August 16, 2010

I’m told that the u-pick-em organic blueberry farm out on Royal, west of Greenhill, is picked out…which is too bad ’cause the blueberries from there are sooooooo goooood.

Fever, migraine, out of blueberries, some days just plain suck.

August 17, 2010

Fever and migraine…gone. Body? Exhausted. Heart? Wore out. Faith in my own survival, clean and steady? Intact. Compassion? Tested, not found wanting. Life and life only, I guess. “On the same spot I sit today/others came, in ages past, to sit/One Thousand Years, still others will come/Who is the singer and who is the listener?” —Nguyen Cong Tru.

August 18, 2010

When it all goes wrong it goes wrong….worst hour of a long life of bad hours. I have lost the ability to say what I mean to someone who means the world to me. Go in peace. Let the healing begin for both of us. Night soon come.

August 20, 2010

Feels like I been in a 15 round slugfest…the bruises have yet to show. The exhaustion is palpable. There was no winner here as is often the case. Everybody lost. But survival is the key and so too the opportunity to take another step — it is always the same step, but if one is to live out one’s dreams, you have to take it ( with apologies to St. Ex).

August 21, 2010

Just noticed that my friend count is down by one. When the hell did heartbreak become a Facebook absence? It ain’t Keats or Browning, but damn, it sure is real. In other words, the war is over. Time to let peace break out.

August 22, 2010

Sometimes Facebook posts can be close to the bone…sometimes the web log effect of posting renders what is private more public than it ought to be. I ought not forget that my stuff is my own; that I can write well from time to time is no reason to disrespect my own privacy despite the window in my heart.

Photo Credit

“Blueberries” Jeff Kubina @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

August 8, 2010

Appreciation to all of you who thought to say hey yesterday… the day was surprisingly long, harder than many preceding. Wondrous to me that the day came. I showed up, friends showed up, the sun crossed the sky in its proper arc and the moon rose to signal both the end of day and the beginning of the next year in the form of a single day. Wasn’t always a slam dunk for me that it could work like that.

August 9, 2010

Another night, another dance with snakes and spiders of my dreams, the terrors of the years gone by. I know now that if I hang in, hold tight, the daylight comes and they disappear. For awhile. “You can be in my dream if I can be in yours/I said that.” Dylan. Very easily done. He said that too. I say enough Dylan — it’s morning and it’s time to go to work. Words, can you hear me callin’?

August 11, 2010

Sometimes getting lost is harder than one might imagine. In the end, safety is where you find it; like love itself — it is there or it’s not. When things have changed sometimes all a guy can do is wait for the sunrise and set out to start all over again.

August 13, 2010

Ran again. Worked out again. Took the long hill home. Raining in the east, fires in the west…thinkin’ about the why of things, the how of never being here, the where of the places I have been and, of course, the who it is who was there…might just be The Who…either Daltrey or Horton but ‘who’ nevertheless.

August 14, 2010

Been working my through some serious emotional brambles. Feel like the other side is in sight. Heard the wolves howling last night, metaphorically, spent some hard hours keepin’ things tight, wrestling with demons of my own making. Lit out in the pre dawn streets of my hometown, put in my miles, cuppajoe with a friend, a meeting and home, looking for the words or better, getting ready for them to come.

Kept it tight ’till daylight came. Lifted. Will run later. Stayin’ steady with the new day. Fall chill inside the summer heat; another day, another drift in, or is it on, a river not of my own making.

Photo Credit

“Moon Cradle” James Jordan @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

August 1, 2010

Fog in the valley. It’s the first of August, there is a winter chill behind the rain blowing gentle across the deck. Fall is not far off now, the years add up. I am missing absent friends.

August 2, 2010

Another foggy, cold rainy morning. San Francisco summer here in Eugene. Feels like home. The end of things as they have been. What’s next? A long run for me, several miles down and around, a stop at the gym and up the mile hill to home. Stronger. Sadder. More alive. If it don’t kill ya it makes you stronger, but damn, this shit can wear a guy out.

August 5, 2010

It’s hot and getting hotter…soon summer will become a state of emergency; folks will tell you the usual rules don’t apply. Don’t believe it …it won’t end well. This I know to be true. So do William Hurt and that no-good Kathleen Turner.

August 6, 2010

When Tony Soprano says it’s not personal it is likely true…mostly on account of the flotilla of personal disconnects in the man’s (character’s) emotional structure. When a friend says it’s not personal, it is important to note that one’s anger and all the rest is verifiable, distressing and is, well, personal. But then again, Tony would say, “Whaddaya gonna do?” with a shrug. Indeed.

August 7, 2010

They say it’s my birthday…comes around whether I’m happy or not. Thought too much last night about how things change. Ran my best run in a year this morning. Feeling. Everything. Eyes clear — check — heart heavy — check — muscles remembering what they do best — check — lungs working — check — pain free —check —running into the sunrise, flattening the long hill home — check. 6.4 miles. Keep on keepin’ on, he said. Check.

Photo Credit

“Columbine in Storm 2” petermankato @ flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

July 24, 2010

Another day another run…

longer today, a little stronger.

Felt like the old days when everything was up in the air,

when “the truth was found to be lies”

and all a guy could do was put down the phone, lace up and head out.

Footfall and breath, gateway to silence

in the ghost-like slide time between then and now.

July 28, 2010

Ran yesterday. Worked out. Same today. Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds said someone who wasn’t a runner and/or someone with too many summer clothes that no longer fit (perfectly). Just sayin’…

July 31, 2010

Worked out on Monday. Ran. Worked out on Tuesday. Ran. After noon. Worked out this morning. Ran. Finished before 6am. Got on a scale for the first time in two years. ‘Nuff said. Be here now. Ram Dass said that.

Photo Credit

“Time Passes By So Fast There” LeonidasGR @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.