The sun beat upon the worn concrete road in waves and washed over the car, heating the steering wheel and forcing my eyes into a fierce squint. The sun retreated back from the street in mirages; at first like water pooling and then like heat lines from an oven. My gaze swept from the approaching intersection on the left back to the street and past the police badge dangling from the rear-view mirror.
Dad told me once about Joe and his wife almost crashing at that intersection, about how his quick thinking and faster reaction time saved their lives. My eyes drifted to the rear-view, checking for the ghost car they avoided more than two decades ago and I thought about how many times in a life fate, or the gods, or whatever guidance that might exist intervenes on our behalf, keeps us traveling towards our destinations.
Like Marcus Aurelius said,
Nature has provided for us all that we need.
I was baking inside the car, waiting for the light to change, when that particular feeling began to well in my solar plexus and radiate out towards my extremities: you are doing what nature intended for you, nothing could ever be wrong. It was like laying on a warm beach after swimming in the ocean, the salt drying on your skin and hunger beginning to register in your brain. It was the feeling of not being sated, but of being satisfied, there is no way you could mis-step.
I thought about the community that I am a part of and the Praetorians of Marcus' day and about all the generations of warriors that existed between then and now. I thought about how easy a decision it was to make, how I didn't actually make a decision at all, I just knew. I just knew. I thought about the bagpipes at the funerals and the stories and all of the "choir practices" and the brotherhood.
I thought, What we do in life echoes in eternity.
The light turned green, I shifted into first gear and made my way back home, grateful for my last name and this sense of purpose.
29.3.07
My Monkey Suit.
My twin is the greatest photographer ever. Look at how cool she made me look in my uniform!
22.3.07
Night Shift
It's four o'clock am and you begin to hit the wall. Your vision takes on that quality of a cheap flourescent light, where it flickers just slowly enough for you to feel like you might lose consciousness; your body trying to conserve its resources. Sitting in your chair you worry that, would it be required of you to stand up, you might just fall down instead. You think about the road home... and your bed... and how good it is to sleep.
Four o'clock am is when you really have to wait and think out your phrasing before you press the transmit button. Otherwise it'll just be broken sentences and breathing. And then the embarassment of listening to yourself on the recall radio. It's also the beginning of a two-hour window where you pray that no one on your shift comes into dispatch because it would be too hard to be coherent. Six o'clock is better because you're so slap-happy you'll laugh at anything, and the others will be too.
Four o'clock the voice of the younger guy from the water department flows out of the phone's receiver like someone standing close, whispering. Their breath warm on your ear. You wonder what his name is, what he looks like, and how he fills the hour and fifty-nine minutes between calls.
Four o'clock begins the unexplainable pains and fevers, your body carrying on with its purification despite your lucidity. A twinge starts in the abdomen and spasms down your thigh and into your knee. Your sternum has a dull and hollow ache. Your skin goes from flushed to chilled and clammy. Your eyes burn like the fire of a million candles.
Four o'clock actually lasts seven-and-a-half hours, the rest of the shift is like an easy walk on a nice day.
***********************
Yesterday morning on the drive home I found myself by the county airport, surrounded by vast expanses of corn fields and soybean farms, oak trees and weather-beaten homesteads. The eastern sky was cloudy and as the sun crested the horizon the whole thing lit up like an outrageous watercolor painting. Red, orange, purple, magenta, pink, blue. It was the first day of spring and the earth was showing off. It was marvellous.
Four o'clock am is when you really have to wait and think out your phrasing before you press the transmit button. Otherwise it'll just be broken sentences and breathing. And then the embarassment of listening to yourself on the recall radio. It's also the beginning of a two-hour window where you pray that no one on your shift comes into dispatch because it would be too hard to be coherent. Six o'clock is better because you're so slap-happy you'll laugh at anything, and the others will be too.
Four o'clock the voice of the younger guy from the water department flows out of the phone's receiver like someone standing close, whispering. Their breath warm on your ear. You wonder what his name is, what he looks like, and how he fills the hour and fifty-nine minutes between calls.
Four o'clock begins the unexplainable pains and fevers, your body carrying on with its purification despite your lucidity. A twinge starts in the abdomen and spasms down your thigh and into your knee. Your sternum has a dull and hollow ache. Your skin goes from flushed to chilled and clammy. Your eyes burn like the fire of a million candles.
Four o'clock actually lasts seven-and-a-half hours, the rest of the shift is like an easy walk on a nice day.
***********************
Yesterday morning on the drive home I found myself by the county airport, surrounded by vast expanses of corn fields and soybean farms, oak trees and weather-beaten homesteads. The eastern sky was cloudy and as the sun crested the horizon the whole thing lit up like an outrageous watercolor painting. Red, orange, purple, magenta, pink, blue. It was the first day of spring and the earth was showing off. It was marvellous.
16.3.07
Book Ten
12. Why all this guesswork? You can see what needs to be done. If you can see the road, follow it. Cheerfully, without turning back. If not, hold up and get the best advice you can. If anything gets in the way, forge on ahead, making good use of what you have on hand, sticking to what seems right. (The best goal to achieve, and the one we fall short of when we fail.)
14.3.07
Book Nine
28. The world's cycles never change -- up and down, from age to age.
Either the world's intelligence wills each thing (if so, accept its will), or it exercised that will once -once and for all-and all else follows as a consequence (and if so, why worry?).
One way or another: atoms or unity. If it's God, all is well. If it's arbitrary, don't imitate it.
The earth will cover us all, and then be transformed in turn, and that too will change, ad infinitum. And that as well, ad infinitum.
Think about them: the waves of change and alteration, endlessly breaking. And see our brief mortality for what it is.
Either the world's intelligence wills each thing (if so, accept its will), or it exercised that will once -once and for all-and all else follows as a consequence (and if so, why worry?).
One way or another: atoms or unity. If it's God, all is well. If it's arbitrary, don't imitate it.
The earth will cover us all, and then be transformed in turn, and that too will change, ad infinitum. And that as well, ad infinitum.
Think about them: the waves of change and alteration, endlessly breaking. And see our brief mortality for what it is.
7.3.07
No fate but what you make.
We were talking in the truck, on the way somewhere, and he told me, "you can't let someone trick you into thinking that their happiness is dependent upon you, because it's not." It's not, and I know it, but damn if it isn't hard to remember that sometimes. He comes home and it's a son of a bitch to not feel responsible. The sadness that comes with failure, the depression of something that is broken and you don't know how to fix it.
And there is my dad, and his truck that smells like safety, like nothing in the world could ever be that bad, and me feeling guilty for being angry but not worried. I know that no matter what happens there will be corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's day, a warm fire in the shop every New Year they own that house, there will be a great hullabaloo on every birthday, and thousands of celebrations and congratulations along the way. I know, without question, that no matter what happens, each and every one of them will be there for me and would even give me the shirts off their backs if needed. And that I would, too.
And then I think, does he have that kind of unflinching support? When his brain tries to get him down, of whom does he think, which spirit offers his soul some comfort? And my corny neurons fire up the image of Linda Hamilton, alone in her cage and doing pull ups on her over-turned bed, and I think no fate but what we make... every one of us has taken each step down the path which has led us to where we stand in the present. If we are in need of people to support, nurture, inspire, comfort us, then we need to seek them out.
The only constant is change. Always, always, always.
**********************
I had a dream last night, I don't remember much of it but Emily and I were trying to get somewhere in a very old car. It was some old manual racer and I was driving and we came to this very steep, very muddy, very terrifying section of road. The farther up we made it the more I down-shifted until we were in first gear, barely crawling. I was afraid the car would tip over. But she knew we would make it, I remember looking over at her and she wasn't worried at all..... so we crested the hill and kept driving.
And there is my dad, and his truck that smells like safety, like nothing in the world could ever be that bad, and me feeling guilty for being angry but not worried. I know that no matter what happens there will be corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's day, a warm fire in the shop every New Year they own that house, there will be a great hullabaloo on every birthday, and thousands of celebrations and congratulations along the way. I know, without question, that no matter what happens, each and every one of them will be there for me and would even give me the shirts off their backs if needed. And that I would, too.
And then I think, does he have that kind of unflinching support? When his brain tries to get him down, of whom does he think, which spirit offers his soul some comfort? And my corny neurons fire up the image of Linda Hamilton, alone in her cage and doing pull ups on her over-turned bed, and I think no fate but what we make... every one of us has taken each step down the path which has led us to where we stand in the present. If we are in need of people to support, nurture, inspire, comfort us, then we need to seek them out.
The only constant is change. Always, always, always.
**********************
I had a dream last night, I don't remember much of it but Emily and I were trying to get somewhere in a very old car. It was some old manual racer and I was driving and we came to this very steep, very muddy, very terrifying section of road. The farther up we made it the more I down-shifted until we were in first gear, barely crawling. I was afraid the car would tip over. But she knew we would make it, I remember looking over at her and she wasn't worried at all..... so we crested the hill and kept driving.
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