Someone is digging through the archives at another joint and I reacquainted myself with words I once wrote upon paper. Parts and pieces of a past that reaches into the present and hints about a future still unseen.
So I sing along with the blind man and ask if it is possible to dislike this song and mull over whether it is fact or fiction. I suppose it all depends on connection and union and maybe even destiny.
Makes me think about that song we sang with the younger Dylan again and wonder if maybe there was a hint of a sign or maybe it was just indigestion.
Got a feeling that I am flying my own ‘copter through the foggy mountaintops and it gives me mixed feelings, ya know that surge of adrenaline that comes when you do things that make you feel alive alongside that soft voice of indecision.
That one inside where it takes some time to recognize it is getting progressively louder. You have to take a moment to listen and figure out if it is laughing or screaming.
Is it joy or is it fear.
There is all sorts of crap going on with my body now and I haven’t figured out whether to blame it on age, illness or a combination of things.
Took a moment to stand in front of the mirror and was firmly horrified by what I saw, so was the 25 year-old that lives inside.
He screamed and cursed at us for letting things reach this point. I/we told him to stuff it for a moment and tried the shirt and pants test.
That is the one we use to confirm whether things have gone to hell or if they are just on the verge. Both fit…mostly comfortable and we almost relaxed.
Told myself the way to fix things is to commit to doing five miles a day on the treadmill and to monitor our diet. The idea is/was solid but thus far we haven’t done more than three miles and have really been averaging closer to 2.5.
Some of it is because I feel these mystery aches and pains that don’t want to disappear with the same ease as they once did and some is because I am having trouble focusing.
This issue with focusing isn’t new, it has visited me in the past and has always been associated with loss. I expect it to go away but until it does I am going to have to fight with/through it.
Lifting weights doesn’t present any issues with focus, but the mystery aches show up more frequently and that is of some concern.
The good news is I feel my body respond to the lifting and the muscle memory of weightlifting past still embrace me. So I roll with the required changes that age brings but dispute their overall influence upon me.
Begone foul age demons, begone.
To me it is similar to the truck in the picture, with some effort it can be cleaned up and made to run again.
Got EOBs from the neurologist, GI and PCP sitting to my right and a big bottle of water on my left.
A couple of weeks ago a salesman tried to convince me to buy their product by telling me it would make an immediate impact upon my health.
I told him that my grandfather’s PCP told me that grandpa should have died 10 years earlier than he did and that my father was supposed to have died a dozen times before he did.
“What does that mean Josh? Are you playing Roulette with your life?”
“It means I am the baddest motherfucker in the valley and that death knows not to fuck with me now. I am still too mean, too strong and far too nasty for that bony fraud. I’ll rip his right femur off and beat him silly with it.”
“You have a way with words, don’t you.”
“Some would say I have no way with words.”
“I’d like to help you.”
“Someone told me a long time ago they could take better care of me than anyone else. I mostly believed them, but I don’t believe you can help.”
The salesman went silent and I knew I had touched a nerve. It hadn’t been my intent but neither had I intended to let him break his promise of a very short conversation without mentioning it.
Guess I am older and crankier.
*****
Building a blueprint for the future has been challenging. I haven’t made many friends at all in Texas and sometimes wonder if staying in LA wouldn’t have been easier.
But the reality is that LA doesn’t hold anything for me right now.
It is somewhere to visit and somewhere that still contains good friends and family, but it is not where I want to lay my head right now.
Too much has happened and too much opportunity is here.
I don’t need many friends, never have and if I apply myself I am sure I can find my people here.
The thing is I haven’t been ready to, haven’t gotten to a place where I knew I wanted to stay in one spot and let seeds grow into something bigger.
It is coming though, I can fill the change in the wind and see things happening.
Maybe that is what has been holding me back or maybe it is something else.
Maybe we’ll talk ab0ut it and maybe we won’t.
Life is a mystery and a quest.
