Sunday, January 15, 2012

Well, fuck.

I was really hoping that was going to turn out differently.  In fact, I would have bet my life on it.  Then again, I have never been a good gambler.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Son of a Beach

I have been here twice already during this trip to Tx to sell the house.  But I am all weird and don't really know where else to go, what else to do.

When I come out here by myself, it gives me that feeling.  The one from the river banks and afternoons spent fossil hunting.  Looking for shells and shark teeth is pretty much the same thing except they're not as old and when I look up there is no dirt bank rising up a few dozen feet away.  Today when I look up, stretching my back stiff from the shore (soul) searching, the distant image of a shrimp boat stares back across the expanse of small, lustily and lazily rolling waves.

Its been hours.  I want to stop.  My legs and back want it even more.  But when I look across the brown beach, my gaze flitting from shell pile to shell pile, I wonder where it is.  How close am I to the one great find?  The object that I rose so early and drove so far to find.  I can't move.  I look back the way I came and forward to where I have yet to go.

Is it fear that drives me on?  Fear that I will turn back just steps away from the sandy grail?  Or is it hope?  Hope that my search is not in vain.  That some indescribable hand of fate or whatever has guided my course to this spot and this decision thereby giving me a momentary false sense of control over my actions.

Whether it be hope or fear, I do not know.  At this point, here on this beach, I'm not even sure there is a difference between the two beyond an Emily Post politeness of word choice.  Is this the force that moves us through our lives?  All of us, the lucky, the charmed, the forgotten, the unforgivable, thinking we all exist so separately and distinct, shrouded by clouds of fortune or pain.  Are we all riding silently on a united force of hope and fear, dutifully keeping our heads down never seeing the other passengers?

Is this feeling a source of inspiration or a universal shock to keep our muscles moving automatically forward.  Lurching like spiritual zombies.

Watching the waves, stretching my back; I wonder what happens next.