June 28, 2003

• Nothing is simple.

  
  

  Blessings and curses mingled together–that’s the story of my life.  Peaceful seclusion and bleak isolation are one and the same.  The best way to tell when I’m in trouble is when things are at their best.  Always, life’s most rewarding times are the most punishing.  Bittersweet should be my name.  It certainly is my disposition.

  
  

  I went to Wasilla today–no, it was yesterday.  The brief summer night passed while I was on the road home some hours ago.  Now the sun is up and starting to warm away the chill of night.  It was a very damp and chilly night and my fingers got cold taking some of the pictures below.  At mid-day when these were taken, it was hot, windy and dry.

  
  

  Here is a picture of Greyfox’s stand in the flea market strip at Rainbow.  Dusty, noisy and dangerous:  a week or so ago, someone speeding along the strip, probably to avoid the traffic slow-up on the highway it parallels, caused by the traffic light at the next intersection, hit a little boy and sent him to the hospital.  Troopers came, couldn’t do anything because the accident occurred on private property.  Today I watched two cars pull the same stunt during rush hour traffic, close to 50 MPH, kicking up dust, making everyone there tense up, squint, cough, and look around for the kids.  This is not my idea of a good place to spend my day.

  
  

  If I want to spend time with my baby between his Monday-Tuesday “weekends”, though, this is where I have to be, because this is where he works.  Today, I had work to do in town, too, so of course since I had to be there anyway, I stayed a while and hung around with him so we could spend time together and talk.  Talking is great with him now, with his new outlook on life.  Greatly challenging for both of us, too, confronting years of dysfunctional communications and many once-buried memories for him, the things from his past that bred psychopathology.  We work, do talk therapy, and sometimes it feels like we are ripping our guts out to get things fixed.  But things are getting fixed so it is worth the effort.

  
  

  Besides the personal marital bonding and healing, and the joys of the fellowship in the meetings we go to after the stand closes, and the rewards both tangible and intangible for my service work, those trips back and forth have their own costs and benefits.  I get chances to see things along the road that I’d not see if I stayed home.  I get to take pretty pictures.

  
  

  Of course, there’s a downside.  With me there is always a downside.  The highway and the schedule beats me all to shit and isn’t doing my old car Streak any good either.  Today, the return spring on the ignition switch broke, so that the starter just stays engaged until I jiggle the key back into place.  Damp, misty weather like this also causes some sputter-and-die incidents just like we used to have in the GMC Jimmy when his carb iced up.

  
  

  

  
  

  Last night we closed the stand shortly after 7 and went to our favorite Mexican restaurant.  While we were looking at menus, a burglar alarm in a neighboring business went off, for about ten minutes.  It seemed to irritate everyone except me inordinately.  Then, we went to the ten o’clock meeting, where people were more squirrely and surly than usual.  Then back to Greyfox’s cabin for some more therapeutic talk.  It had to be after two, maybe after three before I started home, because I didn’t get here until about 4:30.  I’m still awake because about 10:00 PM is my usual bedtime, and in order to be wakeful for the drive home, I load up on caffeine.

  
  

  This pic is the muskeg just across the road here, the green, green grass of home.  It’s nice to get back to it after the crazy days on the highway and in town.  It’s going to be nice to crawl into bed in few moments, and when I wake up it will be nice to get back on the road again and go back to town to see my soulmate and catch a few meetings.  This evening, the last Saturday of the month, is the big potluck get-together of all the local 12-step groups, and will be the first of these for Greyfox and me.  We’ll see all those people we love, and meet others to get to know and love, and we will have time to pursue some of those issues we didn’t get to today.  And there will be huggin’ and kissin’, and inevitably more coffee and gasoline for the road… the long, loong, road back home by myself.

  
  

  

  • 11:42 am
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