Wee hours of Sunday.
I just ignore the voices produced by appliances, like the air conditioner or a fan. I got some sleep tonight, dreaming about musical activities. Music will always be a major part of my life because music is feeling, and the process of living itself, a sort of flux as when you read an Emerson essay… It’s a mile from home to the church, a distance that grows more difficult at the age of 54 years. I suppose it’s mind over matter, and the nerve impulses come from who knows where. When you begin anything, you put one foot in front of the other and just start walking. My back continues feeling stronger while my mind wants to dissociate perhaps a little. A gain here means a loss there, so again life is imperfect: you can’t have everything. It all comes at a cost somewhere. The problem with being up in the middle of the night is there’s nothing to look at: outside is just a black curtain.
Quarter after five. There’s a song in my head called “Black Market” by Weather Report. I haven’t listened to 8:30 in many years. It seems hardly worth it when my best friend from that time has been so long dead. Automobile accident. He died before my parents did, and neither he nor my dad saw the new century. So, the old music with Jaco is a sad souvenir of departed friends.
I see the first predawn glow out my east window. Midnight blue. It feels like a long wait until the store opens at seven o’clock. With relish I anticipate the next time it rains, if it ever does again. The summer is redundant, day after day of drought and sun and fires and smoke. I’m actually kind of glad that my old friends don’t have to be around to witness the world today. Kind of like the empty feeling I get from going to the agency and seeing only two old coworkers, two survivors named Jeannie and Joy, still plugging away in shipping and the stockroom after so many others have gone.
robgradens 