Dead Presidents Make My Teeth Hurt

It was somewhere east of Topeka and west of Kansas City that dead presidents made my jaw clench so hard I thought my teeth might shatter. Billboard big as day showing the latest lottery numbers somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 million. Jesus key-rist, the stab of angst and disappointment that went through my chest nearly made me drive off the road. Nothing like an unavoidable reminder of what you do not have to put a smudge on an otherwise good day. Fuck that. I don't need the hassle.

I was driving back from a work assignment. The sky, it was blue like the heart of the best day ever. I was feeling good, then this billboard shows up in my field of vision. 70 million in the pot, ladies and gentlemen. All I had to do was play.

The problem, as I see it, is that I need to win.

But I probably won't. That is the odds, especially if I don't play. Here's the thing: I don't need or want four vacation homes, a couple of yachts or a private jet. All I want is to make sure I can take care of my parents now the way they took care of me when I was young. All I want is to make sure that I can provide for my daughter, give her some help to send her on her way when she decides what she wants out of her future. All I want is to make sure I close the gap between more and enough.

All that, and some left over to help Syrian refugees, Ebola victims, and those who have no idea if they even get a next meal. What that billboard did was to make me realize that I am not a rich man. Not even close. I do not live in dire poverty, but seeing those numbers up there in broad daylight brought it all home that I am in a constant race between 'just enough' and 'more needed'. Nothing like a stark reminder of the money economy to smack your head, and your ego, up against the wall as if to remind you who is in charge here.

In broad daylight, the hot sting of tears and gritted teeth, and I am painfully aware of how inadequate I feel due to lack of money. The hot wire wrapped around my heart telling me there is so much more I could do, so many people I could help, if only I was was rich. If only I had money.

They say it is the root of all evil, this shared hallucination of what is valuable, of what we supposedly deem important. I say, it is really the root of all anxiety, and worthlessness, because without it we feel like we cannot accomplish anything. One of my favorite writers, John Thorne, once wrote of the paradox of living in the wetlands and marshes of Cajun country, "Survival is almost always possible; prosperity, almost never."* His succinct phrasing sums up the anxiety of living in the land of not-quite-enough.

Never enough. Never smart enough, fast enough, cunning enough. It is a feeling I wish I could shake, because I know better. I do. Still, the ghosts of dead presidents haunt my waking hours.

---

*From "Bayou Odyssey", a poignant, scintillating essay in John Thorne's excellent 1996 book, Serious Pig.

Road Fell Away (Sunday Meditation #22)

October 7th, 2012. The Year of My Discontent.

It has been a year since it happened. 365 days around the Sun, back to where I started, only older. One year ago today, I was laid off from my job. The third time in as many years, a trifecta of monumentally dubious distinction. The honor is mine, but I would happy to have not been...graced...by its presence.

The preceding year has been one of growth and retreat, shock and joy, fear and contentedness. It has been singularly fruitless in the furthering of my career as an architect. Never have I expended so much effort in pursuit of work with so little return. The frustration and despondency have sometimes encased me in a portable sphere of emotional gel, on occasion. Thick, sticky and suffocating.

I am learning to breathe for the sake of breathing. Because I must. Because I exist independently of my education and training, my professional obligations and notions of self-worth appended thereto. It has to be that way, because I was myself before the world tried to define me.

Is there wisdom is this struggle of mine? Is there anything to be learned from this equinoctial year of professional disconnection? I hope so. But I cannot tell you yet what knowledge I have gained, my friends. I can tell you this: that moment when the wheels leave the pavement may well be one of the single most important defining moments of a lifetime, even if we don't recognize it.

Driving the straight and open path is easy, and not necessarily edifying. It is what we do when the road falls away that reveals so much more about ourselves. It may be time to let go of the wheel and trust I hit the pavement at the proper angle when I land.

Buzz and Whirr

Cicadas drone on

Grass threads the still heart

Harvest season soon!

The Spice Merchant's Apprentice

July 24th, 2012. 8:21 PM. The fatigue of honest effort drives the typing.

A funny thing happened to me today after I arose from bed and made myself presentable to the world.

I put in a full work day today. Actual job-type work. It was enlightening. Enjoyable, even.

I know, I am as surprised as you are, if not more so. To be sure, it isn't full-time. It isn't in architecture or construction. It isn't in a field for which I have any real experience and certainly no training. In fact, it is a line of work in which I ever pictured myself engaged. Those of you know me well enough would know why.

It is in retail. Specifically, a store* that sells herbs, spices and seasonings as their raison d'etre. I like to think of it as, for lack of a better description, an apprentice spice merchant. Did I mention it is retail?

Shocked? I'm still a little stunned myself.

I fell into it by happenstance. I was up to my neck in a job search related to my architecture credentials, and as my mind was wont to do, it flitted off on a tangent regarding a seasoning I was out of at home. My crow-mind couldn't resist going after that mental shiny thing, so I went the company website to look it up. I am fortunate that there is a local outlet of the company near to my house, so I knew it would be easy to get there and get what I needed.

So I'm looking over the page and I notice they have a "Careers" tab. I thought "What the heck?" and I clicked on it to scroll down the list. Lo and behold, the local store was in need of a part-time staffer. I stared at the ad for a few moments, for a split-second thinking I should do it, then clicked away. Me, retail? The thought boggled the mind.

But it kept nagging at me. The idea wouldn't let me go. I considered my position, the long search I've been on and still...nothing.** I thought about all the time I've spent staring out the window after my job hunt activities have burned out for the day. I considered that it would nice to have something constructive to do, earn a little money, while I am slowly stitching my professional life back together.

I considered that I like spices. I like using them. I like reading about them, smelling them, and especially eating them. Somehow that overrode all my anxieties and misgivings about selling things and interacting with the general public on a regular basis. Again, anyone who knows me knows that sort of thing gives me a case of the yammering fantods just thinking about it. It is so far outside my comfort zone as to be in another galaxy.

So what did I do? I dropped off an application. Then I hyperventilated into a paper bag.

I had two interviews, one with the corporate office, one with the store manager. The whole time I felt like I was standing a few feet away from myself, wondering "Who is this man?". I had a hard time believing I was going through with it. This is not something I've done before. There would be things to learn.

So, as it turns out, they really liked me, I liked them, so when they offered, I said yes. Then I hyperventilated into a paper bag.*** The result is that today was my first day on in the spice biz.

I have to say it ended up being much more enjoyable than I could have imagined. It was a slow day, according to the manager and the co-worker with me, so I know it won't always be so pleasant. Aside from the slight awkwardness I felt (and always feel in similar situations) when warming up to the customers and new tasks, I daresay I even enjoyed it. And for the third time, those who know me I have some issues when it comes to dealing with a stream of people all day long. But you know what? I exceeded my expectations. That felt pretty darn good.

So there you have it, dear readers. Another step on the path, where it is headed I don't have a clear idea. For now, though, I'll keep on walking and see what turns up. You never know until you try, right?

---

*It is a spice company with stores nationwide, about 70 or so, I think. I may have mentioned them in past posts, but in regards to naming names, I'm a little unsure what journalistic protocols might apply now that I am an employee.
**To be accurate, the job climate in architecture has started to pick up a little around my region. It is still a slow awakening, and things are not moving very fast. There have been nibbles. But that is a post for another time...
***Okay, so I didn't hyperventilate into a paper bag. But I did put my head down between my knees and take long, slow breaths for a minute or two.

Time To Grow Up Now

Many years ago, back when I was College Boy Gumbo, I had the occasion to head out one night for some carousing with some friends and acquaintances.  And by carousing, I mean pizza and copious quantities of beer.  Not that pizza and beer is unusual for a night out in college.  Quite the contrary, it would almost have been weird if we had not consumed mass quantities of both.

No, what made this particular night different was what occurred in the aftermath, as I was walking (read: stumbling) back to the dorm, trying to navigate my way to a horizontal surface.

The path back to the dorm went straight across a wide, open field.  I recall it being a cool night, and babbling the inanities one typically does when cousin Ethyl has stopped in for a visit.  Nothing noteworthy there, either.  Until we were about halfway across the field.  My friends told me later that I stopped, looked quizzically at my hands, and said:

"Time to grow up now, and get a new wallet."

I shook my head, and then we continued on to the dorm, whereupon I achieved blessed horizontality and managed to sleep it off with only minor effects the next day.

A great epigram it was, and it achieved minor myth status in my social circle.  On the surface it appears to be nonsense, silly but without real meaning.

Decades later, though, that bon mot has come back to me.  This time, it actually made sense.  The one in the picture above, I had so long I forgot when I bought it.  It was falling to pieces, ragged, threadbare and grungy.  Today, while out shopping for some new shoes, I saw some wallets on sale, and knew it was time.  I finally got a new wallet. 

The old wallet I bought long ago, in a time when my life was very different.  The boy (and I use 'boy' deliberately, even though I was in my 30's then) I was had no clue what was in store for him as he strolled in blitheful ignorance into his 40's.  He had no clue the tragedies awaiting him, the emotional hurricanes and the deep blacknesses lying in wait.  He just kept stuffing money and business cards and plastic in that wallet, never noticing just how much things were fraying and tearing.

He had no idea just how badly things would fall apart, and when they did, he clung to that wallet because it was familiar and fit him and he didn't want to throw it away.

But today, upon pulling it from his pocket for the last time, to pay for the wallet that would replace it, the boy knew he had given way to the man.  It was time to clean things up, no matter how small they seemed.  It doesn't do to try and keep things in a container that will no longer hold them, from the holes and the tears that turned things into lace.

No, it would not do.  It is, after all, time to grow up now.  He has a new wallet.

Trash Trees

The damn trees or overgrown vines or what have you, they are going to die.

Ordinarily, I'm not so bloodthirsty (sapthirsty?) when it comes to flora and foliage. This time, its different. This time, it is almost personal. I do have a conscience about it, I have apologized to the vines. As I cut and pulled, tugged and strained, I felt bad that I was ripping them off the shrubs and trees around my yard.

But they wouldn't stop growing. Not when I asked nicely. Not when there wasn't much rain. They just kept growing. The electric lines, out in the alley alongside the house, began to disappear under a shaggy filigree of leaves and tendrils. Maybe I was just wigged out by all those leaves, advancing by the inch day after day (or so it seemed), but weren't the lines beginning to sag from the weight?

Maybe. I did see where the vines were beginning to choke out the trees. I could stand it no longer. Last night I broke down and bought a pair of heavy duty pruning shears, small ones, because that is all I could afford. I had to buy some bug spray, too, but that is a subject for another post.

So I have the shears in my hands, feeling all badass because Ima get medieval on them vines. The heat and the humidity were stifling as I plunged into the greenery up against the fence. No stopping now, I had the vine in my hands. It was about twice as big as the recommended maximum size noted on the shear pack.

No matter. I was unlocked and ready to cut. Gnaw, actually. I had to make repeated cuts to make it all the way through, but sever the vine I did. I grabbed more vines, cutting and gnawing like a crazed rodent. Leaves fell, curses were muttered, things snapped.

Regrettably, it felt good. 

Soon, I had a big pile of severed vines at my feet. Leaf bits fluttered languidly to earth in the thick air. Birds scolded me for disturbing their evening activities. I wiped the sweat from my brow and closed the clippers. I was soaked, tired and a wee bit sad.

Those vines left tangled in the trees and wrapped around the wires will wither and die. That will make it easier for me to remove them once they are brown and dry. This troubled me. I know they should be removed so other things don't get messed up...but they were just leaves and tendrils, green and growing. Vines fulfilling their 'vineness'. And I had to destroy them.

I was sad because it wasn't just a safety and convenience rationale that justified cutting them down. The reason in the shadows, the subconscious drive, was I felt I needed to control something. I needed to exert control over something in my environment to gain some measure of control over my life.

Because its been a lot of weeds lately. I feel like if I stand still, they will grow over me. It's terribly difficult to cut what you cannot see, so the vines in my yard became the stand-ins. I take no real pleasure in destruction, but the weeds, they are too thick.

I do not want to be overgrown. 

Parable of the Stonecutter

Strong hands and hard head,
he took up the hammer
years before the man he became
understood implications of choice.

The hammer swung slow but sure.
Muscles fired by alien expectations
that demanded perfection, true, square,
and never acknowledged 'good enough'.

Years passed, stones piling up like leaves
fallen from the trees around him.
Obscuring his vision, hiding the truth
and that hammer coming down, infinite.

'The next stone will be the best one yet'
A desperate declaration through clenched teeth.
But the next stone just led to the next stone,
slipping from hands scarred and bloody.

Winters passed, stones at eye level.
He looks up through the fog of his breath
to see the trap, a fortress inverted
with his heart at the center, in silence.

Sinking, falling, scoured knees in the grit
with air rushing from his lungs trying
to breathe in a world devoid of oxygen,
forehead pressing cold steel hard to the bone.

Spring, unnoticed, awaking suddenly
in a haze of heat and sweat and dull panic,
blinking hard against crystalline sunlight
as he stares at the hammer in his hand.

Baking heat in the unintentional furnace
arisen around him, with stones uncaring,
he raises the hammer with trembling arms.
Stones shatter, and his true choices begin.

Beach Glass

For all that the waves roll in, it is so quiet here. You know that? I do. This silence, or vacuum or what-shall-we-call-it...neglect is too strong a word. It comes close, and I would find another word, but I'm tired and too lazy to get off the couch and get my thesaurus.

I have left this garden untended for what seems a long time. I see the link for it on my computer screen, but lately I have rarely felt the motivation to click on it. This is for a lot of reasons, foremost of which I have felt little in the way of needing to write.

It is true: I haven't felt like writing. This is a disturbing state of affairs, for me.

The flow of ideas has lessened a little, but is still there. I have not managed to put them to paper (or electrons). It is not writer's block, so much as a problem of mojo.

My mojo hath fled. It didn't storm out of the house, cursing and flipping me the bird, to drive off in a screech of tires and haze of dust. No, it faded away like a slow leak in the tires. I knew something was going on because I could hear that funny noise in my head, akin to the one that tires low on pressure make when driving at highway speeds. WahWahWahWahWah...My solution was to turn up the radio and keep driving, hoping nothing else would go wrong.

All of this came back to me this evening as I strolled through my new neighborhood. I had that "wellhowdidIgethere?" moment again. Past flowerbeds and streetlights and lawn furniture and mailboxes...I was overcome with lassitude. I would have said ennui, but I don't know if I was bored, exactly, as part of all this non-feeling.

Non-feeling. Not as in numb, but as in an absence of feeling. I was tired, under the weight of loneliness and anxiety, probably brought on by job-hunting activities which had absorbed my afternoon and early evening. There came a point where I decided on the walk as a self-defense measure. Unplug, disconnect, not think, just do.

It all came back to me in a rush as I returned home, and it was the fault of the mailbox. My mailbox is mounted on a post. The post, in turn is embedded in a large flower pot, more like a small barrel. As I paused at the gate, I looked over at the mailbox and it hit me that I have been in my new house for nearly two months...and I have not yet changed the name on the sides to mine.

I stood there in a daze, not outwardly seeming any different. Inside, however, I felt myself collapse a little, hollowed out by all the losses I have incurred in the past months. Job. Marriage. Friendship. Brother. Money. Money. Job (again). Peace of mind. I thought back to the resume and small portfolio I had sent out earlier, how much it took out of me to do it.

I never, ever thought I would be saying anything like what went through my head at that moment: I'm getting too old for this crap. And I am. Chronologically, most folks would say I am in mid-life, and would say that perhaps the best is yet to come. I hope so.

Standing there with my hand on the gate, feeling dizzy and tired, I knew it in my bones. I am getting too old for this crap. I lack the energy and naivete of my younger self, and reality has been too dynamic. The Year of the Tiger is taking the starch out of me, and subsequently taking the starch out of my writing. The Tiger is feasting on my mojo.

If life is a beach, as the slogan says, then I am glass tumbling in the surf. Pounded and abraded, never resting, I roll back and forth in the water. I can only hope that loving hands will pick me up and take me home, to be turned into art. If not a work of art, then at least placed in a sturdy bowl with the other beach glass, the iridescent fragments of a fractured life.

Trucks

Overtaken by that sensation of standing in the middle of the road and running for my life, desperately wanting the side of the road but to scared to make a move. Making a move feels damn near impossible, because the the trucks, they roar by at high speed with nary a gap to be found between them.

Maybe it is train cars. Like trying to dodge between trains cars. On one side of the tracks, looking over at the other side of the tracks, the little snippet of view that can be seen in the space between the steel behemoths rolling at a blur over the worn silver ribbons of the rails.

I can see the other side, a little bit at a time. I would dash there, if I had the courage. But I don't. The courage has melted away like snow before a blowtorch. I have just enough to keep me from running away in the other direction. It keeps me rooted here beside the tracks, standing in the middle of the road. Life has accelerated, partly through my own interference, partly through the great grinding turns of the Universe.  Sucks for me, because I'm not all about the rush.

Life: that chaotic soup that resist scooping up in utter defiance of our best efforts. It has exhausted me on one hand, and overstimulated me on the other. Hence, my relative lack of communications with those who I love and those who I consider to be friends (again on one hand) and my burst of blog posting (on the other hand). To those who feel I have ignored or forgotten you, I'm sorry. 

Hopefully, the trucks will soon pass me by, and I'll be able to make it to the other side of the road. I'm looking to make it in one piece. I need to rest!

Grasping At The Panic Switch

Sleep, a precious commodity. Oh, the worth!

Time, it’s never worth my time
Blue shine, Bleeds into my eyes
I still, sleep on the right side
Of the white noise
Can't leave the scene behind

A feeling that never seems to go away. Laying there in the not-dark, the bleed of the street lights oozing through the blinds. They shut, but not really all the way. It is deceiving, because when the bedside light goes out, it seems dark. But that’s only because the eyes haven’t adjusted yet. That first few minutes, the eyes shut in anticipation of sleep, and then there is that glow…that and the noise, in the head. You see, it is leaving that “scene” behind that is truly a herculean task. The clatter and rush of the day, too many phone calls, a hurried lunch and a blizzard in summer. A blizzard? Sort of. The cloud of sticky notes swirls about in the wake of your frantic passage, always in transit, from one end of the ship to the other as it were. It is a turbulent cloud of paper, the notes become flakes. Running doesn’t seem to do any good. Why would it? Can you really outrun a blizzard?

When you see yourself in a crowded room
Do your fingers itch, are you pistol-whipped?
And will you step in line or release the glitch?
And can you fall asleep with a panic switch?

Falling asleep seems like a dream come true. That end of the day, run-down, ass-end of nowhere feeling and sleep seems like an inevitability. The nodding off melding into a slack-jawed stare at the screen, or drooling onto a sheaf of papers that in another life would seem to have some importance. Or so you tell yourself as you concentrate so hard on sitting up and at least looking like you are doing something that at least has the appearance of constructive work.

But…sleep…the goddess beckons from across the stream, and you want desperately to cross it.

So it’s out the door when the bell rings and “Free, I’m free!” Home and couch beckon, a shimmering vision of the Promised Land, with only a small desert to cross, that vast sterile sea of asphalt and rolling metal under a pall of exhaust. And that is when the tension ratchets up.

You find yourself in that crowded room, surrounded, trapped in danger of being crushed by all the others caught in the behavioral sink called the streets that are supposed to take you home. Gigantic rat mazes, where you can’t even smell the goddamn cheese, much less have any hope of finding it. So now you are wide awake and taut like a guitar string. The panic switch is mere centimeters from your fingertips. Your hand trembles as you strain to touch it.

And when you see yourself in a crowded room
Do your fingers itch, are you pistol-whipped?
Will you step in line or release the glitch?
Do you think she'll sleep with the panic...

The fingers: they do itch. They itch from the friction of gripping the wheel so tight it hurts. Frustration mounting and wondering why it seems like a curse. Everywhere you go the universe seems to be in mild conspiracy, keeping you from getting where you want, to get what you want, when you need it. A million expletives boil in the open-hearth furnace of your mind, finding release in the form of F-bombs pouring down like a violent summer cloudburst. And nothing much seems to change. Remain calm, panic, scream at the top of your lungs, it’s all the same: still trapped, just outside that circle of light, fingers trembling…it is to weep, almost, the desire to run, to scream, to pleasepleasepleasegethomesafedrytosleepperchancetodream…Pistol whipped by a life that could once, just once, be unfair in your favor…

Mm, I'll try
To hold on tight tonight
Pink slip
Inviting me inside
Wanna burn skin
And brand what once was mine
But the red views
Keep ripping the divide

So it is that getting out, getting away, getting home becomes a wellspring of bad feeling and negative thought. Relax? Ha. It is to laugh. The distraction of chores undone, bills, the shedding of the detritus of modern life: they bring the fire roaring back to life. That sleepy feeling, the blacking out almost at the desk?

Gone. Like smoke before the hurricane.

Sure, the body feels tired, but that is just a gentle joke. A tease. A minor cruelty in the name of Cosmic Humor. Surely you get it? Near unconscious when your faculties are needed, but wired awake when you court the goddess of sleep? Funny, no?

So you lie awake, there in the half-light, trying not to breathe too loud, or listen to the faint rasp of your own breath. The rustle of the sheets when you twitch, like a cat in a fever dream of mice. The hum and click of the air conditioning like mechanical crickets crooning outside the window. You swallow and sigh, groping desperately for that panic switch, frantic to shut it off. Maybe, if you are lucky, you’ll get your fingertips on it. Greasy feeling and with fading warmth, like the last heat from a cooling body in the morgue.

You grope and writhe, pulling hard on that switch, praying to God or something like him that you’ll have the strength to flip it to the off position.

It’s a matter of survival.

I'm waiting and fading and floating away
I'm waiting and fading and floating away
I'm waiting and fading and floating away
Waiting and fading and floating…

---

Italicized passages are lyrics to “Panic Switch”, by Silversun Pickups, off the album Swoon.

Return To The Panic Hole

The Panic Hole. I have mentioned it before on this blog. And today I took a trip back there, unintended and involuntarily and completely necessary. Because if I hadn’t I think I may have started screaming and dived out my dining room window.

My dining room window is about ten to twelve feet off the ground. It would have hurt. Instead I got up and ran.

It happened about 10:30 this morning, as I sat at my computer making a heroic and painful effort to revise my resume. I had been at it for about two hours, and the going was tough. I didn’t expect it to be so difficult. How hard can it be to update what is basically a laundry list of where, what and when? Admittedly I haven’t seriously reworked my resume in almost (OH MY GOD) ten years; the last time in 2005 doesn’t count because I was going to work for a company for which I had previously worked. That was more like adding some notes in the margins.

The whole idea of reworking the resume had me antsy from the start. I was resisting, the hothead grouch in the back of my head kept screaming ‘I shouldn’t have to do this! Where the fuck did my job go?’ Shouting back wasn’t helping. I was cursing at some stubborn formatting issues that I could not resolve when my vision started to get a little wonky, like one of those dream sequence fade-ins on ‘The Brady Bunch’ or ‘Gilligan’s Island’. My heart started to race and I felt queasy-weak. The muscles in my arms and legs felt twitchy and leaden at the same time. Panic was setting in, so I got up and ran. I grabbed my iPod (I should just surgically attach it, it goes everywhere with me now. Except the toilet, and that may change.) put on my coat, scarf and hat and hotfooted it out of the house before I threw up or fainted. I jumped in my car and drove over to my nearest panic hole, a lake and park not too far from my house. It was reflex, pure and simple.

A cold day, pewter sky sprinkling a fine spray of sleet as I got out of the car and set out on a fast walk on the path around the lake. For some reason, I decided to not put on the headphones this time. It was quiet, well, PEOPLE quiet, and I wanted to minimize the man-made noises. What I needed was calm. My heart was still racing and my head was pounding. The air was chilly damp, but it didn’t seem to faze the birds and waterfowl. They were out in force. I rounded the second curve down by the lake and a bright scarlet cardinal flitted across the path right in front of me. The color was amazing against the backdrop of gray tree trunks and brown leaves. There was a flotilla of Canadian geese out on the water. They were honking softly, gliding over water like rippled glass. Something inside me began to unwind, a clock spring ticking over. I crossed the bridge at the west end of the lake. To my left, out on the water, I saw a cluster of smaller ducks. Diver ducks, maybe eiders or buffleheads. They resembled a school of fish in the way they were skittering around on the lake. I drew my first deep breath of the day. The cold air felt good way down in the bottom of my lungs. I felt another unloosening in my gut and the beginnings of a smile.

Climbing a small hill I make my way along the north shore of the lake. A steep embankment is to the left, lake to the right, the path at the bottom of a slope thick with trees. Bird chirps fill the air and form a nice counterpoint to the faint roar of a jet plane flying somewhere overhead. I startle a squirrel, which spasmodically scales a tree with a loud chittering noise. He rotates on the side of the tree and gives me the stinkeye. He swishes his tail in a gesture I think was meant to be menacing. I chuckle and apologize, assuring him I mean no harm. With a few wrinkles of his snout he scurries up the tree and out of sight.

Legs and arms are feeling loose, now that I have warmed up a bit. My breathing has stabilized. Air rushes in and out of my lungs, tasting faintly of snow and iron. Sleet is falling gently with a wonderful sizzling sound as it hits the leaves blanketing the ground. It reminds me of frying bacon, an impression strengthened by an unexpected faint whiff of wood smoke. I have fallen into a pleasant rhythm of swinging limbs and deep breaths. Sakes alive, it feels good to breathe so deep I can feel the tension drain away from my belly! Just like I was taught in my yoga classes from a few years ago. I can hear the voice of the instructor: ‘Remember to breathe, let it go, and breathe’. It is amazing that a simple thing like a loose diaphragm (no, not that kind!) can have such an incredible effect on feeling better.

Walkbreathewalkbreathewalkbreathe. I cross another bridge and enter the “Arboretum”, one of my favorite parts of the trail. The path wends its way on a gentle curve through a grove of tall, straight trees. No leaves at this time of the year. The trunks remind me of masts and the wood beams of the Lutheran church I attended as a child. Peace has worked its way through my skin and is working on the bones. The clock spring in my belly unwinds a bit more as I exit the cathedral and make my way towards the massive berm that forms the east end of the lake. The wind picks up because there are no trees to block it as it blows down the open water. A few bedraggled seagulls float in the water near the spillway. A few diver ducks are swimming in circles. Finally, I smile wide and laugh out loud on a deep lungful of wintery air. The gulls eye me with mild interest and then return to sulking in the wind.

My companions for the rest of this interlude in the panic hole are geese, two crows, and a lone canvasback duck. The duck was a surprise, I haven’t seen one at the lake until now. I raise my hand in greeting and the canvasback continues his slow glide over quicksilver wavelets. Time has slowed and whatever had me in its grip has let go. I am back to feeling human. My friend the blue heron is nowhere in sight, but that is okay. Maybe he, like me, took off for his panic hole. Heron, breathe with me.