Storm!

A wicked thunderstorm rolled in late yesterday afternoon. Loud explosions of air clapping against air filled the void left by lighting strikes that hit like God's Gatling gun, spraying the area with chaos. This morning's calm, like a glorious exhaustion after frenzied sex. The cloudless sky, brilliant with sunlight that stings eyes and skin, bringing out peak colors, a crystal clarity, as if the storm peeled off a thin layer of film, dingy and spotted, washing it down into sewers and streams and ultimately, out to sea....

Now, driving home from the gym, Johnny Winter is screaming the blues:

If the river was whiskey and I was a divin

Baby I was a diving duck, whoa

If the river was whiskey and I was a divin Duck

I would dive on the bottom, Baby I would never come up

Well the suns gonna shine in my back door,

Baby in my back door someday

The sun gonna shine in my back door someday

Well the wind gonna blow all

Your blues away

And it did exactly that.

On the Road to Spuds...

Blazing blacktop road to the horizon, melting in the unapologetic sun, flanked by soggy fields sprayed with septic chemicals for too many generations, all banned now and leeched into the local groundwater. Heading West on that burning sauna of a Florida afternoon, radio says it's 101 in the shade, although there is none of that in sight. Just open fields of pale cabbages raised too long on Monsanto chemicals, slowly killing the earth, even as the crops try to grow. Heat snakes undulate skyward, blurring the horizon, dancing in mirage pools that evaporate into the searing oven with my approach. A shape on the side of the road ahead, at first fuzzy, unfocused, sharpens in flashes until I see him clearly. Dirty, stooped, dragging a piece of airline luggage like an errant child, jumping and bucking with a broken wheel. His back to oncoming traffic, the acknowledgment of his left thumb turned slightly outward with my approach, barely visible. An appeal, a question already answered by his hunched, defeated shuffle. He was heading the right way, walking hand in hand with a thousand miles of hopelessness, toward a little farm town that no longer had anything left to offer, as sick and toxic as the water that ran through its veins.

This Moment...

For our entire life, birth to death, we only get a moment. This one right now. That's it. Everything else is memory or a wish. So when Hannah speaks to me of her yoga practice and the need to do things with intent, to be in the moment, that resonates. When Carla mentions Carl Jung's appeal for mindfulness, we're all speaking the same language. If we waste this moment by not being in it, maybe thinking of our “to do” list or what's for dinner, we can never get it back It's as if we were never there. That's our life we're letting slip by. Did we pick up that faint scent of wood smoke in the air or hear the Geese flying in their chevron overhead? Our children grow a half a foot, seemingly overnight. Was I there? Did I even see it? Or was I thinking about work or the bills, or maybe wasting time worrying about something that may never happen?

Be mindful, move forward with intent, pay attention. Don't blink.  

Yellow Jackets

The first time I saw the artwork of Bryan Shanchez was in Medellin, Columbia, dominating the side of a five story building. Be it a 30 foot mural or a 3 inch tattoo, Bryan brings true artistry to all of his work. This tattoo is done in the “watercolor”, free-form style. The image of a Yellow Jacket takes me back to my 8 year old self, a budding Entomologist. I collected insects, impaled on mounting pins in neat little rows of dried exoskeletons inside of the colorful cigar boxes that were still made with Balsa. Wasps, beetles, hornets...but no Yellow Jackets. They were too common for me to collect and too damn mean. Unlike Honey Bees who prefer to mind their own business and only sting in defense, Yellow jackets sting just for the fun of it, over and over. Then they call their buddies in to join the party. “Hey guys, come sting this human with me! You'll love the way he freaks out, dancing and waving his arms. Yo Bill! Sting him right behind his ear, see if you can get him to make those high sounds like a girl! We've got to do this more often, I'm laughing so hard I'm about to pee on my own stinger!”

You don't want to fuck with Yellow Jackets.

Pulse of ife...

Curled up next to me in the bed, her regular breathing a reassuring ebb and flow. First sun warms the long curtains, glowing folds wave slowly in harmony with the lake beyond. Feet hitting the treadmill, their cadence marking a journey to many places beyond their immediate path to nowhere. 

Late afternoon sun warms our backs as waves break dramatically on stage, their rhythmic crash unceasing, hypnotic. Nestled in a lawn chair under the oak canopy, the Chiminea pops and cracks as it eats the yard debris thrown hastily into it's greedy maw. As embers dim and quiet, I hear the pulse of my own blood as much as feel it. Cool breezes appear unexpectedly, lured in by the tree frogs, now all dressed up and yelling for their nightly rumspringa to begin.

Tires for Jesus, and Me

After going round and round about new tires, price and features, the woman at Walmart Automotive Center locked in my choice.

“Now I go see if we have em, all fo” She said.

“You don't have an inventory system so that you know that from here at your computer?” I asked.

She started to hit the top of her screen and bang on the keyboard. “I don trus this no more than I trus my man.They lie!”

She said “I gotta check. Otherwise it be like standin in line fo a nice jucy Big Mac and they hands you a tuna sammich!”

Maybe I should have gone to the place next door. I doubt Jesus has these problems.

Real Men Don't Eat Quiche...

“Real men don't eat Quiche” Where did that horse pie come from anyway? No idea. But when I woke up at 1:30 I wanted to make it. One crab, one broccoli. But my deal with myself is that I don't get out of bed before 3AM, so I did my best to go back to sleep. I've always resented, the need for sleep. It feels like wasted time, like I'm missing out on something. Anyway, I made it to 2:45 and decided that the clock was 15 minutes slow.

Five minutes later, I was rolling. Pandora playing Hound Dog Taylor through an old wireless JBL that Hannah gave me years ago about the size of a hoagie roll that still kick ass.

Bent over a Pyrex bowl, grating Swiss, Gruyere, and Asiago. The broccoli was already blanched, mixed with cream and crab. Check, check, check, and check.

Quiche is best if refrigerated overnight and then warmed back up. That is the plan. And tomorrow? I will definitely eat Quiche. So as far as that stuff about real men goes, there is only one of two conclusions to be drawn:

1) It's not true 2) I'm not a real man.

I'm fine with it either way, as long as I get a big slice.