Day: August 15, 2020

Last week’s WOTD freewrite was disastrous (why can’t that word pop up?). This week I am hoping for better results. The word we are stemming from is Quiescent…

ergo sum peccatore

I last confessed twelve years ago. I don’t know, I guess I felt there wasn’t much point in the thing. I believe–I still believe, mind you. I don’t know what people would do without belief. Can you imagine a world where the only thing you had to believe in was a voice on the TV humming at you eery night to explain the news and what was causing all that news; all that violence? I had to stop, you know, after it happened.

No, now I am not saying that I did it. I wouldn’t say that, because I did not do it. Don’t go telling me you came all the way down here to stare at me through this thick plastic and hear me say I done did something I didn’t. You won’t hear it. Not from me. Not ever.

No, I stopped watching the TV.

They have it on here almost all the time. There are fights in the rec room once every few days because somebody gets riled up about a show or says something about a character somebody else likes, and just like that they are fighting and the TV goes off and the two idiots (though from time to time its more than two) get put in the hold where they are supposed to ‘cool off’. Tell me this: how do you cool off in a place that has to be at least 118-120 in the pitch dark? Way I heard it the pipes run behind those walls. Not the good kind either. Not the kind that brings cool water or the air ones people are supposed to be able to climb through and escape. No, these are the nasty pipes that come from down deep, rising out of whatever it is that powers this place.

Did you know we ain’t on the grid? Can’t be. They can’t risk power failing and all of us getting out into the world. Treat us like we are boogey men come to getcha! Still don’t explain where the power comes from and why it smells so damn awful down there and especially why it gets so hot.

What was I talking about? Oh, yes. I stopped the TV stuff straight off. I went and got me a good spot in the library and learned to take joy in reading. It’s different, you know? When you read the words they come out as slow as I want them to. That gives me time to think about what is written down there. It also kills time for a lot longer than that TV. The big part of it is it doesn’t poison my mind. Since I’ve been on books I’ve come round to a more relaxed way of thinking and talking and acting. I have become quiescent in my old age. I have learned that in spite of my innocence I have long been a sinner, so perhaps this place is what it needs to be for me for as long as that may be.

Yep. 19 years in this place. First three were easy. I still had appeals. After that it started to settle in that I was never leaving here. Few years after that still is when you started coming around. You need to understand that I cannot give you what the stories refer to as ‘closure’. I mean I suppose I could, but it wouldn’t be proper. Why? Well because I did not do it.

Saying I did wouldn’t make it true. All you’d ask me after is why and I wouldn’t have any sort of answer that made sense. It would be one more lie built on the last and maybe that is what you want right now, but I promise you the lie is hollow and you’ll be hungry for the truth before long.

I hope you find it. Once you do you’ll be like me. quiescent. Only you’ll be out there where the world keeps changing and asking you things and I’ll be in here with my books and my three walls and my three meals with nothing more to worry about than what I have to look forward to.

What’s that? Why the next story, of course.

I am conducting this blog from the beach in San Diego. It is my last day, thus the one day I would mention I am gone (so none of y’all rob me!) and by the time this gets online I will be back. I love writing on the beach more than I thought was possible. I love the idea of being able to get all of the sensory input that keeps me focused and calm yet feel the sun at my back and smell the cool clean air of the ocean. I prefer to live this way. I would prefer to have a home here, footsteps away from the water where I can visit and thrive two or three months out of the year in a space where my responsibilities are tied only to the online world and the whims of my fancy. That is, of course, fantasy. I don’t have a budget for such things. Nevertheless I am driven to remember how fortunate I am to have what I have now and to be able to spend these last few days here with the woman I love and the job I most cherish—the words.

More and more my partner and I discuss the idea of the life we want to live and the way it contrasts with the life we live. I believe there is a way to combine these things that leans more towards the wants and desires than it does the daily reality. I am working on that. I am moving towards a deeper realization of how to make that happen. Trips like these help me understand, but they also are a part of that reality I seek to hold on to.

The beach reminds me that I love people watching and love absorbing the aura of the ocean and the energy of the people there. It reminds me how to be active when I spend my days in a state that, for this stage of the year, is too hot to want to be active outdoors or even in. The beach is a reset or a recharge permitting me to go back to the doldrums and face the day to day.

The beach makes me want to change that day to day to something else entirely that feels less like tolerance and more like waking up to a life that I look forward to and activities that remind me that I am in charge of my own (brief) reality. The universe has been around for billions of years. I’m here for what, 80? As I feel the way life has weathered my body and spirit I find that more and more I am looking to heal and to guide my life towards personal fulfilment and enjoyment less I waste what little time I have left in this mortal coil.

I don’t have access to the web this evening, so I will be posting in the morning. What am I posting about? Sports rant. It is Waiver Wednesday after all. With two of the big 5 conferences in football cancelling it looks like there will be little to know college ball. There is still high school ball. There is still youth ball (more on that later). Overall, there is a lot happening in this Covid world, but the approach to dealing with it has been entirely uneven.

Here in AZ most kids probably won’t be back in school physically until October. The first game of the H.S. season for my kids’ team in on October 2^nd. Whether or not fans are allowed remains to be seen. However, they are still training every day and expecting to play. It is a strange thing to see the school only open for football players while everyone else shelters in place.

Youth football is also strange. Our league swelled o 98 organizations and over 300 teams. That is with some teams folding under the weight of Covid and others (like ours) limiting our practices in order to be safe. All coaches are wearing masks during practice, and probably will do the same during the game. It still remains to be scene where these games will be. While the H.S. is open to football players it appears to not be open to youth football.

Honestly, I wish we had one rule and one set of behaviors, but we don’t. We are all riding this wave of crazy in our own way and pace. This is dangerous, but it could be worse.