Observing Nature

A cartoony blue and white poofball sky hang in the background of crisp fall day. Sugar maples drop their harvest leaves like crayola lemmings leaping from a cliff. Obsessive-compulsive salmon throw themselves mindlessly at a fish ladder, flailing upstream to some predestiny, the specifics long forgotten. Old couples wander the sidewalk, dottering arthritic geese. And I sit alone, watching life pass, watching everything die.

The concrete hardly shows its age, but there are laugh lines in the sidewalk. Anglers standly idly waiting for the next unsuspecting fish, watching the mild wind create small swirls of color from the ground near their feet. Those guys have a purpose, they know why they're here. Not me. I'm just here, wondering. Most of the time I have more questions than answers about the world around me, and it doesn't bother me. But today I just sit and think and wait for ephiphany that never comes. I am alone and I don't like it.

Why? I should be fine. I've read much, and thought also, that being alone is good, time to reconnect with something or other... I get vague on the details there. Must not have been a picture book or audio CD. And talking to my friends is entertaining, sometimes enlightening, and always a rewarding diversion, but in the end, it seems to be a diversion from lonliness. So I come back to this question, honestly not sure of the answer: What's so wrong with being alone? Why don't I like it? What is the goal of being with people if I am apparently so reluctant to be by myself right now? I don't know. Maybe that's a cop out. Maybe I do know and would rather not talk about it.

Avoidance is perhaps my least favorite uncoping skill. Its like the credit card bill that swells out of control on interest. I've seen enough of that in my life and would rather not endenture my mind, so I'll ramble at a couple ideas. That quasi- academic layer of examination has always been a better safe-haven. Like a computer in safe-mode, the system processes, but just not everything at once. So perhaps (an excellent, highbrow beginning), we may begin by examining what's gained by being alone. Meditative, contemplative opportunities. Anyone who knows me will laugh to hear that I don't want to think about that. But its true.

Because sitting here and thinking, right now, I see everything ending. The leaves, the fish, the old people, the season itself. Its all dying. The mold spores, the leaf rot, the decaying pumpkins on porches throughout suburbia. Its all ending. And I know there are a million cliches about endings and beginnings and I don't even want to write one.

As a matter of fact, why don't you insert your favorite one right here: _________________________________________________________.

Oh, how true, how true. But I don't want this moment to end. I love it. Its beautiful, every last leaf. Down to the last dottard. I want to absorb every detail and make it last, thinking if I could capture infinite detail in a finite moment, it would still live on forever. I know these moments pass. I know. But I like that concrete with the laugh lines, its there for me. I can count on it being there, although it has little to offer.

Interesting that the cracks come from water. Water and rock are opposites to each other in this polar system. Water runs, rock stands. Rock blocks water, water wears away rock. The water always wins. I want to be like water, not caring where the next moment takes me. Happy to be anywhere, unconcerned with the future because it is what it is. But I'm rock. I bear up under things that sag. I hold until I crack, then I crumble. Rock tries to keep things the same. As they ever have been. But I see where I've been. I've already done that. Some of it was good, but much of it wasn't. I don't want to be this anymore. I am trying to decide to move forward, without regard to future outcome, like water. Rock impersonating water.... like an interpretive dance of accounting and auditing. Still I try. I try to choose this path, like the one guy on the roller-coaster, gritting his teeth while everyone else hoots with joy. Maybe it will be easier with time. So while my friends are a good distraction, I guess its inevitable that I should come to this thought. A choice of who to be. And what to choose... I am alone in that decision.

Lumberjacked Up

Labels are neither interesting nor useful unless you're looking to define something that's felt, but otherwise unexpressed. An infinity of fuzzy logic waits in the shadows of my quick list of working cognitive definitions. In a neutral state, not seeking an end, this asteroid belt of errant thoughts is not a problem. When blissfully unmotivated I can look at something I use all the time and see it as something altogether different. Take, for instance, pyromania. The mania interests me because its not pyrophilia, and yet pedophiles are not pedomaniacs. I digress, but you get the idea. That is the space between my ears. It feels crowded, and yet still frequently vacuous.

"How are you?" can be a query of paralytic proportion. I think I even wrote a blog on that once... Something as simple as that question seems to have so many potential responses, that it frankly bothers me that people ask. What do you mean? How Am I?? Eh... cognito ergo sum? That space between the question, the mental awareness, and the answer feels sometimes very tense because I have to pick a lane. Just one. I cannot proceed infinitely down two or three lines of thought simultaneously, but often I try and get lost in the land of non-sequitor. The challenge is apparently getting from a motionless mental state where everything can be turned and rotated to where the quantum spin of my legion individual thoughts can only be managed with principled uncertainty. Sometimes I marvel that I can get dressed in the morning.

It is for this reason that work is a valuable tonic. The construct is already formed, the terms and definitions set. I do well at work because of this. Sometimes I do too much of it because it is so clear. Even physical exercise fits in this definition of work. I find deep satisfaction in training for this reason. Whether its at the gym or in an office, there is a satisfaction in coming to that mental space where everything has again slowed down to a constellation of fixed point thoughts. It is a moving meditation. The motion creates the stillness. The stillness is the place where we become manifest. Where thoughts become words, then deeds. Its where I don't have to worry about losing that thought if I move, blink, or listen.

I cut down a tree this weekend and it was profoundly satisfying. The cherry tree had died perhaps two seasons ago. Last year its stark leafless branches were in vivid contrast to the norms of suburban landscaping, yet it passed through the seasons nonetheless. At the time it was just a tiny point of light in my mind. It existed in the constellation, but I was distracted by the disturbing pallor of much nearer health issues. So it transformed from ornamental to sun-dried cherry until finally a torrent of rain and gusting brought it down.

No longer did I have to ponder the new shape of the yard and the design of plants in that now treeless space, or how the grounds should be reshaped, when it should all be done. The tree was bent at 45 degrees to the ground. It had to go. I knew the steps to that dance. Rain fell so many days in a row and so softened the ground that the roots came up with the tree. When I saw its awkward tilt Friday morning, I knew it was time to finally act. No more delay, no excuses, no errant thoughts. Just cut down the goddamn tree.

So I did.

Saturday morning I awoke to the soft rattle of rain finding its way from the gutter to downspout. I dressed quickly and went downstairs to assess the available resources. Once upon a time I had rain gear. I've lost it. I found tolerable substitutes and went to the garage to find tools. No chainsaw. No neighbors up to lend one. I took small handsaw, a hatchet, and a 12lb maul and walked out into the cold morning air.

The leather work gloves felt awkward against my skin as I pulled and twisted the tree until its six in trunk finally broke free from the ground. There is always too much material in the last finger of the glove. You could have six fingers and still wear them. I hold no animus toward Inigo Montoyo, but it would be nice to have a glove that allows you to get your fingers around the handle of a saw. A neighbor pulls up in a moment when I am trying to catch my breath after lugging the 20 foot carcass to a suitable spot to cut it up.

"How are you?"
"What are you doing?"
"How is it going?"

I am speechless, for sheer lack of air or thought. Clearly no relation to Sherlock Holmes, I looked at the neighbor, dry in her car except the edge of her left hand sitting on the half-mast window. A small halo of exhaust lingered around my thoughts and I continued to catch my breath and think of any answer at all. The first thought was not a civil one, nor was the second, third, or 12th.

"Fine, thank you. Playing lumberjack... work in progress." It took 30 seconds to respond. Noting the lack of witty repartee, she nodded, waved and drove on.

The next 30 minutes were a furious blur of sawing, smashing and crushing followed by another 30 minutes of neatly sorting, stacking, and raking the debris from the yard. It felt good. For an hour there was a tranquility grounded only in the sensory ties to cold air, wet earth, and hard wood; mind at rest, body at work, spirit fully absorbed. When finally the tips of my fingers began to numb a little from the wet air, I collected the tools and walked toward the warmth of the portal to my family within.

Tomorrow, when I return to work and am asked what I did this weekend, I will be able to honestly say: "I cannot tell a lie. I cut down a cherry tree."