Adaptive Curmudgeon

“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.”

I’m limiting my exposure to media and, by extension, America at large. There’s too much stupid. It’s addictive to the mind and corrosive to the soul. The stupid comes from politics; or rather a political “elite” that makes all things political. A humble “elite” would understand they can’t be all things to all people. Some things, even making a pencil, are not well managed from a pinnacle of power. Yet, fools insist on managing everything from gas stoves (banned in due time) to teaching fractions (all about sex, none about math). Thus, maniacs stampede onto ever thinning ice while the people suffer.

Benito Mussolini said “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”. Mussolini was the absolute textbook definition of fascist. Social justice warriors call everyone and their cat fascist but they’re the ones that follow Mussolini’s plan.

They politicize everything! Talk to any college student (or professor) and ask them to name ten things that are none of the state’s business. A social justice warrior won’t be able to do it. They make everything from where you stick your dick (including if you should have one), to how a sportsball team operates, to what you read, to what you eat for lunch, to the color of your hat into political positions. The social justice warrior will have an opinion on all things and ignore nothing. They’ll “tolerantly” explain how “wrong” opinions should be eliminated (along with the people that hold them). If your head is deep enough in your ass “tolerance” has a way of drifting toward “the final solution”.

It wouldn’t be too bad if the elite that’s trying to be in charge of every damn thing was competent. But our “elite” is the least elite of all gatherings of supposedly elite people since humans lived in caves. Round up all 435 Federal Representatives, toss in 100 Senators, and (if you can rouse him from his nap) add the President. Of that august group of 536 “elites” what is the chance that they can do the simplest task? Can they fix a flat tire? Hold a job as a pizza delivery boy? Do accounting without corruption? Grow a tomato? Knit a sweater?

I’d pay good money to see politicians on a game show called “can you accomplish the job better than a stoned sixteen year old”. If our current President were told to assemble a Crunchwrap Supreme at Taco Bell he’d commit three felonies and start a war in Taiwan before delivering burned popcorn while calling the customer “boy”. How about asking AOC to drive to Brooklyn in her own car and drop off a cheese pizza? Could she get to the appropriate location within a 20 minute window? Hell no! She’d wind up in Tulsa with ten grand in her pocket and a TicTok photo involving orangutans.

A true elite requires both competence and noblesse oblige. Our “elite” are geriatric, corrupt, incompetent, scheming, evil, jackasses. They make bad decisions. They live fucked up lives. Nancy Pelosi’s household has gay naked hammer fight night. John Fetterman looks, acts, and dresses like a cave being that lives in a dumpster. Hank Johnson thinks Guam might capsize. Every one of us has seen a photo of naked, passed out, Hunter Biden with a crack pipe.

Imagine a bar. Then lower it. Was it low enough to represent “know that islands don’t float”? How about live your whole life without public photos involving hookers and crack pipes?

Allowing idiots to ooze into a national driver’s seat that shouldn’t even exist has made our society batshit insane. At this point it’s hard to catalogue the list of fuck ups just to keep them in order. The only thing that distracts the nation from a ridiculous helter-skelter retreat from one war in the Middle east was a different war in eastern Europe. Which is now overshadowed by domestic protests both for and against terrorists in a different place in the Middle East; a location where just last week we were buying hostages nearby at a billion a pop.

In the shaky and fractured world of now, we all feel trust fading. The devolution of a high trust society into a low trust one is a done deal in some places. Laws aren’t laws so much as guidelines depending on your political view. Borders aren’t borders so much as legal regulations which can be ignored if desired. Pot is simultaneously legal and illegal and that’s the best we can figure out of that mess. We have windmills in Texas that don’t run when it’s cold, water in cities that is sketchy, political prisoners in DC, and riots in cities that are apparently ok if we call arson “mostly peaceful”. In some places it’s ok to shit in the street. In some places we can’t quite differentiate between citizen and not-citizen. Sometimes we can’t define “woman”. Sometimes we pretend electric cars run on magic.

Sometimes we have elections and sometimes we have “elections”.

Whoa! I started out intending to talk about cheeseburgers. What happened? Forgive my wandering off into the weeds. I’m out of practice telling a comprehensible story.

The point of all this is that I get my cheeseburgers from a crappy greasy spoon (mentioned in the last post) and the reason I like the place has nothing to with food. The restaurant rural enough that it more or less resides in the past. The food isn’t great, but who wants to eat good food in the presence of green haired lunatics emoting over homeless people while your car gets vandalized? I can deal with salty fries to enjoy social tranquility.

I’ve become part of the “community” without thinking about it. They know my bearded gruff face even if I’m not particularly talkative. Even so, it’s part of America and I simply expect low trust society to intrude. My guard is always up. I say nothing of national politics when I’m there. (Not that you couldn’t guess my opinions from posture and behavior.) I carefully avoid local politics too. (For all I know the local school board election is a five generation Game of Thrones quagmire.) I mention weather and hunting season and nothing else. For that matter, I’m careful to stay vague about hunting season. (Every State has their own game laws. They’re a mishmash of history, politics, and voodoo. Game laws have maybe 10% to do with biological reality in the area.)

So where was I? Oh yes, munching on a burger. I was silently surfing the internet on their fancy new wifi and (as usual) saying nothing to anybody. I come and I go and I pay cash and I bother nobody…

…uh oh. I forgot cash?

I forgot my whole wallet. Shit!

In a modern low trust world I’d expect this to turn into a shitstorm. “Dine and dash” is only allowed for one part of the populace. My life of unearned privilege means I can’t do that. Like the sucker I am, I always pay promptly and tip well. What to do?

Panicked, I texted Mrs. Curmudgeon. “Stand by to pay for a cheeseburger over the phone. You may mock me later.”

I asked the waitress if she sometimes took orders over the phone. (Since COVID they do.) Gingerly, like a guy defusing a land mine, I inferred correctly that these orders took a credit card # over the phone (voice call / landline) and it was no big deal.

Then I spilled the beans. I’m a loser and a cretin! I had no cash or cards. I deeply apologized for my failure as a human being. But I would make up for my reprehensible dishonesty. Mrs. Curmudgeon would call in and pay for my meal. I wouldn’t move from the spot until my debts were paid in full. I assumed full responsibility for being a raving douchebag and promised to never make such a mistake again.

I cringed like it was the ultimate faux pas… because it is!

Silly me. I was going at it all wrong. I was thinking like a peon in a low trust urban shithole. Instead I was an accepted community member in a high trust rural redoubt.

The waitress waved away my idea of paying by phone. She pinned my order slip to the wall. There were a half dozen others. Oh my God! I was on the “Group W” bench!

“Just pay when you come back.” She chuckled.

“But it’s going to take at least an hour to drive to my house and get back here.” I looked at the clock. “How long is your shift?”

This made her smile more. “Relax cowboy, I know you’re a local. Pay tomorrow or next week. Whenever is convenient.”

Holy shit! In America right now the Federal Debt is $33,547,137,879,410.43. My debt is $14 for a cheeseburger, Coke, and fries. My debt is pinned to a wall as part of the Group W bench.

My debt will be paid hastily and accompanied by a large tip. The other is backed by the full faith and authority of a Government and has grown so unmanageable it’ll eventually take down our society.

By the time you read this, my bill will already be paid. The waitress just assumes it would be so. She thinks it’s funny I got so worried.

I like where I live.

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!

During my difficult summer I lamented that even simple inexpensive joys were unavailable. I glared at natural views locked behind the windows of airplanes and cars. I gazed forlornly at trees from the budget busting cage of hotel rooms. I picked listlessly at overpriced unhealthy restaurant meals. I was walled off by important duties.

Intentionally but reluctantly I left my connection with nature unattended. This cost me a great deal of frustration. I felt like an inverted world would return to stability if only I could sit by a fire, cook a meal, and sleep under the stars. Intellectually, I knew that wasn’t entirely true, but surely it would’ve helped. In a summer that burned a huge chunk of my savings, how much could have been spiritually regained from a $5 pack of hot dogs and an hour to cook them over scrounged firewood?

Even now I lack the resources to run away from it all. I’d like to pile camping shit in my truck and run away to spend a week getting my head straight but my employer has been more than fair and I can’t ask for more. No regrets. I had a buffer. I’m lucky I had it. I used it. That’s what buffers are for.

The initial wave of grief has passed so it’s time to work on restoration. After a bit of moping I decided to force myself into a new point of view: I own land. I own a tent. Is that not enough?

Good point Curmudgeon! Buck up fella!

I can’t camp in my usual manner. I’d like a hearty basecamp stashed as far afield as a Dodge can get and a sailboat or motorcycle roving even further. So what? You don’t always get what you want. I OWN trees. If I need to sit under a tree I can do it right at my house. That’s the point of living in the country! Snap out of it Curmudgeon. At least you can spend an evening “camping” on your own land.

In the middle of the week, right after work, I lugged my heavy duty, hard core, hot tent to… of all places… my yard (which is only half mowed but that’s another story). In a gloomy evening I set it up. I went overboard and assembled the stove. Why not? Then I staked the tent down like I expected a hurricane.

I felt ridiculous! This is an expensive expedition level tent. It’s built for blizzards and howling wolves. I bought it for exciting manly endeavors. Instead of elk hunts and ice fishing I’d just erected it in a yard! I felt like the tent itself was insulted.

But, life is what it is. Also, I shouldn’t overestimate my energy. As the sun set, I felt dizzy and weak. Just too damn tired. I left my proud tent. It was staked down like a fortress and sealed like a rain jacket; it’ll be fine. I wandered back to my house, skipped dinner, and crawled straight into bed.

The tent waited and the next evening I tried again. I still hadn’t setup my cot. I decided to experiment and see how the tent would work with two lawnchairs instead of one chair and the huge cot. (I have this vague idea that someday I’ll use the tent as a hunting blind or an ice fishing shelter.) Even with the stove taking up a huge amount of real estate, there was ample room to sit and relax. It was a wet drizzly afternoon but the air felt good. Mrs. Curmudgeon joined me and we sat in lawn chairs reading.

How strange the world is. Sitting side by side in the odd environment of a domed Russian tent was perfect. Our dog flopped on my feet, as if to keep me pinned in my chair. I watched the drizzle occasionally breaking through the evening fog. That night we left the tent empty again. We walked back to the house and slept inside; much to the dog’s disappointment.

The next day all hell broke loose. A huge thunderstorm hit. I left the tent abandoned. I don’t like leaving gear unattended but hopefully it’s tough enough to take a few day’s misuse.

Another day dawned and the air was cool and misty. It was the weekend so Mrs. Curmudgeon and I (and the dog) spent a few more hours hanging out in the tent… just reading. Actually Mrs. Curmudgeon was reading. I couldn’t focus. I sat in the open door sipping beer and watching the leaves fall. Near sunset, the temperature dropped. I happily hustled up firewood from the soaked forest and started a fire. Mrs. Curmudgeon hasn’t seen the tiny woodstove in action. I was like a kid demonstrating his favorite toy. Soon the tent was a warm haven. This did wonders. Finally I was relaxed enough to start reading a book. The dog snored at our feet. Still, I retreated to the house at night.

The next day the weather had changed drastically. It was hot! The tent is meant for winter and was a sweatbox! So I setup a screen tent next to it. The air was hot and muggy but a gentle breeze and some shade made it tolerable. I set up my cot in the screen tent and immediately fell asleep. Mrs. Curmudgeon kept reading from her chair. The dog investigated every leaf and branch nearby.

I woke from a very long nap only to realize I’d baked myself in the heat. I staggered to the house and slurped a ton of water. I flopped in a chair in the cool house and berated myself for not taking better care of myself in the outside heat. That night I was restless in the house. Around midnight I left. I tiptoed past a confused dog and wandered out to my cot. The harvest moon was bright and the still warm air was filled with the scent of autumn. I drifted off to the sound of deer rustling under my old apple tree.

Sometimes it takes more steps to climb a hill than other times. I’ll get there. I haven’t been grouse hunting but I slept on a cot in “nature”. That’s a good thing. The next morning I wandered back to the house, with fallen leaves in my hair and a happy expression. Mrs. Curmudgeon had coffee brewing. Good thing too because I had to hustle to take a shower and get to work.

Everything is less adventurous than my usual stories. It took something like five days between setting up a tent and finally sleeping in a nearby screen tent. I guess it makes sense in it’s own way. That’s the story of the Curmudgeon’s lamest campout in years.

Update: I didn’t get around to packing up all my gear so I spent another night out there. A blustery weather front has since moved in. Those nights might have been the last hot spell of the year and I’m glad I didn’t let them go by.

That was a nice surprise! Having returned from a two month hiatus I got a score* of happy comments welcoming me back to the living. I appreciate that! Also a few coffees popped up in “buy me a coffee”. Nice!

I would have done everything I’ve done regardless, but it feels less like a solo venture. The nudge of encouragement was very welcome.

(*Also, where but my own blog would I be able to use the old definition of “score”: meaning “twenty”? So long as weirdos like me have a place to be, not every bit of the world is toned down.)

How do I describe my motivation this weekend? Our modern world is awash in Newspeak. There’s currently no easy way to say “feeling down in a manner that’s entirely reasonable due to circumstances”. Depression is incorrect. You’re supposed to feel down after a death. Sad is inadequate. Regardless, one “cure” for “depression” is exercise. Another is “getting shit done”. So I did both.

My firewood pile has been neglected in my absence. It’s inadequate for the winter. If I run out (which is a certainty so far) I’ll have to heat with fuel oil. Fuel oil is expensive (oh how nice those few years of cheap oil really were!). Also the furnace heats the house but it’s never without a chill. So it would suck but I won’t die.

I much prefer wood. It heats the house better and it “feels right”. I don’t know how to say that either. It’s “right” because it makes me happy, because nobody extracted from me a fortune in taxes for a tree, because it’s local, because it’s traditional… because it works absolutely fine even though it’s age old technology. For all those reasons I guess.

So I fired up my woodsplitter and started stacking. It’s hard work. Time and stress has taken it’s toll. I’m a little more out of shape than I’d like. I’m older than I was.

But I did some stacking on a blustery Saturday afternoon. It wasn’t much but it was some. Then I rested.

On Sunday it was light drizzle, good weather to sit inside feeling sorry for myself. Instead I stacked more wood. It was a little chilly and a little rainy but as my grandma used to say “what do you care if it rains, you won’t melt”.

Every woodsplitter generates a pile of cast off bits of wood as it’s used. These are parts and hunks that are too small to stack, bigger than sawdust, and usually half rotten or otherwise useless. It includes lots of bark and a fair amount of dirt. Wood is natural in all it’s organic messiness. I raked the pile onto a shovel, pushed it away from my woodshed, and lit it. It took forever for the wet bark to catch but it eventually did. I kept splitting and stacking while the little fire smoked and sputtered.

Then the skies opened up and all hell broke loose! I wound up sitting inside my rickety woodshed. I parked a lawnchair near the open doorway (there is no door) and sat just beyond the storm. There was enough heat coming off the fire to warm me… barely.

Outside the rain was very cold… approaching sleet. It rained hard. Every now and then I’d throw another couple shovel loads of waste wood onto the fire; getting soaked in the process.

I drank a beer and watched the world wash away. Exercise is good for you. A warm fire in a rainstorm might be all you need.

I didn’t stack a full supply for the winter. I’m only human and I use a lot of wood in a winter. I’m barely halfway there.

But I’m in better shape than when I started. I mean that in every sense of the word.

I hope your weekend was as fruitful as mine.

Two months.

A person I loved has died. I stand on shaky legs; missing the “before”, uneasy in the bereft “after”.

It was both too long and too short; I suppose whatever increment elapsed was the correct increment. Death is always on schedule to God.

I’m changed. I humbly reflect that I’m not the first to suffer this way. It doesn’t do any good at all. All I really know is it hurts and there’s no going back. This summer has literally cost a life.

I’ve done my best. Support for everyone. A firm handshake, warm words, desperately mustered confidence, a weak smile, a heartfelt hug, tears, a joke… whatever is needed and whatever I could muster. I’ve received the same. I clicked back into communities I’d long ago abandoned. Old relations were renewed in the crucible of loss. People I barely know told me about when I was “about so high”; holding up their hands as if time is all about height.

It has not been easy. No man is an island but I’m closer than most. People don’t like islands. The urge to saddle up and ride away was unbelievably strong. I stayed put. People need that. This is one of the times I exist for the benefit of others.

Personally, I wanted only isolation. The sincerity of good people expressing the deepest sympathy for my experience wore me down. They wouldn’t understand and they meant well, so I just smiled and took it.

The ceremony was meant to heal and it did; at least a little. A monument was placed. Good kind words were recited. They carefully kept the sod from the hole; to be replaced in short order. It was. The sod will take root again. So will I after a walk in the forest; or perhaps a dozen walks.

It is mandatory and cruel, but also true and beautiful, that one must re-enter the world of the living. I will re-enter my world on terms I understand. I’m an ill fit for the world where they had nice sandwiches and people reciting memories of my childhood. I see now the love to be found in community. I rejected that path decades ago. A price I paid without truly knowing its value. No regrets, but sometimes you visit your hometown to remember you belong nowhere in particular.

I’m back at my homestead. I’m tired, broke, exhausted, and spent. So many adjectives. They all hint at depletion. Emotionally, financially, physically, spiritually… where there was once surplus, there is emptiness.

I’m surprised how much I suffered by forced interaction with society. It was a time of sorrow but it was only a couple months after all. How weird and apart am I really? Miles on the highway, nights in hotels, small crowds. I’m not truly a hermit. Yet this time I felt every mile separating me from my homestead like a rope tugging me back. I found it hard to think among all the noise. It’s hard to be sorrowful in our corrupt and degraded world. It’s a maelstrom for a mourner; or at least one like my loner self. I could not roam the mountains and gain strength. Paperwork and social functions and places to be and things to approve and stuff to know… it was all a blur. So noisy. So aggressive. TVs everywhere. Seething sophistication layered over reasoned simplicity. Everything not political is fiscal; nobody sits and thinks. Does anyone read a book anymore? The more I see of modernity the more I wonder how anyone thrives in it? I suppose they don’t. A lot of limping damaged souls out there.

But the crisis has passed. I will slowly rebuild the peace I’d heretofore stacked high. I had it for use in times like these and I’m glad I had it. In one memorable conversation I called it “a truckload of chill”. It served me in good stead. Depleted yet eternal, peace is always there if you seek it. I may have to consult with the trees about the details. They’re a patient sort. They’ll understand and guide me right. In due time, I will once again be in synch with nature.

Everything sucked, but I’m going to be OK.

Last night I dreamed of ice fishing. It was the first good night’s sleep I’ve had in 13 days and among the very few since all this started (I keep count). I did not dream of loss. I caught a trout.

That’s a good sign!

Yesterday I saw a malfunctioning e-sign adjacent the highway. My first thought was “what would a squirrel do with that”? Another good sign.

The worst is over. Thank you all for your patience.

A.C.

[Today’s story is long. You’ve been warned! I’m in no shape for tight editing. As Mark Twain once said: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”]

[Also, it’s never my intention to mire people from real life in the online world. I’ve changed as many details as necessary to preserve everyone’s privacy. Everyone I met was kind and generous. Take heart! Good helpful people are out there! I was rescued when I was down. People to whom I was a perfect stranger showed nothing but goodwill! And I reciprocate.]

I was stuck in the parking lot of an auto parts store with an inert Dodge. There was hardly a customer in sight. There were a few people “hanging around”.

Mrs. Curmudgeon remained in the passenger seat and carefully ignored everything. From her point of view, trucks are guy things and she’s not a guy. My truck was my problem. She also figures I’m basically unkillable and she’s usually right. Invariably I’ll solve anything and I’ve had dead truck situations before many times. In my defense, this time I was in uniquely bad mental shape. Mrs. Curmudgeon had faith and let it ride. She started reading her kindle and would continue reading it even if lions attacked me in the parking lot. Wise woman.

Unbeknownst to me the “hanging around” folks were a tight nit group. Closer to a “clan” than acquaintances. They knew each other, had known each other forever, and had ties of friendship and family. They were absolutely great people!

Barb [not her real name] assessed that me and the Dodge were out of options (perhaps she sensed I was out of energy?). She rolled into action like a general mustering a chaotic and talkative army of forces. I think Barb decided I’m “good people”? Regardless, I was instantly accepted as an unofficial part of the “clan”… from that moment forward everyone pitched in to help.

Some random guy [I’ll call him Paul] joshed me about my Dodge. I was confused because this was not for the obvious fact that the damn thing can barely maintain basic steering geometry. Nor for the still smoking brake caliper. Instead he mocked that the Cummins engine had a turbo… which is weird because damn near every diesel in the last 25 years has a turbo. (I had a naturally aspirated 6.2 Diesel vehicle once. I loved it but driving it reminded me why turbos were invented.)

Paul decided the front tire needed to come off. I agreed because that’s the only way to fix a stuck caliper. I mentioned I had insufficient knowledge to actually swap the caliper (and all my tools were at home). Paul ignored my reasoning. He was so upbeat and motivated I just went with it.

I handed him the truck’s jack. I’ve jacked up the rear axle a million times but never the front. Paul placed the jack in what looked to me like a weird place and started cranking.  Seeing as he was helping and I was completely out of steam, I just let it go. Mrs. Curmudgeon sat in the slowly tilting truck as if denial was the best choice of her very few options. Which it probably was.

Meanwhile, Barb was calling every mechanic in the known universe. It was a Saturday afternoon and the shops were all closed. It didn’t take long before she switched from calling companies to people. She knew everyone everywhere who’d ever touched a wrench and she seemed to be calling them all.

A woman [I’ll call her Sue] showed up. She, like Barb and Paul, was part of the clan. I was unclear if she was working at the parts store or just spontaneously generated from the space time continuum. For that matter I didn’t know why Paul was hanging around.

Paul cranked on the jack until we discovered it couldn’t lift the truck high enough. Sue kept up a running commentary about how her truck was dead in a nearby Walmart parking lot. I got a little confused by what was going on. It was hot and I’m not mentally firing on all cylinders.

Barb kept making phone calls. Energizer bunny dedication from her!

Paul repositioned the jack in a different spot. It still looked sketchy to me but I was in no condition to debate. He added a small scrap of 2″x4” and cranked it up. Barb was giving periodic “phone reports”. I was fading in the heat. I made sure to buy a cold drink for Mrs. Curmudgeon, she was riding the front seat of a Dodge as it cranked up and down. She was just as sweaty as me but she wasn’t in a mood to stand in the parking lot (which was maybe a few degrees cooler).

The jack still wasn’t tall enough. We cranked it back down. I took the opportunity to loosen the lug nuts while the wheel was back on pavement. Barb had joined us again and many cigarettes were smoked. (I don’t smoke but I’m not some asshole who bitches about cigarettes either. I was more concerned about roasting in the sun than the cloud of smoke coming from Barb, Paul, and Sue.) During this time I heard everyone’s life story.

Sue mentioned her “collector’s cars” and showed me a photo of two VW Beetles that are not going anywhere without a whole lot of work. I like Beetles… I’ve always wanted a sand rail. Paul opined that his Pontiac was better than anything with a turbo and waved at a battered old Pontiac in the parking lot. Given that Sue and I both had vehicles that couldn’t move under their own power, I couldn’t disagree.

The jack was cranked back up, this time with two bits of wood… getting a little more like Jenga each time. Mrs. Curmudgeon ignored it. I heard all sorts of family details about people I’d never met.

An actual customer showed up! He had a truck that ran. I missed being like that. Turns out he was of the group too! They all chatted merrily like lifetime friends, which I’m sure they were. Paul borrowed my tire iron to go do something to the other truck. By now I was clearly not in control of anything. I could only wonder what he’d be doing with a tire iron to a truck that didn’t have a flat tire.

Somehow I ended up under the customer’s truck peering at an inverted gooseneck hitch release mechanism. I have the same thing on my truck bed but it functions differently. Since mine is different I didn’t have any helpful information about this one. At least I tried. The customer hung around chatting a while and then left.

Barb was still making calls. Paul bitched at Barb that my jack sucked. (As if it was Barb’s fault?) After a few more cigarettes and some dirty jokes, a little hydraulic floor jack was procured from Barb’s car. Barb’s car was just as battered as Paul’s car… and both were  superior to my Dodge in that they both ran.

I began to wish I’d brought a lawnchair. Mrs. Curmudgeon sat reading in an insufficiently tilted Dodge as we cranked it up and down. I was hot. A cold beer would be nice. I mentioned this and inadvertently generated a bunch of drinking stories.

I figured Bud Light is no longer the choice of this group. It took me a while to derive the alternative; Miller Highlife. We all made many jokes about “the Champaign of beers”.

I found a camping stool in my truck. I decided all hope was lost and wondered if I ought to drink a six pack in the parking lot. Maybe pass out with heat stroke? Embrace the suck as God intended? Why the hell not? Passing out in a parking lot had a certain attractiveness to it. I’ve done it before… decades ago… with other cars that had died.

Beer was a risky thought! I was so weak that if I so much as sipped anything I’d be asleep on the pavement within minutes. That would royally piss off Mrs. Curmudgeon!

Predictably the little hydraulic jack didn’t lift far enough. I released it which dropped the truck abruptly enough to cause Mrs. Curmudgeon to grunt with concern… then return instantly to her book. Paul started stacking wood blocks and I called a halt to our game. “Let’s go inside and maybe I’ll buy a new jack.” I felt like sooner or later we’d stack something too high and tear the heck out of the truck when it fell off a Jenga pile. In the auto parts shop the appropriate jack was $300! I said I had towing attached to my truck insurance and that’s cheaper than $300. Mrs. Curmudgeon started trying to figure out the “username and password” to the infernal insurance company software.

Even if a tow truck arrived I had no place to which I could have the vehicle towed. Barb arrived with news. Some guy could fix the truck the next day if I could get it to his place on a tow truck! Well done!

Barb wasn’t entirely pleased, she expected it to be fixed fast enough that I could drive home in my own vehicle. Such a thought is awesome but also something less common in modern life.

I was about to setup an insurance company based tow, entirely within software… which would surely leave us sitting for hours… when Barb came out again and held a cell phone to my ear.

It was a guy I shall refer to as “Based Boss” or BB. He had skills and tools and was willing to use them and that just plain makes him awesome. Based Boss came over the phone “What the hell did you do to Barb? She’s calling me and I’m trying to ignore her but it’s like she’s got the whole world on a mission to hassle me. Ralph is calling me about her calling me. And now Mike called too because he heard from Barb AND Ralph. Is your truck ON FIRE?”

I explained that it was merely a stuck caliper. A very easy fix. I was right at the parts store to get the materials. I had neither the tools nor the skills to do it but I was sure it was not too big of a deal. BB agreed, muttered something about working a zillion hours this week and said he’d be there eventually.

I wasn’t sure BB would show. I sat on my hunting stool and tried not to melt or fall over. Paul and Sue told stories. Barb joined us. I couldn’t help but feel welcome. I was so tired, and depressed, and dehydrated… yet I was surrounded by happy nice people. I heard many stories. Sadly, I remember almost none of them.

BB showed up! He had a truck much like mine but much harder used. Paul taunted him about the turbo (I still don’t get the anti-turbo bias). BB was a core member of my newly discovered “clan”. I’m still not sure if everyone is intermarried or went to school together or what (maybe both). They were all very close. I was ever so thankful for their kindness.

BB had a proper jack (and a truck full of tools). Soon the Dodge (and Mrs. Curmudgeon) were lifted off the pavement. Barb ushered me back into the store to pay for my long forgotten tractor battery and to procure the necessary truck parts. I got all the stuff and brought it to BB who was hammering away at bolts on the tire adapter (duallys have tire adapters on the front to handle dish shaped wheels… they’re quite the PITA). BB insisted I go back inside and put the purchase on his mechanic’s account so I could get a discount. Which Barb did and I saved a lot. I came back out and asked BB if he wanted a cold Miller. BB wanted Crown Royal. After showing up on a Saturday afternoon and saving me a couple hundred off parts I was on board with that request!

I wandered away into the hot city streets, half dazed, dehydrated, and exhausted. I was in search of liquor store within walking distance of my dead truck. Many times I have done the same thing but I was so much younger! I felt like my life had regressed 30 years. Supposedly I’m no longer a broke hopeless youth… yet there I was. When will I get my shit together enough that I no longer must do adventures like this?

By the time I got back, BB had the job half done. Wow! I handed him a bottle of Crown Royal and stashed a suitcase of Miller in Barb’s car (along with her small car jack). I wanted to crack one of the beers but feared I’d fall asleep and/or die.

BB finished the job and I pumped the brakes to bleed the line. He didn’t ask for much and I was super happy to have my truck back. I threw another 10% on the check I cut to him. I told him he’d earned the right to walk around wearing a Superman outfit. Sue started badgering BB to rescue her truck from WalMart. As a skilled man he’s in huge demand. I don’t know if he works 24/7 but I’m damn sure it’s 7!

Barb noticed the beer in her car and asked Mrs. Curmudgeon if she could give me a hug. I didn’t hear that discussion but Mrs. Curmudgeon apparently said I’m not a people person but go ahead and ask. At first I bristled… was this lunatic sexually harassing me? Or just an infernal people person? Either way, ugh…

Anyway I gave Barb a huge hug because why not? I probably needed a hug myself. I’m in mourning and had been cooked 5 hours in a parking lot… even a man who thinks of himself as a lone wolf has limits. We all needs human connection sometimes. Barb gushed that I was a nice guy. Who doesn’t like a compliment like that? Mrs. Curmudgeon explained I was “a bit squishy right now” and I’m usually as cuddly as a porcupine; which is true.

BB shared photos of various classic cars he or friends were repairing. In an absolutely bonkers moment I offered to sell him one of my “yard art” vehicles at a cost of damn near nothing. Yikes! I don’t know where that came from! I have an old truck that I’ll never get back in fighting shape but I can dream can’t I?

I guess I’d decided BB would probably resurrect it in a week and that’s a better owner than me. I’d love to see the vehicle running even if I didn’t do it myself. Mrs. Curmudgeon almost jumped for joy that I was ditching one of my several broken machines. She tried to sell him more of my precious junk. Yikes!

Soon it was closing time. BB rolled off in his functioning truck to rescue Sue’s truck from  WalMart. Paul gave Sue a ride to the same location. Barb and her beer headed home. I still don’t know who actually worked at the store (except Barb who had the uniform).

The truck made it home. I made it home. Mrs. Curmudgeon made it home.

I drank what felt like a gallon of water and collapsed for the night. I’d been in no shape for adventure but I’d had one anyway. I’m not a people person but had been in an informal tailgate party for hours. I was exhausted at the molecular level.

So that’s my day, how was yours?

[For unfortunate reasons I’ve been stumbling around like a dazed moron. This is the story of me riding the wave of unawareness.]

A few days later I decided to fix the tractor. Honestly there’s not much to do. My 1944 and 1941 antiques I could bludgeon and swear until they ran, but a modern tractor is too complex. It’s more like a helicopter than a farm implement. Given all the EPA regulations and safety panels and hydraulic lines and fuel injection gadgetry and so forth I can barely operate it, much less service the beast. It’s a miracle the thing ever runs.

I hoped it was just a bad battery. It didn’t have no juice, but it had “just enough juice to make everything act weird” and that could be a battery. I hate vehicular electronics! If the battery was good I had no other ideas. I’d have to call to have it flatbed hauled to a service guy a million miles away! If that happened I’d be lucky to get it back by snowfall!! If you’re going to tell me all about how you get your tractor serviced by Fred who lives 1 mile away and only charges $20 an hour… don’t tell me. Just enjoy your unicorn powered life. I don’t have that and never will.

I pulled the air filter to get at the battery and pulled the battery and put it in my truck. It was time to drive to “the big town” and have the battery tested. Mrs. Curmudgeon came with me, probably reasoning I needed adult supervision, which I did. It was hot and I was feeling dragged out. I was craving a Slurpee like they had when I was a kid. Do they still make those?

I announced I would go sailing the next day regardless of whether the tractor ran or not. The season is fleeting and I’ve neither camped nor sailed!

Not only is the boat ignored, I haven’t even used the truck much. Elections have consequences and tripling the price of diesel matters. On the way I thought “I’ve been neglecting this truck. It’s steering a little weird.” It’s a Dodge and always prone to another bout of “death wobble”. I decided I’d better dump some money on the infernal beast before it implodes.

Sure enough, as we arrived at town Mrs. Curmudgeon said “your truck smells hot”.

“Can’t be,” I glanced at the gauges, “it’s in fine tune… or at least good enough.”

But we’d stopped in traffic and something was not right. I shifted down to increase RPM and thus blow more air. I wondered if my transmission was getting hot. My Dodge will tow a battleship and the engine runs cool but the transmission has never done well with high ambient temps and low speed. Pull a tank out of a field? It’ll do that fine. But if I idle in a hot Walmart parking lot to soak up AC it might melt! By the time I got to the parts store there was no denying something was seriously wrong.

I parked carefully, as if I might be there a few days. I said a little prayer before I shut it down. “Please start up again sometime.”

Smoke was drifting from the hood. I popped the hood and that wasn’t the source. I traced it to the driver’s side front brake. Clearly the caliper had locked. It was hot and smoking! How long had I driven it like that? No idea! I watched it a while in case it was going to catch on fire. (That has happened to me on a different vehicle!)

Then, all out of ideas, I grabbed my tractor battery and went into the store.

To my delight, the tractor’s issue really was a bad battery! I picked a new one and started a conversation with the parts counter person. I’m not going to use her real name because I want to respect her privacy, let’s call her Barb.

I asked Barb if it would be ok if my truck was in the parking lot for a while, possibly overnight. I explained that I had a seized up caliper.

Barb surprised me by marching out the parking lot to check on the situation… personally! She looked at the truck, chatted with Mrs. Curmudgeon, pounded a cigarette, and then… there’s no other way to say it.

Barb adopted me!

She recognized a man who needed help. She decided that I was going to get it. Barb is a fuckin hero!

More to follow…

[Grief makes you dumb. I’m hopelessly distracted. I lack whatever wit I once had. Hopefully it’ll return of it’s own initiative. Presumably it’ll do so at the appropriate time. Is it not a blessing for keen awareness to vanish precisely when hard edges of life cut too deep? On a lighter note, stumbling around in a fog is a whimsical experience. Is this is what life is always like for stoners and dumbasses?]

I ended my last post with a tractor abandoned at the edge of my lawn. (Don’t think of my “lawn” as the uniform manicured cartesian plain of the suburbs. Think “clearing” or “fire break” or “a place serially managed lest it become a forest”.) My half assed attempt at mowing collapsed at a cognitive/spiritual limit. I’d wandered off looking for butterflies. (Literally!) When that failed I walked away and got my first good night’s sleep in a month. It’s funny when I say it like that, but it is what it is.

When “the thinker ain’t working” I’m a stranger to my own life. Mowing the lawn should be a zombie level occupation. But I do things in a way that assumes I’m “on the ball”. (It has to be that way. My barely-tamed lawn literally killed a “point and ride” lawn tractor.) I run a 6′ finish mower from the 3 point hitch on a 35 HP tractor. It’s not rocket science but you can do a lot of damage if you “zone out”. Beyond the obvious risk (like wrapping yourself around the PTO) there’s plenty of hazard just driving the machine. I’d already “whanged” the garage door frame with the protruding bucket loader. Whoops.

So I elected to stay away from complex machinery. I did the simplest task I could think of; I stacked firewood. It was a wise decision that brought a small measure of peace. All work, no matter how simple, has a quiet dignity; provided it’s actually necessary. Firewood is the very heart of necessary!

Stacking firewood is one thing but processing it is another. I stayed away from my chainsaw! Touch that when you’re half aware and you’ll die. The physics problem of directional control while felling a five ton tree is closer to a chess match than a matter of brawn. “AC,” I lectured myself, “the saw is out of your league for now.” I stacked pre-cut wood and then bravely expanded to splitting it too. My 27 ton hydraulic splitter will rip your arm off as easily as a saw, but it’s not fast or unpredictable. Nothing bad happened.

I ran the splitter until the the tank ran dry. I’d like to say I remembered my plans to service the splitter but that’s not true. I’d tied a bag of parts to the gas can I usually use to fill it. Did past AC know that current AC would be on autopilot? I swapped a broke fuel line valve, put in a new spark plug, changed the oil, and replaced the air filter. As far as I can tell this all happened through muscle memory. I simply don’t remember doing it.

I split and stacked some more wood. Splitting wood creates a pile of “unusable” wood scraps beneath the hydraulic ram. This builds up. You have to manage it somehow (the best way is to split firewood at the stump instead of at the woodshed but I’m not doing that this year).

I drove the tractor to the pile, raked the “split detritus” into the bucket, drove to a random area of my lawn that was actually mowed (thus not a “spreading fire” hazard), dumped the bucket, and touched it off.

I shut down the tractor right there and procured a lawn chair. I sat there watching the fire for hours. What my homestead lacks in creature comforts it makes up for in peace. It was dead quiet and stress free.

Mrs. Curmudgeon, who cares deeply for her currently depressed husband, showed up with the fixings for a kabob. Nice! I positioned a few cement blocks and tossed on a metal grate. The food was good. The company appreciated. Also our dog decided fire grilled chicken was the best thing ever. If you have a dog why would you ever watch TV?

Oddly I missed my chickens. There are no chickens (free range or otherwise) at my homestead this year. Usually I have a couple dozen hens wandering about and if they think you’ve got food they’ll swing by to investigate.

I laugh to myself that I started a little campfire. I was deliberately trying to avoid “dangerous things” yet wound up playing with hydraulic rams and fire. How goofy is that? I suspect rural lives just have more sharp edges than other venues.

As the sun set I put out the fire and packed away the lawn chairs. I went to start the tractor and it was kaput! Dammit! No idea why. Not willing to diagnose it in the dark I left it there.

I’d like to say I got another good night’s sleep but we had a plumbing event at 3:00 am. Another dammit! Have I always handled so many “unexpected events”? It seems so weird.

Luckily I’d prepared for such an event years ago. I turned off valves I’d installed for just such a purpose and without fixing a damn thing went right back to bed.

The story continues…

[The following has no particular point. Life doesn’t have to be tidy. Sometimes you don’t know where you’re headed, sometimes you’re not even steering the ship, and today’s post is barely thought out.]

Here are photos from last summer:

Illness (not mine) and grief has gotten inside my OODA loop. It does what sorrow does. I grieve, pull it together, but collapse again. The situation will continue until it doesn’t. This will pass as all things do, but right now I can do naught but ride it out.

Thankfully, I’m back at my beloved homestead. How interesting to discover the deep attachment. Once I was nomadic. Home was not a place so much as a point of view. Familiar surroundings were unnecessary. If you’re content you’ll be equally content in a desert, a suburb, or wherever. Well it was until it wasn’t. I guess it faded with time. I only noticed it in my current stress. I didn’t know my homestead was… essential… but it is. I feel like I never want to leave again.

I landed at home, tossed my shabby luggage in the corner, and started looking at all the things I haven’t done. A summer ignored, a lawn gone feral, daydreams of motorcycle trips discarded. You cannot be two places at once. When you drop everything to attend an emergency, everything will be waiting when you return.

Yet this is my homestead and my connection with the land is good for me. It’s a tool with which I seek to right a weary mind. I have equipment, time (for now), and (barely) the health to work. Honest physical labor is good for you. You gotta’ start somewhere right?

I fired up the tractor and started mowing. The tractor has been idle and my land shows it. My hunting food plots were never tilled and planted. Corn that should be maturing right now lies dormant in a sealed bag of unplanted kernels. Dead trees accumulate instead of finding their way to the wood pile. I start small. I began to mow the fuckin’ lawn!

My heart wasn’t in it. Why would it be?

I found myself glancing at the milkweed adjacent to (and intruding into) my lawn. Surely there was a monarch caterpillar in there?

Lawns are stupid.

I shut down the tractor in mid swath. I stepped away from my ragged lawn and in a few strides was in knee deep weeds. I started methodically searching milkweed. There ought to be monarch caterpillars. Maybe I’d be lucky and find a chrysalis!

[For those of you that don’t know, most (but not all) years I capture a monarch butterfly caterpillar. I keep it in a jar near my desk with all the food and space and water it needs. I watch it mature, form a chrysalis, and emerge as a butterfly. Then I turn the butterfly loose. Try it yourself. It’s not as dumb as it sounds! Nothing on a screen; not Twitter (X), F***book, or TV is as pleasant. Nothing you buy with dollars does you as much good as watching a butterfly come to life. It’s a beautiful, sweet, innocent, childish, happy, pointless, inexpensive, sublime thing. Many times I’ve held a newly emerged butterfly in my hand. Have you? Why not? We all spend too much of our lives thinking about bills, car maintenance, and taxes. It’s a reprieve to see a being come to life right before our eyes.]

I’d seized on the idea of finding a caterpillar. I was happily moving from milkweed to milkweed. I forgot everything else. I was in nature. Not everyone engages with nature as deeply as I (and that’s fine) but for me it’s a big deal.

I “was in the now”. I wasn’t thinking about future or past, only the present. It was a good moment. Animals live in the presnt. Humans are cursed to lose immediacy. Most of us burn away fretting over potential miseries of the future rather than the glory at hand. I was in the “now” and it felt good.

It didn’t last long. My timing was bad. There were no caterpillars. Monarch butterflies had arrived, laid eggs, the eggs had hatched into caterpillars, the caterpillars had grown and then morphed into chrysalis, the chrysalis had matured, and new monarchs had emerged. The monarch’s cycle was over. I’d missed it.

That was it. I was done. I sat in the weeds near a ditch and let emptiness fill me. I think I missed the Perseid meteor shower too. I wonder if the skies were clear that night?

Sitting there in the weeds like an exhausted beast, I was spent. I was no worse off than I’d been when I’d entered but I’d been denying it. Now I wasn’t.

I grabbed a tick that had found its way to my cheek. Little bastards are everywhere! The trick is to catch them before they latch on; which I usually do. I flicked him onto my tick-proof jeans and watched him scramble away. Good test of the jeans. I guess I never stop observing.

The Stoics, such as Marcus Aurelius, instruct us to “get right with nature”. It’s wise counsel. Was it helping me; a ridiculous creature sitting cross legged on the dirt, up to my neck in weeds. I wasn’t feeling it. I’d found one blood sucking parasite and surely there were others. Is it not easier to be plugged into the Matrix? Netflix and chill, shut down the mind, abandon the soul?

The universe knows what to say, you just have to listen. A butterfly came into view. It caught my attention and I stared like I’d never seen one before. It flitted right past me into a bunch of thistles. The thistles are a good 5′ tall! They’ve grown in a shooting lane I planned to clear with my brush-hog. Even when I don’t brush hog the lane I usually drag a tree or two over the area as firewood and that mashes the vegetation down considerably. It wasn’t to be this year! My reward for procrastination was a sea of bright purple flowers. The monarch went from one to the other, methodically, unhurriedly but not missing any flowers either. It was unaware of the human sitting there… nor would it have cared had it known.

I assume it was a butterfly born this very month. It looked shiny and healthy. It didn’t have the tattered look you’ll sometimes see on the earliest butterflies in spring, the look of a being that worked hard to get to a just thawed northern outpost.

“Hello there.” I spoke aloud. Why the hell not? I can talk to critters if I want.

Butterflies notice motion more than sound. It didn’t spook because I didn’t move. I watched it work. It calmed me. I began to notice all the other pollinators. They were  harvesting what to them must have seemed a miraculous bumper crop of tall thistles. Bumble-bees chugged by like aerial dump trucks. Honey bees seemed less interested in the thistle. They were going nuts on the unmowed clover in the front of my tractor. High above me a hummingbird buzzed by.

I waited. Goldfinches like thistle. Would one show up? Sure enough one did; a flashy yellow streak zipping along to an unknown destination. Nice.

Another tick crawled on my forearm. For some reason I deliberately flicked him into the distance rather than submit him o a second experiment with the tick proof pants. Sometimes you’re in the right mood to be kind to all of God’s creatures; even blood sucking bastards.

Nature really does heal but I wasn’t ready yet. “That all you got!?!” I grumbled at the world. This was stupid and definitely tempting fate. If a rattlesnake bit me in the ass at that exact moment I would have deserved it. But I wanted something more. I see monarchs and finches all the time, I needed something that felt special. Not wise to make demands of nature but I’m as flawed as any of us.

Then it happened, a bird of a sort I didn’t recognize popped into view. That doesn’t happen very often. I used to “know birds”. I’ve since forgotten a lot but I’m rarely totally surprised.

WTF was that? An indigo bunting? A mountain bluebird? It wasn’t a jay or anything I’m used to. I could google habitat maps and try to guess what it was but why bother? It was the simple blessing of an unusually pretty blue colored bird that I didn’t recognize. A second one joined it. Then they both fluttered off.

I suppose I’d seen what I was supposed to see. I got up, brushed another tick off my hat, and waded through the weeds back toward home. I left the tractor where it was, clearly I’m not ready for that yet. After a thorough tick check, I fell into bed and slept for many hours.

Is there a point to this story? Maybe not. It’s just what happened.

We are all mortal.

I am healthy. A loved one is not. The clock ticks loudly. I hear the universe in my ear. I see it in my heart. The power of eternity leans uncomfortably close; crowding me, letting me know what’s coming. It’s gradual but final. I’m thankful it’s not all happening at once.

It would be false to say I’ve been preoccupied and thus unable to blog. Such would imply that pounding out fifty or a hundred essays a year (and my beloved squirrel stories) is the purpose of life, which clearly it is not. I am not preoccupied. I grapple with the very meat of living.

Blogging must wait. How long? I’ve no idea. I’d like to stoically shrug things off but I am human and have human frailty. I’ll need longer. A week? A fortnight? I do not know. I don’t resent the uncertainty. The mystery of life is as beautiful as it is cruel. A new world was created the moment we drew first breath. That world lives in time borrowed but never possessed. It must be returned to the owner. Such knowledge is a heavy weight but we all carry it. I withdraw for now because I can bear no other condition. Withdrawal is no more permanent than anything else.

I have paused from time to time in the last few weeks to ponder what to say. What bit wisdom could I distill? How could I communicate what I experience? Should I broadcast lived wisdom to the aether?

It came clear as I sat by a hospital bed. I cannot share my thoughts. Or rather I will not. At least not yet. We all know the losses that lurk in our future. We all have times of sorrow. Yet, for each agonizing repetition, the process must happen internally.

Despite our current false world of TikTok drivel and navel gazing social media, I am certain I’ve made the right choice. There are times to gather in herds and times to quietly ponder. I write little and none specific. That is my choice.

I want you to know I am alive. I humbly ask for patience. Soon perhaps, though I don’t know when, I’ll write again. I’m not out of stories. In due time I’ll return to conversations with trees and conjured satirical squirrels that scamper about fictional worlds.

If you must wait, at least know it is for good reason.

If I could ask one additional thing, it is this: Step away from politics and hug those who need it. Do it now. Thank you.