On Leaving America

19 February    Year of the water snake, I think.

Twelve days to go. I am totally freaking out. Time is passing by faster than greyhounds, and there is still so much to do. We must be out of the house on the fourth. Before that will be living in empty place for two days—with the cats and a mattress that will be picked up on the final day. Or we could go somewhere. A neighbor has offered us use of his guest bedroom and we might make use of that . . . or not. The neighbor has this cat that can go in and out of his house through a small cat door. Boots is a very bad cat and last week got in a fight with Morris who is an indoor cat. Morris had found a way to sneak out of the house and Boots tore him up pretty bad. Boots kills birds, including lots of humming birds. He is not beloved in the neighborhood. Six-hundred dollar vet bill to repair poor Morris. Even if we kept our cats locked in the bedroom . . . what it one got out, or in. They would need a sand box. Could we even get into a hotel with 2 cats? I should put that on our list: Hotel that takes cats.

Two days in Motel 6 . . . With cats. The cats know something‘s going on. Thank God they can’t imagine what is coming up. A neighbor will take us to the airport with so much luggage we need Sherpa’s. Lou and I will both be carrying one cat in a cage with a sling that goes over ones shoulder . . . this and two suitcases each. Then thirty hours of flight. I don’t care if it kills me. I just want it to be over. I am too damn old to be doing this. I’ve begun to feel old for the first time. There was a time when I became old, probably mid- fifties. I remember overhearing someone saying to another, “He’s that old guy, over there.” I suddenly saw them as they saw me, an older generation by a couple decades. I was suddenly aware that others thought of me as old. But I did not feel old.

I’m feeling old these last few days. I’m feeling tired, and Lou is too. We’ve been packing again. The things you really want to have available as long as possible. We’re packing our suitcases. What are the most important things? What will go in the limited space of carry on? What are the family jewels? Bucky is sitting on the table just behind me, looking at this monitor. It’s lucky he can’t read. “Not knowing is the strength of man and beast.” Who said that? Bucky wants a snack, of course. I give him one and satisfied, he saunters off. Sometimes I think it’s more he wants to make me do something than he wants the snack.

The Time of Our Lives - 1

As Time flies by—The years. 

My father died when he was my age, should have  lived another decade. Heart attack. Maybe good he left a bit early. Maybe there was nothing left for him to do. He had physically run out of things to do, things that he was capable of doing. I remember us in the back yard, him with a slingshot, trying to pull the rubber back. “Can’t even do this,” he told me . . . weakened by time, and hard work—blue collar. I remember my last visit, in their garden. I was pulling weeds. My dad, of course, had to help. I couldn’t stop him . . . would have been an insult. He knelt down facing me, pulled a few weeds, the stopped for a moment as if frozen. “Wait,” he says. With dog-like devotion I stay put, no questions. I say nothing as he gets some pills from a container in his pocket . . . takes one.  We kneel in silence, still for thirty heart beats. Then he moves again.

            “That nitro,” he says. “Good stuff.”

            Not a good sign. I’m not sure that one day he decided not to take the pill, let the heart attack do its thing to him, in the garage, by his workbench and tools of use for the time that was left. Also had emphysema—welder, thirty years.

            I think there was never a time that you or I or any of us did not exist. In past and future. I am not the first to say this, but if you believe, perhaps it’s time to think about what’s really going on. I think about it . . . sometimes, and made some modest efforts these last more than forty years. Means nothing of course, but when we shed the body. What is left? A lot of theories on that subject. Many answers. There might be a place some Buddhists speak of—Timeless Awareness. A primordial space where sound does not  exist, nor sight, or time and distance. Words as well—no more. All that gets left with the skin. And what are we now? With all these senses gone, somehow there is awareness of our selves . . . beyond thought. Beyond words, which make it very hard to describe. To describe it would be to disprove its existence.

            We spend our lifetimes thinking, about things.  To not-think, that’s the trick. We are bombarded by thoughts. They never stop . . . inspired by things, experience. There’s so much going on. Our work and wives and children, houses and TV—the obvious. There are few days I don’t spent at least a couple hours watching TV shows that slightly irritate me. Incredible ads . . . condoms and dildos and Viagra . . . erectisizers—drugs that make one hard as steel. Be a real man, we are told. Be all that you can be. A lot of magic lose-fat ads, machines and programs . . . guaranteed.  More advertisement time than movie minutes. Crime shows and cartoons. Why am I here?

            I'm rambling. Nothing more to do this rainy afternoon.

Downsized at 50+ Temp Jobs No. 2

                                                          The Bindery

On The Line

I am enthralled at first

In awe of this great space

The clatter of dark green machinery

Metropolis of movement

Long conveyor belts with snake-like curves

Rattle like dominoes.

The whine of forklifts

Clattering of printing presses

Night-shift workers

Moving at top speed.

At three of fourteen stations

I load pages into hoppers that are quickly emptied

Needing more . . . insatiable

A warning buzzer sounds

Go faster . . . faster!

Sweating on this concrete floor

Under a grid of bare fluorescent lights

No mercy

Eight hours of running back and forth

Between the pallet loads of printed pages

And the ever-hungry hoppers.

On my way back home

At dawn

Ears ringing.

Downsized at 50+ Temp Jobs No. 3

                                                          The Bindery

On The Line

I am enthralled at first

In awe of this great space

The clatter of dark green machinery

Metropolis of movement

Long conveyor belts with snake-like curves

Rattle like dominoes.

The whine of forklifts

Clattering of printing presses

Night-shift workers

Moving at top speed.

At three of fourteen stations

I load pages into hoppers that are quickly emptied

Needing more . . . insatiable

A warning buzzer sounds

Go faster . . . faster!

Sweating on this concrete floor

Under a grid of bare fluorescent lights

No mercy

Eight hours of running back and forth

Between the pallet loads of printed pages

And the ever-hungry hoppers.

On my way back home

At dawn

Ears ringing.

Crows

Seventies: Part One                                    

Crows

            One of the first things you notice after being retired is that you have time to notice things. There is time. Not as much as I thought there would be, but time enough. I have begun to notice crows these last three years— an interesting bird. Some people are against them. They rob nests when they can find them, eat the young. I watch them walk along the fence and scan the evergreens for nests. Not nice. But then we all kill something. I remember an old Buddhist thing: “We are all food, and the eaters of food .”         

            I have digressed. I tend to do that.

            I want to talk about crows. They fascinate me, so damn smart, so cautious. After three years some now dare to stand their ground some ten or twelve feet off, watching my every move— poised for a quick escape. A burst of flight. One hangs around, keeping an eye on a crow feeder I made—an aluminum baking  pan in a wood  pole about four feet off the ground. Should have made it higher by at least a foot. Dogs get into it sometimes.

            It’s still mid-winter and the gulls have come in shore to plunder. They are a much larger bird, but fewer. Fighters and bombers. Gulls chase crows only if one’s found something to eat something it cannot quickly swallow, trying to steal it away. Sometimes the drop their prize. A band of crows can drive a gull or two away . . . but not so far away.

Beauty Changes - Photo

Downsized at 50+ Temp Jobs No. 3

The Time of My Life

Hot summer afternoon

It’s ninety-seven in the shade

And more

Inside my gear

White paper dust mask

Padded rubber on my ears

To stop some of the noise

A pair of safety glasses

Dark blue coveralls on top my clothing

Heavy leather gloves

Thick socks and steel toe boots.

Holding this powerful electric drill

Eight pounds of heavy metal

Spinning wire-brush wheel

A blur of blue and gray

Against the rust that has accumulated

On eight tons of angle iron

My job.

Eight hours inside a cloud of dark red dust

Fire storm of sparks

Bristles fly off

Go though this fabric armor

Into sweating skin

Dust makes it hard to breath

My glasses fogged by body heat

I watch the slow shop clock

Selling the time of my life

Six-fifty an hour.