The Wet Years in anticlimatic

I swear I can feel my body breaking down in real time; moving maybe not rapidly but at least steadily towards spectacular collapse. Maybe it’s my 40th birthday just around the corner. Maybe it’s the twig snappy dryness of winter in the north. Maybe it was spending the holidays lost in looping fever dreams at odd hours of the night. I tried getting up to use the rest room after I made it to bed, and nearly tore myself in two shivering. Fevers are pretty wicked, but once you’re buried under enough blankets and your brain is sufficiently sautéed, they can have a very warm and cozy quality.

It got me thinking back to the time I spent renting a room with my good buddy Justin, many years ago, on a sleepy little residential street in town with lots of old maples and lilac bushes. The springs I spent in that place, and I think there were two of them, were weirdly special to me. I was working at the hotel then, so I was an owl of the evening. Many of my friends still lived around the area. My dad was still working, my grandpa was still alive, and my youngest brother was still a student. On a particularly warm night I drove out into the woods with a trusted lady friend and we made out in the bed of my truck. The leaves were in full bloom, and the trees were tall- so not much starlight made it down to the ground. Enough to illuminate the grass and ground cover- this barely discernable chromatic green/grey, all swirling on the wind like a sea beneath us. The stars and the leaves danced above throughout. It was a beautiful moment in time and space. I look forward to the next, especially on cold winter nights of the soul such as this.