I woke up the roosters and was out of the hotel room within 10 minutes, after dressing in the mostly dark room. For reasons I can’t remember, it seemed important to get dressed before going out.
Magee, Mississippi gave me the opportunity to be a stranger in a strange land. It’s one of my favorite things. To wander the dark roads and streets of places I’ve never been and will likely never be again.
With luck, the ocean will be in sight later today. I don’t think I’ve returned since my last visit somewhere around 25 years ago. I’ve lived a couple of lifetimes since. I love the big moments and the epic sights. Who wouldn’t? I still feel like the stolen moments and carved out spontaneous experiences make up the bulk of our lives.
With the exception of the main highway, I owned all the streets this morning. Not a single car passed me. The main highway of course is dotted with people in a hurry to get somewhere else, even at 4:00 in the morning.
I’ll be one of them later.
I grabbed a cup of coffee on the way out of the hotel lobby prior to my long walk. I’ll bet a million dollars that the cup I get when I go back in will taste immeasurably better.
It will be the same coffee. But I’ll be a little different.
This is personal. As is everything I write and post. I don’t duck behind sharing other people’s memes or messages. As imperfectly as I express myself, I’d rather be misunderstood for making the attempt.
I’m not pointing the finger as an accusation. I’m pointing it because if you don’t make the effort to connect with people who disagree, you’ve already failed. So many of us have friendships and family members who are going to have a difficult time for the foreseeable future.
The law of entropy affects everything, including human systems of governance. No matter how much work you put in, things can dissolve and dissipate without warning. Apart from that, we’re standing on lava and spinning through the universe at an incalculable speed.
One thing that people don’t like to acknowledge is the logical inference that results from their claim that God or their deity endorses or blesses their candidate.
If God is for your candidate, it follows that he is not for the opponent… that the preponderance of their beliefs and behaviors are endorsed by or align with the creator you worship.
I am 100% a believer in non-interventionism. Whatever shape or form a deity takes in your mind, I’m certain based on the evidence that we were set in motion to solve our own problems with the resources and intelligence that we have.
Many things that we take for granted were once angrily and violently endorsed by God. At least according to some proponents of each mistaken beliefs. Whether it’s the pronouncement that owning other human beings was acceptable or whether half the population, depending on gender or race, were less than equal and therefore ineligible to vote or own property.
To have been wrong about such fundamental beliefs and rights should be the clearest possible indication that people are quite often wrong. Insisting that their creator endorses something has a huge track history of error.
No two denominations or people believe alike. From there it degenerates into cherry-picking which parts matter, or to whom it applies.
As for the current state of things, my head hurts when I consider that people endorsed someone with such an obvious track record of objectionable behavior. Factoring in the allegation that their deity favored such a person goes against my identity as a member of a democracy. That much more qualified and human candidates should have been chosen goes without saying.
I can’t fathom how the message of hope and brotherly love translates into a candidate who in no way embodies the essential nature of the predominant religion in our country.
Those of you who mistakingly believe that we might not have voted for a conservative simply because he or she was a conservative are mistaken. We would have opted for George Bush (either father or son) over the presumptive president-elect. Part of that is because despite their flaws, they honored the pledge to democracy and rule of law. They certainly would have still done ill-advised things, but none of them would have undercut our democratic principles unilaterally in the way that the president-elect has and will again.
It’s a dangerous thing to equate God’s endorsement to a person or set of beliefs. History taught us that.
We have collectively decided to eff around and find out.
Such a collision of God and politics has never resulted in a balanced democracy.
I left Señor Conejo on Michael’s car. Michael returned to the job he left recently at the inconvenience store, so it seemed appropriate to leave him a head-scratcher of a surprise.
Señor Conejo has adorned the inside corner of my landing post for a couple of years. It came to me because a friend had ordered it from a Temuesque online store. (Where expectations seldom intersect with reality.) I took some time to fix it, paint it, and adorn it with a wild assortment of a doodads. Chris P. Bacon and Redactyl, my personal weather dinosaur, both still stand guard along the banister rail.
Señor Conejo undoubtedly was growing concerned with some of the wild neighborhood shenanigans he has witnessed from his perch above the parking lot.
In one way, I hated to part with Señor Conejo. But it’s time for a renewal. Giving away these personal things capriciously gives me a little pause.
Then I look up into the early morning sky and realize that one day ownership and sentimentality must ceed their claim to whatever comes next.
The greater our reluctance to step aside, to yield, or to change, the higher the probability of dissatisfaction and unhappiness becomes.
I visited the cold, clear creek. It was the same as it always is. Indifferent. At the low point, the time change has dramatically shifted the shadows. But in the precarious high spot with a better vantage, there was light. I wish we all had more moments at the apex. Each of us is the creek, passing through.
I of course was awake when the clocks flipped back an hour. When I went outside I was greeted with strong wind gusts and the clattering echo of someone’s wind chimes lodging their complaint about the unusually warm weather. The clouds above me raced across the sky.
It was hard for me to go inside. I wanted to watch and listen to the symphony of rustles, chimes, and clouds. Every few minutes, the wind whistled between the wooden fence slats. Unlike most mornings, there wasn’t much traffic, nor were the usual cast of characters mumbling or coming in and out of nearby apartments.
I went to the inconvenience store for a soda. My trip was mostly a pretext to see if anything unusual would pop up.
Y’all might have witnessed people going to the store in pajamas. I can go one better. I had to laugh as I watched a woman approach the store wearing her bedspread. That’s either a demonstration of liberation or I-don’t-give-an-eff.
Joy. The same day I discovered the abandoned trunk in the trees and brush, I had a joyous moment. Near where I work is a nexus of creek, trails, and wildlife. For whatever reason, this year brought a few squirrels not intimidated by people. If I’m still, a couple of these will approach me, sit near me, or cling to the bark of a tree near eye level. If I lean against one of the box transformers nearby, it might put its paws on the small of my back. Every so often, they let me pet them. Earlier in the week, one of these trusting squirrels approached me excitedly and sat at my feet, twitching and raising its head. I reached down, gave him neck scrunches, and ran my fingers along its back like a cat. The squirrel chattered in response. (It’s one of the squirrels that recently engaged in a squirrel war with a fellow tree dweller and fell on me.) I don’t know what it was telling me as I made contact. When I was done petting it, it picked up an acorn and busily chewed on it at my feet. I suppose it wanted company – and I was glad to have it. It flew me away from the job, the day, and the relentless stupidity we call busyness.
I don’t know what called me to walk along the back spur of the trail. I haven’t been near there in weeks due to the drought and the low creek.
To the right of the path, I saw what initially looked to be a barrel. As I neared it, I realized it was an antique trunk. The lid was carelessly thrown open and a couple of drawers sat haphazardly on top of the trunk’s opening.
Slightly uphill and to the right were the remnants of someone’s memories. Photos, cards, tickets for rock music venues from the 1970s, and personal keepsakes.
Someone had to have taken great effort to get the trunk out there amidst the trees.
I have a lot of questions about how the trunk got there, and of the stranger whose belongings are still carelessly staged and thrown out for display to those adventurous enough to walk through.
Of course I can’t resist the call to do my thing and find out about the woman whose storage trunk of memories are discarded out here.
I’m glad I listened to the call that prompted me to go out among the trees.
But I am also a little disheartened to have found someone’s trunk of memories out here.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 