El octavo día Dios, después de tanto trabajar,
Para liberar tensiones, y luego ya de revisar,
Dijo --Todo está muy bien, es hora de descansar--
Y se fue a dar un paseo por el espacio sideral
"Octavo dia", Shakira
*****
Well, I probably haven't worked all THAT hard, certainly not as hard as God did for the first seven days, BUT, I am off of work for the next several days, and everything is okay, right now, so I decided to go for a little walk. I didn't--couldn't--walk in space like He/She/It/They did, but, you know, I had to get something for supper, so--Hy-Vee?
Good enough for me.
*****
I START OFF NORTH. Something I realized this afternoon, walking to Hy-Vee, is that I always sort of walk in a square, thus going in each of the cardinal directions at some point during the walk. I'm not sure if I do this on purpose, on a subconscious level, or if that's just reading too much into things. I have a habit of doing that, you know. You probably know that, if you're reading this.
I got an unexpected little surprise right before my walk. Found out both my kids would be staying at friends' houses for the night. I was already expecting a nice, relaxing evening at home, but wow. No kids!!! That means "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" without worrying if the kids can hear the curse words. That means I can eat supper out of a can and not feel guilty. It means I can go to bed as early or as late as I want, thank you very much.
As far as I'm concerned, that in and of itself is worth giving thanks for.
*****
WEST. THE SUN IS JUST ABOUT below the horizon, just on top of the tree line. Ten minutes, tops, until sunset. One thing I just started doing is tracking sunrise and sunset times and including them in my journal entries. I'm not sure where this idea came from, but I like it. I know, for example, that the sun being where it is, it's gotta be about 4:30. I also know that this is very early.
Winter fucking sucks. It just. fucking sucks. But as I walk, I know that the solstice is less than a month away, and after that the sun will start being out a little longer each day, and that is part of how I deal with the constant cold and darkness.
My mind wanders. It's wandering to Cuzco, Peru. My students have been researching the Inca empire; Cuzco was its capital. I've been there, eight years ago. I'm thinking maybe we should go back, me and Sonia and the kids. We lived in Lima last summer, and it was all right, but it was just...not us. Cuzco, that's more us. You're high up in the mountains and life moves slower and it's a little harder to breathe but nothing that some coca leaves can't fix, and the people there have rosy cheeks, and their Spanish has just a hint of sing-song in it, and the Incas are practically living with you, what with their rocks and walls and food and language around. And the people, they're just SO incredibly nice, and I think it would be the perfect place to have a living room with a fireplace and bedrooms with little portable heaters and Inca blankets, and play sapo on the weekends and drink chicha, and learn and live in another culture, because that's the addictive crackish thing about traveling, that opportunity to be in another culture and think about what's really what.
I'm not sure I could miss another baseball season, though. Especially with the way the Cubs are looking.
*****
VEERING SOUTH. There is a young boy, Niko or Orlando's age, not any older or younger, playing outside. He's by himself but that's okay, if there's snow. We got a nice little batch last four nights ago. Not a ton but more than a little, enough to have to move out of the driveway. Enough that Orlando was up constantly throughout the night, asking us if he could go outside yet. Him and Niko played outside for HOURS on Saturday.
Today, there's not too much left. That's what happens when it snows this early in the season: it warms up again and melts the snow and the kids don't have any left to play with. This kid is piling up snow but there just isn't enough to do much with; when he moves the snow, there's just grass underneath. And it's still green, that's what's really crazy. It snowed so early, then melted so quickly, that there are patches of snow next to bright green grass. It would be hard, even if one were a pretend aspiring writer, to find a more perfect metaphor for the intersection of the seasons.
*****
I ARRIVE AT HY-VEE AND reflexively check my pockets. I have my phone, but no wallet. How am I going to buy what I came for? I can't buy anything. The trip was a waste....
*****
I MAKE MY FINAL TURN, EAST, and immediately I see the moon, a big, fat, yellowish moon, hanging just over the trees like the sun was a few minutes before. It's almost full, not sure if it's waxing or waning, not sure if I'm even sure what those words mean, but it's a pretty moon, pretty enough that I notice it, and there are an awful lot of things I don't notice.
When I was 18 years old--twenty years ago, now--I went on this retreat for church. We drove over two hours to get there, to Carroll, Iowa, to Kuemper Catholic High School. It was, and I assume continues to be, an old high school, nooks and crannies everywhere and just that FEELING, you know, a lot of kids have been through here. My principal reasons for going were not of a religious nature. I wanted a) to meet girls and b) meet more girls. And I did. We even had a dance, the 30 or 40 or 50 or so of us on this retreat. Tip for young men: do church stuff. The ladies will always outnumber you.
A funny thing happened, though. We had some session. I don't remember anything about what it was supposed to be about, and I don't remember anything that we said. But when we were leaving the room I was thinking about my mom, who had died just a couple of months before this. And it must have shown, because when the session ended some girl in a cardigan, wearing heavy makeup, some Kuemper girl, not one of the religious goodie-two-shoes, a "normal" girl, some girl I really didn't even know all that well, asked me, "Mark, are you okay?" And I turned around, and--and this is really uncharacteristic of me--I said "No." I said, "I miss my mom." And she said, "Oh." and she hugged me. And I cried and cried and cried, that nose snorting, heavy sobbing body cleansing cry, and I soaked her cardigan in tears and snot, and she didn't say a word, and it was the perfect thing to say.
*****
HOME. TWILIGHT. ALL FOUR DIRECTIONS duly walked, I turn around. The last rays of the sun are splashing, low, across the sky, and it's pretty, and it reminds me, because sometimes I forget, that God, even when you're forgetting about Him/Her/It/Them, has a way of finding you, even if you're actively trying to avoid Him/Her/It/Them in search of the opposite sex, He/She/It/Them has a funny habit of hanging a big fat yellowish moon where you can't help but see it, of putting a kind young woman with too much makeup in a hallway with you, of splashing a pretty, but not splendid, sunset across the sky, and if I should go Home anytime soon, there are definitely worse images in the world to have in my mind.
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