridge building thing in mind, I have no expectations of the aforementioned. They are already in a folder being slowly pushed to the back of my mind … there to remain collecting dust.

Their neglect hurt me very badly. I forgive them one and all. I harbor no grudges or relish any kind of ill-intent toward any of them. I too, you see, am but a mere fallen creature likewise in dire need of grace.

“So, bury my ashes down by the pond

Where that stone is etched with our names

It’s there I want to rest ‘til the Great Resurrection

With the one who truly loved me and left wearing my name”

I’m again thinking of something. I was thinking on this a long time ago. It’s no new thought. It is, rather, an old thought. It is one that I entertained for years. It’s one that is nudging to be brought forward.

In rethinking it, I’m really diggin’ it. More than I dug it when I first started diggin’ it back those way more than several years ago.

What is it?

It’s that final service where people will gather to comfort one another and especially to comfort my children and dearest loved ones. What’s so beautiful is that I have the capacities to pull it off. I sense within me that it is something that I should pull off. Is there a divine appointment in this making it "something that I should pull off"? This is some kind of heavy duty thinking on things. Important thinking on important things. 

I know the funeral directors personally and have for years. They are friends of mine. The owner is a dear personal friend of mine. One little visit and a note in my folder and it’s a done deal. And what a final statement it will make. My funeral service will most likely be “By Invitation Only.” 

There will be plenty of time to mail out the invitations. By then, all that will be left of me will be an urn of ashes. If you haven’t “shown” your love for me while I was living, don’t come to my funeral service to pity my dearest ones or to assuage your conscience. 

 

Those Damned Sharp Pointed Horns

November 13, 2023

I found it floating face down this morning. I must admit that the sight of it caused me a brief moment of faint sadness. The rest of me was doing a happy dance.

I have been locked in combat with it for most of this week. It and a squad of its kind invaded me overnight a few days ago. The rodent repellant that I use encouraged all but one really bold one to leave. But this one was determined to make my little crib its own home for the winter. It was definitely a mouse but not the usual variety that commonly shows up this time of year trying to escape the winter weather. It was a good bit larger than those common aggravations. When I first saw it scurrying about, I thought it was a young rat. It turned its nose up at those peanut butter baited traps.

There it was when I turned on the light this morning. Floating in the toilet. Expired. Drowned.

I don’t know if it slipped in, couldn’t rescue itself, and became a victim of accidental drowning. Or if the little critter finally arrived at a point of despair and took the plunge to end it all. Either way, it is to my personal benefit. That certain piece of my capacities can now rest from its fixation on eradicating this unwelcomed and uninvited intruder into my home. I win. Again. But of course, I did.

The small things in life will always be the greatest and most important things in life. I am discovering this afresh in so many different areas of life. Grandiose things will always fade in their appeal and attraction. When our worlds are turned upside down, grandiose becomes meaningless to us. But those small things, which are really the great things in life, are the ones that warm our hearts and tug at our deeper emotions.

It’s in this deeper emotional realm that I have of late discovered myself.

It’s not an occasional reality that comes to me now and then. No. Not at all. It is now the realm of emotion wherein I reside. It’s an every waking day reality. And this every waking day reality is life-altering. It doesn’t suggest change. It demands change. And, only by flowing with the changes, do I discover a sense of deep interior peace and contentment. Acceptance. It’s all about acceptance. The more I fight against these imposed changes, the more aggravated and pissed off I get about the circumstances and changes that have been imposed upon me.

I can’t help but to think about something that dovetails into this piece of work that is being fashioned of me. It’s something that Paul wrote where he said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”[i]

What I am experiencing in the newly discovered realm of emotions is truly a gift designed by God for those whom he created, for those who, in his kind and merciful forethought, He knew would be suffering the life-altering throes that come at such a time as this in the lives of grieving human beings.

And for what purpose?

Comfort.

First, for me. But it’s not just for me. It’s for all of His created children who, for all of us, at some time or another, are going to be riding on the sharp pointed horns that are part of the throes of this life changing dilemma. And, once discovering and experiencing this comfort, we are then behooved to communicate this comfort to those others among us experiencing the heartache and pains of those damned sharp pointed horns that come around to gore us.

 

 

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[i] 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

 

Bookmarks. A Personal Communique?

November 11, 2023

The rain on the roof last night had a very pleasant sound. It’s been months since I’ve heard that sound. It was drizzling a little when I walked over to visit my neighbor for a few minutes. It was a really soft rain that I walked in coming back home. I’m not usually a fan of walking in the rain. But this was a special rain. I’ve not seen, felt, or heard rain in months now. Thank you, Lord.

I’m just another little sparrow

Blown about by the hard winds of life

I’m missing a few feathers these days

But I still know how to fly

A personal communique from the other side? It certainly has the scent of it.

I was looking through some books that have been collecting dust. Books. Books galore. Shirli and I thought of ourselves as people of books. I enjoy reading on a number of subjects of interest. And Shirli was a voracious reader. How many times did we load totes of books and donate them to the thrift store so we would have bookshelf space to fill up again? It never took us long to refill the shelves.

They were in one of those books I was reading while we were still living in the tiny house. It got packed up, put on a shelf here, and it’s been sitting silently on that shelf collecting dust now for over three years. The bookmarks were in that book. Shirli colored them and gave them to me during the Covid lock-down fiasco. They are priceless treasures to me.

There is another book that I’m looking for that has to go to John, Shirli’s son. It’s a library book from the church library at the church where Shirli attended as a little girl being raised by her grandmother. We visited that church not long after I moved to New Jersey to set up housekeeping with Shirli. She saw it on the shelf, took it down, pulled out the library card and showed me her name where she had checked it out and read it. It filled her with so much joy that she was beaming.  It was a story about a horse. Imagine that. I think that was the first time I caught a glimpse of Shirli’s little girl that had been so badly wounded when she was abandoned by her mother and other circumstances that befell her. The church gifted the book to Shirli. I watched that little girl heal and grow strong.

I did everything I possibly could have done to help and nurture that little girl who became so alive and active again in Shirli. And, the truth be known, Shirli is the one who rescued and nurtured the little boy buried inside of me. My little boy is alive and thriving because of Shirli's love for me.

You know, timing is everything.

And here I am in a zone of time where I am searching, praying, and questioning everything while seeking some divine direction about what to do and how to do as I continue pushing through and moving ahead in this crazily beautiful, however difficult, life-transition. Oh. I’m not fighting it anymore. I am, rather, embracing it.

I may very well now be a solo free moral agent passing through what’s left of life for me. I am, however, not entirely my own … something I remind myself of daily. I still bear the marks of a calling that was placed on me when I was but a child. I remember it well. I pulled a proverbial Jonah. I ran from it as a youth. And the running from it became for me a great fish that swallowed me up. I still wear the scars left by that decade of running. And what now? How does this calling affect and come into play in this life that I am living now this side of the hell that I’ve lived through? 

It’s an important question begging to be answered.

 

 

 

 

 

My Heart Is Open As A Shrine

November 10, 2023

The intrinsic qualities that make a person who they are doesn’t change. They remain the same. They do, however, as time and experience progress, become compounded by layers that settle upon them … layers that can harden and become concrete weights paralyzing and holding in check these intrinsic qualities.

The more I part with … the freer I feel.

I came to a profound realization of this just minutes ago when I lifted the lid on that big can and saw the “things” in there as I added more “things” on top of them. Oh, I’m not going at it balls to the wall like I did with that first major culling that gutted me. This is different. This has a certain savor to it, sad though as it is, that brings warm feelings to my heart and smiles to my face. This … this parting with … can’t be rushed or hurried. It can only be savored as part of the unfolding of this life-transition that I’m living in.

There is another side to this parting with things.

As I dig in deep, taking one step at a time to reconfigure things within these walls to more appropriately suit my own personal needs as “just David” … rather than the David in Shirli and David … I’m finding things tucked away that I had forgotten that I had. Talk about the memory rushes associated with things like that. Then, every time, there comes that dual question that begs to be answered. “Is this something that I need to keep or is it something that I need to part with? If I say to myself that I need to keep it, then a second question presents itself. “Why do I think I need to keep it?” Is it purely sentimental now or something that I will likely use going forward?

No. This process really doesn’t get easier. But, at this point in the trip, this different realm of emotions that I’m living in these days is more than capable of dealing with things without having the emotional fall-aparts that were so resident during those long dark months in that terribly dark hole. It’s still emotional. But it’s a different emotional. So different that it is difficult to describe. So different that I’m inclined to believe that it’s something that must be personally caught because it can’t possibly be taught. And, what a hell of a price we pay for the catching.

This is fine tuning the present as it really is. There are things that I cannot hold onto to any longer simply for the sake of sentimental value. There are things, too, certain special sentimental things, that I will never part with if I have any choice in the matter. But life changes. Take that to the bank. Life especially changes when you begin to see the autumn changes coming. Take that to the bank too.

“My heart is open as a shrine.”

And it is. Open to both receive and to give. 

My God. I’ve never been here before. This is new ground for me. This is sacred personal space. And, as many times as I’ve listened to Seger sing those words, never before have they impacted me as they have just now. My heart is open as a shrine. Everything in a shrine is in plain view for others to see. 

No. This doesn’t scare me one whit. There was a day when I labored to keep Shirli from suffering any repercussions from my troubled youth and young adulthood. My Doll Baby is no longer physically with us. Shirli has been liberated from this sweet world of sorrows. I don’t have to protect her anymore. I'm free to be who I am. I'm free to be "just" the David that I am in all my diverse flavors.

I just came across a two-inch-thick folder in the file cabinet.

Its contents? A lot of lyrics and poems that I wrote to Shirli in New Jersey while I was out there on the prairie in NW Kansas. I’ve not seen these in a long, long time. Oh. We kept that stack of “hot” emails that we sent back and forth. We kept them for a long time but one day we built a fire and burned our “spicy” emails. What would the children think if they found them after we are gone? [Wink and grin.] Oh golly. How many multiplied hours of typing and editing is it going to take to transcribe and save these lyrics and poems into this hard drive?

I have a lot of keystroking work ahead of me to do as part of this life-transistion if I am going to leave behind an honest account of the life I've lived.

The photo? That was a beautiful camping weekend. That was the first time that Shirli and I camped at what fast became our most favorite camping spot. I own a lot to Shirli. Her love for me turned me into the man that I am today.

 

 

Eddie's Last Joint

November 9, 2023

“I’ve got a one way ticket to the open road …. .” A line in a song by John Fogerty.  

I was playing in a four-piece band when I wasn’t even old enough to drive. And we were playing some pretty dang good rock and roll. Oh, the memories associated with that. Rich memories.

Eddie decided to leave us way back there. 

I was in the Army and had driven home from Fort Campbell Kentucky on a little break between duty cycles and had, just a few hours earlier, smoked a joint with him. He gave me no clue about what he was planning to do. But, now that I think about it, maybe he did … whether intentionally or unintentionally. He gave me close to a three-finger lid and said he didn’t need it anymore. And it was good smoke. Every time I rolled a joint out of that baggie, I did it in memory of my friend Eddie.

The other three of us have seasoned with the counsel of age a bit but we’re still around. And music has always been an important part of our lives. I heard recently that Jeff retired his drums. For somebody who grew up with polio, Jeff could flat play the drums. Keith? He’s still the choir director at the big church down there.

I’m doing the Spring cleaning that I didn’t do back in the Spring. Ha. Come to think of it, it didn’t get done the Spring before either. Oh. I hit it a lick here and there to keep things from becoming a total disaster. My God. I can’t stand a dirty toilet. I did do a pretty good tidy-up in the living room, kitchen, and bathroom in early June of this year in preparation for Bob flying in from Rio Rancho. No. The place has never looked like anything on those hoarder shows. But it certainly did not reflect my otherwise impeccable housekeeping skills.

That line in Fogerty’s song haunts me.

 “I’ve got a one way ticket to the open road …. .

I have grown to be very comfortable soloing in this little house. 

I have no problem at all now just sitting here listening to the ticking of the clock on the wall. Sometimes I turn on some music. Sometimes I don’t. I don’t have to have noise as some kind of futile attempt at distraction to keep my free-flow of thoughts from going where they go and doing what they do. I need no distractions now. I want my thoughts to go where they want to go. And I want to feel the emotions as I relive precious memory after precious memory.

I need this little shack full of memories for a number of obvious reasons.

I also feel what Fogerty is saying in that line.

It’s not that I want to go for a drive. It is that I need to go for a drive. Huge difference. Bang. Epiphany. Shirli and I both needed this as something compelling us to drive new roads. Wow. Someone once made the statement to me that “you get what you get when you get it”. Well, I got it. I just now got it. We didn’t have to talk about why we were doing it. We just did it because that’s what we needed to do. It’s not a head thing. It’s a soul thing.

The trouble is that it is far easier to live up in the head rationalizing and dismissing than it is to live in the depths of the soul where we are compelled to do as we do without putting a lot of thought into it. Huh. Now that’s interesting to think about.

 

Thanks But No Thanks, Jack

November 8, 2023

Some people make it and become internationally famous. Some people make it and remain practically anonymous. Either way, there is an expensive personal price to pay. In either case, similar gifts and talents are in operation to achieve the desired end result.

Today is a “Listen to Clapton” day while I continue cleaning and decluttering the shack. Now there’s one that made it and became internationally famous. The great ones? They paid their personal dues to make it. A lot of folks “out of the know” think all they did was party and have a good time. Oh, but there was plenty of that. Partying and having a good time are just one part of that scene. There’s a lot more to it than that.

I remember something that Dr. Jack E. said to me one day. I really liked and respected Jack. I even played golf with him a few times. Yeah. I took up the game in Houston where I was so far removed from the kinds of outdoor environments and activities I prefer. I no longer play the game. Jack was one of the professors when I was going to college in Houston. He had a couple of pretty daughters too. Attractive. 5’4” or 5’5”. Light dishwater blond hair, as I recall.

At that time, I was playing and singing with a bluegrass trio. We were getting gigs and having a great time getting known around Houston. Gosh. This also coincides with our children’s mom and I getting sweet on each other. Ah. The memories evoked when I travel back to Houston in my mind.

Jack told me one day, “David, you need to forget about this music stuff. It’s just a dead end.”

Well, I’ve never forgotten about this music stuff, Jack. Sure. There have been times when it has not taken a high priority in my life. But I’ve never forgotten about it. And what was my mainstay that I turned to attempting to salvage my sanity when I went down into that deep dark hole after Shirli died? It was my writing. It was my music.

Here is a stand-alone statement.

I truly believe, had I not had these to delve into as my therapy, the place where I was able to allow my emotions to run freely and express them cathartically in lyrics and other written words, I very likely would have become just another statistic on the books.

Those two? These two very compatible bedfellows that seem to flow so freely from me? These traits that I consider more implanted gift than developed talent?  It’s what I’m still doing now, Jack. I didn’t take your advice when you gave it … your unwise counsel to me, a young man starting a new life and trying to figure it out. I did not ask for your advice, sir, on this matter.

Thanks. But no thanks, Jack. 

I may not be internationally famous and stinking rich [yet] but I've made it and I am, in my own right, one of the most successful men walking this planet. Life is grand.

Cleaning And Culling

November 7, 2023

Everything is so precious to me anymore.

The farther along in the unfolding of this life-transition I get, the more I can clearly see how unwell I had become back there. Looking ahead? It’s still plenty foggy up ahead. Looking back? It’s easy to see clearly how pitifully unwell I was in mind and body. Looking right here where my feet are? It’s beautiful. Life is becoming beautiful again. It’s becoming beautiful in a different hue of beautiful than I have ever known. Life is becoming interesting again. Life has become something that I want to keep doing. Thank the Good Lord for that.

Now that was an unexpected trip down memory lane. And it was the craziest little trigger that set it off.

I was standing there at the sink washing a couple of pint jars. You know. Using a jar brush. Then bang. There I was. Clearly pictured in my mind was a reel playing … like a movie reel … that showed me as a kid, outside under the shade of that pecan tree washing canning jars. Not just a few. Hundreds. I washed hundreds of canning jars every canning season from the time I was old enough to do it until I finally pulled up stakes and left the farm behind for fun and better times. Or so I thought.

I’ve been wrong so many times

I was once better than I am now

I was once worse, a lot worse

Than anybody would believe

And here I sit wondering

Where did the last twenty go

Where did it all go so fast

Where did it all go ...  so ... damned ... fast

Ha. And there is no sign that its rapid forward movement is going to slow down between here and there.

One day, after I’m gone, my children and grandchildren will appreciate the words that I am writing in this journal where, as in no other time in my life, have I ever allowed others such an uncensored open window to peer into the dark closets and inner workings of my mind and soul. Well, isn’t this a ballsy thing to do? Not really. There’s no bravado on my part involved. I care not one whit about popular opinion. In a large way, while I’m talking to myself in these journal entries, I’m talking with my children, grandchildren, and a small cluster of dear ones who comprise my heart-kin and Tribe. For these I care immensely. 

It's time to do more culling. Can't avoid it. I’m cleaning and culling as I go. Badly needed cleaning. And the culling has to continue as part of moving forward healthily is concerned. The culling doesn’t get any easier. There is stuff in drawers and cabinets all through this place that trigger memories. Stuff that Shirli will never use again. Things that I can’t imagine me using again. Yet, I’ll pick something up, hold it, and cringe at the thought of parting with it before I either toss it into the can here in the shack or walk it out to the big can.

This is a project that is going to take a while.

 

 

The Reason I Talk To Myself

November 6, 2023

It was an epiphany of sorts that I had this morning.

Early morning drive. Way too early for me. But the van had to go to the shop and the shop isn’t just around the corner from here; a place that I affectionately refer to as “on the edge of somewhere”.

I stopped at the Love’s on the rez for a coffee and an apple Danish. I take my coffee black, thank you. It was kind of hard getting out of there because of all the heavy trucks. One of them hauling a hunk of a machine. Massive oversize load. I’d love to sit and watch it operate.

Merging onto the interstate was simple enough. There was a long opening with a blue semi back there a good distance. I’ve got the radio up listening to some good classical rock. The cruise is set on sixty-five and I’m groovin’ to the tunes. I’m enjoying my apple Danish and coffee while, all the while, wondering about why I seem to talk out loud practically all the time anymore.

Bingo. The light goes on up in the attic. Then the little dude up there sorts through a folder and reveals an answer. Astounding.

The reason that I talk to myself is that I am just thinking out loud.

Even when I am answering myself in one of my many personal self-dialogues, I am simply thinking out loud.  And the deeper self-revelation is that this is not something that I picked up after Shirli died. I had begun to really wonder about that. I’ve never had to think about that before. But no. I spent a lot of time alone as a child growing up on that little farm. I talked to myself a lot when I was alone as a child … sometimes very afraid … sometimes feeling very neglected and starving for human affection.

No judgments from me. That’s just the way it was. And there is no changing any of that.

Now that I think about it, I’ve honestly never stopped talking out loud to myself. There have been plenty of times when I didn’t talk aloud to myself because I had people to talk to. There were conversations to be had with people. But, when not surrounded by people, I still talked to myself. And these days, I spend a lot of time alone talking to myself.

Talking to myself is an inseparable inherent part of my writing. I’ve never thought about that before now. As a writer, the words that I type out of my head, I speak them aloud as I type them. I don’t know if it’s always been this way. But I can’t think of a time when it wasn’t. Those who know me personally, if they want, can read the words I type and hear my voice along with the inflections and pauses that are naturally part of my way of speech.

My emotions have gone to a different plane. My emotions, of late, by absolutely no effort from me to conjure them up as an act, seem, of their own accord, to flow naturally into whatever I am doing or saying. I’ve noticed it when playing guitar and singing here in the solitude of this little house. I especially noticed it yesterday morning when out of the blue I was asked to front the choir at church. Totally unrehearsed. That was quite awesome at several levels with the huge bonus of having an accomplished pianist playing and a beautiful soprano voice in the background with an ear that could follow the vocal liberties that I often tend to take with the printed notes on the page and harmonize with me without missing a beat or going off key.

My cup runneth over.

 

The Option In The Middle

November 4, 2023

Will I ever marry again? You know. In the “traditional” sense?

At this age and stage in life, traditional marriage has some sides and angles to it that can be quite problematic. Oh, the ramifications. I don’t even want to go there in my head right now. I’m not ruling it out for some point distant in this unfolding. Things are different though now. I’m not starting out. Starting over? Yes. Starting out? No. It’s not a starting out. It is a finishing up. I’ve started that short final lap. It has no re-do button after I’ve crossed the finish line.

I’m too old to be screwing up. I’m far too young to stop living.

Some crazy things happen to me anymore when I’m out in public. Mind you, when I go out in public, I like to be put together a little bit. At least as put together as I put myself together.

So, coming from town today, after going by the gym then picking up a terrific lunch at the church festival in town, I stopped at the truck-stop on the rez to buy some snuff. Yeah. I picked up that bad habit again back when Shirli was dying. It’s slowly going by the wayside.

The clerk was ringing up my purchase. This woman, a complete stranger, walks up to me and said, “You wore your Halloween T-Shirt today.” She was standing really close too. Then she got even closer, put her arm around me and spoke softly into my hearing, “I was watching you walking outside with your walking stick.” Oh my.

I really don’t recall exactly what I said in reply. I’m sure it had to have been in good taste though.

The brief encounter ended with us both laughing and me telling her, “Baby, you go have yourself a good day.” When I got out of the store, I laughed every step of the way to the van.

I guess I put myself together pretty good when I go out into the public.

So, the question in mind?

There are only a few options to consider at this age and stage of life. At least as I see it.

There’s that traditional marriage thing with its rough ramifications that, at present, shows no points. Then there is the more non-traditional approach that stops short of that trip to the courthouse to pay for a marriage license. A lot of benefits. Especially when done with the right person. And then there is the third option … swear off the companionship of a compatible woman and live like a celibate monk for the rest of my life. This third one is showing no points in its favor too. It seems to me, it certainly seems to me, that all of the points are on the option in the middle. 

 

I'd Rather Take A Vow

November 3, 2023

I have realized of late that I function better with a compatible companion in my life.

Oh gosh. I really enjoy the flexibility that I have that allows for spontaneity.  I know how to cook and take care of house. I can do laundry. I have learned how to do electronic banking and stuff that I never had to give any thought to because my trusted companion was on top of it all. Ah. I am more than capable of fending for myself in matters such as these. But there is something direly lacking in my personal make-up. There is a vacancy … an open hole … there in my interior weave.

What’s lacking is companionship with a life-partner. And companionship is not just about having someone to have sex with. Ah. That’s an important department. Yes. I miss making love. I am, after all, still a man. But it’s more than a sex thing. There is way more to companionship than sex between two willing human beings. Everything contained within the companionship package is integrated and interrelated. Neutralizing any particular fiber in the weave creates problems in the whole network.  

Yeah, I get it. And, oh my goodness, the tragedies that occur when trying to build a relationship on top of a mound of incompatibility that only generates more relational conflict and separation than anything else. I’d sooner take a vow as a religious hermit and live the rest of my life in seclusion than to spend any time at all brawling in a conflict habituated relationship. Oh my God. I don’t need or want that kind of hell in my life. I’ve been through enough hell already. Thank you kindly.

I hate that the van is going into the shop to repair the damage that little deer did to it coming back from Missouri. It means I don’t have wheels to spin at will. I am, at the same time, looking at the lack of mobility as an opportunity to get this little shack beside the track straightened up inside. My otherwise impeccable housekeeping skills somehow fell along the wayside somewhere back there. That wasn’t the only thing that needs renewing. I do need to get back into a habit of cooking a little even though cooking for one is no fun and generates stuff to wash and clean up.

 

Odd Duck On A Pond

November 2, 2023

There are no accidents. Only appointments.

Life is a curious thing. It is utterly amazing what can transpire in forty-eight hours when time ripens as it does. Surely God knows what we need and provides it when we are ready to receive it. That “ready to receive it” thing has its own set of variables that govern and guide that often elusive “when”. Yeah. It’s a great mystery. But God has always been, and always will be, right on time. Every time.

On the surface, it appears that I have lived my life accidentally, fumbling along, with certain things just happening. Yeah. I’ve made some huge blunders that, in my heart and mind, I am still paying for. Those were my mistakes in poor judgment on my part. I've got nobody to blame but me for those. 

All the good stuff though? Those were appointments in my life. When I saw the open doors, I just walked through them. And, quite often on the heels of my blunders, there would be an open door surrounded by closed doors. I learned along the way … the hard way … to never kick open a closed door. You don’t want to go in there. It’s going to turn out badly.

Wow. What a day it’s been. What a beautiful day it has been. Like I said, “It is utterly amazing what can transpire in forty-eight hours when time ripens as it does.”

How much sand do I have left in my hourglass? It’s a haunting question. It’s a question that haunts me at this age and stage of life. The only honest answer is that nobody knows. Therefore, I feel compelled to make the best of what sand I do have left. When that sand is gone, I’m gone. Aha! How is that for a reality check? But such is life. It’s been happening like this since the Fall in the Garden. One by one, our sand runs out. Then what? Then where?

I’ve always felt like an odd duck swimming around on a pond filled with quack-alike ducks of a different color quacking a different quack. I’m not attacking quack-alike ducks. The world is full of quack-alike ducks. That’s the way of the world. It always has been. It always will be until this world is no longer the world as we now know it. We either go along with it or embrace living as an odd duck on a pond full of quack-alike ducks.

Me? Pardon me but I prefer to swim my own swim. Thank you.

I have got to deep clean my refrigerator. I can’t find what it is. But it is. And it reminds me every time I open the refrigerator door.