“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.” – Charles Bukowski
His wife told him he spent too much time thinking about the journey to get where he was. The old man knew she was right. Maybe more focus on the miles under his feet today, maybe that would be thoughts better spent.
So he went for a walk.
***
Buried a bird today. Wanda Sykes, a beautiful Gouldian finch, just laying there on the bottom of the cage, dead. Fine last night. Suckful way to start the day. Maybe in the grand scale of the world, losing Wanda isn’t the worst news. But to the old man, seemed like a bullet nicking a close-by doorjam. A near miss. He buried her in the bird section of the flower garden. With the rest of them.
“There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I’m not going to let anybody see you.” – Charles Bukowski
The old man had long known his own bluebird had been a handicap. The bluebird got in the way.