Impermanence

Scorching sun tempered only by the breeze and the cool water. The cicadas drone in homage to the unrelenting heat. Water so clear and blue against the pinkish white sand that it pulls at the center of one's being in an invitation to immerse in its briny tonic.  It is at once soothing and haunting. There is a quality just out of view of the directly observed beauty that is a reminder of the unforgiving and unattached nature of this place. The sand dollar bleached white, the conch shell beached at low tide, the teak on the deck of my boat, weathered and grey under the torment of the sun, even the tide itself is a reminder - nothing is permanent. I can feel the starkness of the place wresting from my pale knuckles the very idea of myself. I see the grey of my hair in the weathered teak, and the frailness of my physical being in the broken shells strewn about as I sit waiting for the morning stiffness to pass with the incoming tide. Just as I would have preferred to freeze my advance in age at a more youthful point, I wish I could hold the vastness of this place at once in my mind. But it defies me each time and is relegated to the impermanence of memory, dull and misshapen. Like the cloud of stars that appears each night, a number of those that we see ceased to exist millions of years ago, but the remaining light is just reaching us. We too burn bright for a time and become attached to the idea that the light will continue to burn after we are gone. To what end?

The point is that there is no point. There never has been and never will be. So, restore the grey weathered wood to a bright new oiled condition. Scrub the rust from the "stainless" steel to restore the shine.  And on the change of tide, do it again, not because you should, but because you can.

A Break

A day like any other...? Hardly. I am sitting on the 9:00am flight from Denver to Orlando. This is the first leg of a journey well deserved. It is hard to put into words how important this trip is and how close we came to NOT booking return tickets. It seems like we waited forever for this and now that it's here I can hardly believe that it is "already" happening. Since our house burned I have not taken more than 3 days off in a row and that only happened the day after the fire. Went right back to work and kept going. Now, I am not saying that this is good or bad, it is just what I did. I have not had a real opportunity to have a break to digest what has happened in the last 4 months.

We went right into action creating a place to live. My wife found an Airstream trailer for us to live in and what seemed to be the kindest couple in the world that really understood our situation. Chris and I drove to New Mexico to pick it up. On the way home, we stopped at a rest stop and I went inside to retrieve some inconsequential thing. The stink was so bad that I called the previous owner to ask what I had done wrong to cause this. He responded that he surely didn't know anything about it and could offer no advice. Long story short, 3 months and a few thousand dollars more and we had the rear end of 'Flame' dismantled to find years of rot from a failed septic tank. Thanks for that. Sweet, but completely slimy and dishonest. It boggles the mind.

Meanwhile we had bought a Ford Excursion from Fordland in Denver. Assured that this beast was solid and sound, we had it checked at our mechanics and they said it looked good. But playing over and over in my mind was the repeated statements of the salesman, "now remember, this warranty does not cover seals, right?" It should have been a sign. But another $3K later after replacing the seals in the front differential and other non-warranty items, and I am still wondering when this kind of crap will end. I suppose the fact that the 'repaired' reverse camera that was screwed through the license plate holder into the bumper was just an honest mistake.

So, the kindness of friends landed us in the basement of their home in Denver. And after my wife lost an entire days worth of writing to a faulty computer or Dropbox or voodoo, we are very ready for a fucking break. Thank God for these folks. They are watching our precious dogs while we head for a more favorable climate where wild fire is not likely while surround by warm, blue water.

I usually don't write while I am "In the Middle" of something. I like to have it worked out and resolved so I can share some transformative lesson. I am sorry, but I don't have it worked out. And if you are expecting some growth oriented woo as the conclusion to this rant you should sign off now. I am at once blown away by the kindness of people and at the same time disgusted by the human capacity for being petty, shitty and greedy. But that is what it is. It always has been that way and likely, it always will be. I suppose the source of my dissappointment is the fairy tale that I hold on to wherein everyone gets a good look at themselves and what is really important and stops behaving like a bunch of  cave dwelling savages. I'll let you know when I get there. 

Until then, we have friends that we choose to trust, we have our boat, we have our dogs and I have a business that enables us to have a great life. Fuck with it and I will club you wth my Mastadon femur bone. Oh wait. That burned up in the fire.