RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,316
(the emperor of nothing at all, pt. EIGHTEEN)
Misplacing things really drives me
crazy. I'd say 'losing things' but it's
never really that. I don't so much
lose things as find the dumbest places
to stash them so I'll remember, and, of
course, then I never can remember.
That's like the perfection of a closed
circle for an absolute idiot. I'm in
the midst of that right now, over an
inhaler (maybe I should have said
'I'm in the MIST of that now?'). I
put it somewhere, but damned if
I remember where - and it was
such a fail-safe location too.
-
That's how the ends end up. I've
never been able to figure this life
out, so what's any of it matter anyway.
Optimism is a kid's game, and it has a
sluice right to the drain, all of its own.
There are never any miracles involved
except the ones you make yourself.
People all claim to 'be' from somewhere,
but they're all from nowhere. It's easy
to name a hundred things you can
remember - Popsa's cigar store, that
Czech family with all the weird flowers
that lined the curb, the guy who was
always roasting potatoes outdoors, the
twin girls who had the rabbit hutch
at the side of their yard. So that's
where you're from? A big joke when
I was about 11 was when Jimmy O'Neil,
at the sidelines of some dumb church
basketball game, was asked by someone
where he came from - he answered,
'Me? I came from my Mother.'
-
Circumstantial evidence - that's all
that stuff is : All the 'where you from'
and 'where were you born' questions
amount to very little evidentiary
reality. We live in our brains and we
filter whatever the world around us
appears to be through the worldly
mesh that the screen we've made
consists of. I wanted to try that
one out for size on Jack Stove too,
but haven't. Yet. I always have to
wait for the right spots and moments
to slip these ideas into a regular
conversation - it's not always easy,
and I don't want it to stand out as
a 'planted' question. Know what I
mean? Once the small-talk starts
sounding artificial and 'baited,'
why then it's no better than a
lawn, really.
-
I found it real fortunate too that a
guy of his caliber was in apparent
and perfect health. He seemed to have
no maladies, not a limp, not a bump,
not a perforation. Of course that was
just conjecture on my part - another
few old guys I know, mid-eighties
now, have scars and cut lines and
things all over their chests and they
go on about their surgeries, hernias,
triple-by passes, like it was all but
popcorn at a carnival. Stove never
said a thing about ails or ills.
-
Riding a quad, and with a dog,
through thick woods and occasional
paths isn't the average endeavor of
most old people - it's more an
'indicator' of where that person
is in life : Obviously mobile, able
to lay out the 16-grand needed for
a vehicle of the sort he was riding,
keeping and maintaining 8 dogs;
none of these are easy feats, most
especially when living alone and
in a remote and distant-enough
location. I wondered, as well, about
a lot of alternate things. As with
me, no cell phone? None of that
incessant crack and clatter of the
usual reference to the phone, the
calls and messages coming in, and
the common time lost having to
relate to all that. Trivia and junk,
for the most part. I was glad he
appeared to have none of that.
Another point in the woodsman's
favor. And anyway, I'd guess
you can't misplace what you
never had.
-
So, you walk down a wooded path
somewhere, feeling crummy about
yourself, maybe always dwelling too
far within, all by one's self, and the
sorts of thought that arise either become
inspiration or disaster. In either case
something awaits - I seek the higher
plain of free-stillness, one molded by
my own thoughts and domains. The
others, per Jack Stove, can have their
funny mailboxes and patterned lawns
and ornaments. I'd rather side with
him - apparently headed in the right
direction, but probably, now, far, far
too late for any good.
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