August
I have tried to rest, but I can feel my heart beat. Pressure spreading, my teeth grind, fingers grasp lightly at the edge of sleep without purpose or volition.
Returning here, to my room, to this cave, this tower, this window to the familiar, I've taken on all the old weight of life. The air unsettles after travel, humid and invasive, seething into me, infusing my old man's lungs with its signal of war. After so many priceless days, the stink of fuel, the roar of mighty engines, clamoring streets, wind and arctic surf. Torn mists climbing the twisted cypress, falling into narrow coves, infusing groves that for all their foreign and blackened woods held more the breath of home than this unwelcome heat.
I strain, I cough, a tickle in the throat, numb thoughts, a bitter salt gorge of disgust. Living here thirty years when every day is a battle. Waking again, a head full of numbers suspended in cotton, trying like mad to be something approaching loving and friendly and efficient and normal. My guide those simple moments of clarified anger or pain or confusion. Those gifts given, gone forever. Those taken, not without price.
I am not alone here, I see it well from the outside. We all live with loss and chaos and strive to step correctly, to both advance and preserve, to appreciate the present with no regret for the past. We are all born as minds in a metaphor of the flesh. Grasping at momentary pleasures. Curiously pitching forward on faint paths into a dusk of perfume and lamplight. We get one chance, and soon enough we'll be done with this ragged effort. Nothing to do but wake up again and prepare as best we can.
That is my comfort. This is still a life, and even if I don't have a long enough night, it may still contain a little sleep.
Returning here, to my room, to this cave, this tower, this window to the familiar, I've taken on all the old weight of life. The air unsettles after travel, humid and invasive, seething into me, infusing my old man's lungs with its signal of war. After so many priceless days, the stink of fuel, the roar of mighty engines, clamoring streets, wind and arctic surf. Torn mists climbing the twisted cypress, falling into narrow coves, infusing groves that for all their foreign and blackened woods held more the breath of home than this unwelcome heat.
I strain, I cough, a tickle in the throat, numb thoughts, a bitter salt gorge of disgust. Living here thirty years when every day is a battle. Waking again, a head full of numbers suspended in cotton, trying like mad to be something approaching loving and friendly and efficient and normal. My guide those simple moments of clarified anger or pain or confusion. Those gifts given, gone forever. Those taken, not without price.
I am not alone here, I see it well from the outside. We all live with loss and chaos and strive to step correctly, to both advance and preserve, to appreciate the present with no regret for the past. We are all born as minds in a metaphor of the flesh. Grasping at momentary pleasures. Curiously pitching forward on faint paths into a dusk of perfume and lamplight. We get one chance, and soon enough we'll be done with this ragged effort. Nothing to do but wake up again and prepare as best we can.
That is my comfort. This is still a life, and even if I don't have a long enough night, it may still contain a little sleep.