I had a rough summer. I’ve mentioned it before but that doesn’t change its import. It could have been worse. I made it. The recovery isn’t all bad. I’m not pissy and moping. Shit happened and then it was over. I’m OK.
The ship of Curmudgeon slowly rights itself, bow facing into the current, sails begin to grasp the wind, motion returns. With motion the rudder becomes a control surface instead of the dead weight it had become. Peace returns as the storm shifts from now to memory. To push the analogy to it’s limit; I come alive with the slow silence of a sailboat incrementally beginning to move and nothing like the modern life of firing up an outboard.
An unexpected side effect is that I’m perfectly happy just existing. I’m usually awash with hopes and dreams. Normally, plans unfurl in my mind and I chase them like a hamster on a wheel. I think too much and act on more thoughts than most of our inert populace. But not lately. It’s different. More correctly I’m different. I’m like a dog; heavily in the now. I’m barely aware of the day of the week but I’d love to go for a walk. I think less of the future and less of the past and enjoy my morning coffee like there’s nothing else in the world… because maybe there isn’t.
That sounds awesome but it’s not for me. I hope it’s only temporary. For example, I usually go hunting in this season and I get into very deeply. I start out meandering but as soon as I hear a rustling in the leaves I switch to predator. I inch through nature with the laser focus of a guy who’s going to starve if he doesn’t land a grouse. Odd to have that focus, given I’ve got a freezer full of meat, but it is what it is. This year I just don’t give a shit. I’ve wandered a bit but meander hasn’t turned to stalk. Maybe the critters needed a year off?
It makes me wonder. Where’s my muse? Usually ideas pop into my head faster than I can type. Some fraction of the raging torrent of thoughts and ideas becomes a blog and a bit more gets processed, pressure cooked, and shelved in the someday book of squirrel. Why is it that nothing is hammering on my skull, demanding to be written?
I was thinking this and staring out the window like a kid in the last day of school before Christmas break. You know the feeling. Still theoretically nose to the grindstone but slacked off on the molecular level.
“Muse,” I thought into the aether, “maybe you’re gone for good. Shame but I’ll get used to it.”
“Suck it up.” Came the stoic part of my mind. “Work it out. Type anything. Just do it. Now!”
I ignored that. Stoicism usually fits my way of being but today I was watching the leaves fall. My cup was empty. Fully Zen-ed out.
“Ding!” My computer tweaked me. There’s a lot of nudge-programming stuffed in most electronic devices but not mine. Mine is tuned to leave me alone. It does not prompt me over e-mails or social media. I don’t get beeps and dings over hits and likes. Only one thing makes that sound. A coffee. Someone bought me a coffee!
Here I am wondering if my muse is toast and ignoring the part of my mind that wants me producing again… and $5 just fell in my lap. My muse plays hardball!
I’m a cheapskate. Whoever sent it had timing like no other. A direct strike right when I needed it. I’ll work my ass off for a few bucks. If you imagine a muse as a pretty woman filling your mind with happy stories, mine ain’t like that. Sometimes she wraps a brick in a $5 bill and flings it through my window.
So I shall write… with no idea where it’s going.
A few days ago I was hiding out at my favorite greasy spoon. The food there is adequate, the coffee watery, the fries overcooked, wifi nonexistent… yet I go there. It’s a full fledged immersion in blue collar rural America. And it’s the only place to eat for miles.
So I’m waiting for my sure to be overcooked burger when I give a shot at the wifi. I’ve heard the Amish (or perhaps Mennonite?) will buy a cell phone but chain it to a post outside the house; thus they get the benefits of modern communication (for example for business purposes) but they keep the negative influence of technology on a short leash (literally!). I do some similar things. I have an iPad and an iPhone. I refuse to let the iPhone surf the internet and I kneecap the iPad by not having a data plan. I idly browse the internet but only if there’s wifi available and never on a tiny phone screen.
Ironically, wifi at a coffee shop is a thing that’s already fading. Nobody under 30 even knows what wifi is, having had a cell plan assigned at birth. On the other end of the spectrum, the greasy spoon has never had a wifi antenna because only nerds hang out on the internet when they should be talking with neighbors about tractors and football.
But my iPad indicated a wifi antenna existed (it’s new!). I asked the waitress. “What’s your wifi password.” I might as well have asked her to explain cold fusion. She’s of the generation that has never been without a cell phone and has no idea what wifi is. She asked the cook who is of the generation that was around when PacMan was cool and probably hasn’t played a video game since then. He said “it’s the phone number… I think… maybe”. It was conveyed to me that there is a ten digit phone number and teh password might be formatted (xxx)xxx-xxxx or it might not. The cook had no idea that people often key the area code into cell phones. The waitress has only contacts on her cell phone and has probably never dialed actual digits.
Both assumed the wifi node would “figure out” that if I typed xxx-xxx-xxxx instead of (xxx)xxx-xxxx I meant the same thing. Seriously, they thought that. They assumed the wifi antenna would use reason and logic to “help me out”. I deserve this for allowing my internet needs to intrude into a delightfully obsolete part of society.
While I was messing around guessing every possible combination of seven or ten digits with or without formatting someone interrupted me. He was mumbling something about having a new battery but this and that… then he mentioned “so is that your red truck?”
I leapt to my feet. What had this chowderhead done? Had he merely smashed in my rusty tailgate or had he trashed the expensive unobtanium front turn signals?
“Whoa fella!” He winced. “Your truck’s fine. I just need a jump start.”
Oh! Whew! I stepped toward the door when the waitress tossed my plate with hamburger (predictably cooked to near charcoal) on my table. She did it with a clatter, I wonder if she knew the jump start guy and had some “history”?
The jump start guy said he was in no hurry and he specifically wanted me to eat first. That seemed weird when it would take only a minute but the waitress glared at both of us as if letting a crappy burger get cold would be a personal affront to not only her but every waitress in creation.
So I settled down to eat; which was oddly tense because some guy was outside sitting in his truck cab waiting for a jump start. But I had already asked weird questions about wifi. Between that and a burger that could get cold I was dangerously close to a third social faux pas. On your third strike what happens? I guess I’d be exiled from town?
As soon as the burger was eaten I rushed outside. The jump start guy was missing a few teeth and so forth. He looked exactly like what people who listen to NPR see when they have nightmares about flyover country. On the other hand his “truck” turned out to be a fairly recent model SUV and as the guy mentioned many times the batteries were pretty new. He had good clean jumper cables and knew what to do with them. My giant diesel engine started his big SUV in a jiffy.
He smiled, thanked me a thousand times, and drove off. I went back in the restaurant to buy a slice of pie for dessert. I thought about the whole thing. Bi-coastal cretins would have you think were a nation of crude racist nitwits. Yet jumper cable guy had been unfailingly polite. I’d jumped (literally) to help him once he’d asked. He’d politely and humbly insisted I eat first. The waitress took pride in her work and wanted me to enjoy my meal.
The pie wasn’t great but the waitress was happy to sell a dessert. While I polished it off the cook came out to check that I’d figured out the wifi. Despite being a terrible cook he was a nice guy. I showed him the code I’d deduced and he nodded. I’m sure he’ll never forget it. Whomever asks next will get a better answer.
All told, everyone was super nice to each other. What’s the word that’s overused but still exists? Oh yeah… community. It was a community and everyone in it was good to everyone else.
That’s why I eat at that particular greasy spoon, the food is only fair but the community is excellent.
A.C.
P.S. While I typed this little story I set a cold can of soda on my coffee cup heater. (My desk is cluttered that’s the only available spot.) The heater inadvertently kicked on. I didn’t notice and got a mouthful of Coke the temperature of hot tea. Yuck! My muse plays hardball!