For decades now I have received Christmas letters reviewing a friend’s year. Half dozen of them. All the highlights. Trips to their condos in Rio or how the Tesla is ludicrously fast. Bicycle tours through Middle Eastern war zones with nary a scratch. I so look forward to those holiday missives. Read the letters aloud to my wife who now knows these aging amigos. And they are all doing better than I am. So, I rant and I rave. Maybe swear in amazement. Finally, when I take those detailed memories down off the refrigerator, taped to the stainless, I say, “Isn’t that great for them.” – JDW
When nothing seems to help,
I go and look at a stonecutter
hammering away at his rock,
perhaps a hundred times
without as much as a crack
showing in it.
Yet at the hundred and first blow
it will split in two,
and I know it was not
that last blow that did it,
but all that had gone before.
– -Jacob A. Riis
***
Don’t remember January at all.
Actually was still hung over from the Curse of Lono.
Nor February.
Not March neither, nothing
in and out like a invisible white tiger.
April, think we went to Cedar Key
a colonic for the soul
May. Off to Oregon
where I am considered ‘normal.’
***
Go Pre!! Met Tall Paul
lunched with Little Jacki and Old Joey
locked in a small car with Colonel Parker.
Racing from the rain with Captain Tom.
Changed the actual names
to their real names.
That’s how I do it.
***
Was basically sick all June.
Around here it’s too hot in July
to go outdoors.
Same for August.
I am a terrible host with
a killer dog
and a mind of his own.
Can’t bar-be-que worth shit.
Then the summer’s over.
***
Fall every bit as hot
worth your life just running
in the noon day cauldron
about as early as bones lubricate.
November. Wife now eligible for Medicare
and still gets carded.
Which is good for a giggle
until she punches me to stop.
Laid my mother to rest at Cedar Key.
Just try to get through December
Christmas day, it was 84 degrees.
Can’t complain.
***
Wrote some, some something
basically every day.
Made a promise to myself
do at least one thing
every day, at least one.
Turned out to be kinda limiting.
Just can’t seem to do as much
for as long.
***
Hope you had as much fun
as I did.
Remember
life is about being the best you
you can be
right now.
***
The work you do
might not always produce the results
you are looking for.
Keep hammering away.
Six weeks later I was still reading that book.