No poetry today.

Sometimes I wonder if I wasn't born at the very beginning of a slow and determined decline. The start of the end for the second coming of this land's gilded age. Like an avalanche is at first imperceptible, but builds up the strength and might to ultimately level forests, destroy villages.

I have tried to put my finger on the event that happened between my grandfather's generation and now, but mostly it's just been like checking the tree tops for wind direction in a tornado. Sometimes I wonder if it's a lack of tragedy; if our combined experience lacks a trauma with enough reverberation to shake us to our core, to solidify us towards a common goal of becoming better humans. They had the world wars, and the great depression: events which required the nation to pull together if it was to survive. Literally. We had the gulf wars and 9/11: events which catalyzed us for a time, but ultimately were removed enough from our daily existence that we were not forced to pay them any mind if we had other things to do. Trips to Walmart, a corn-hole tournament, plugging into the season's hottest new show.

By choosing comfort over concern, we have destroyed ourselves.

I don't mean to be up on a soapbox. In fact, I feel just about as down and out as a white girl who owns a house and a car can. As I watch the balance of my bank account sink lower and lower. I think that all of this was conjured up because of the meeting on Monday. The city's old chief was there, all 5 feet of him, and even though he was weathered, wrinkled, grey, you could not help but take notice of him and be respectful of his presence. What we do with our lives brands our spirits, it seems to me, and the strength of that branding is perceptible (to varying degrees) to the people we come in contact with. By contrast, the current chief was there and one could have gone all meeting and not noticed. His lithe frame made transparent by his complete and utter lack of zeal, or earnestness.

The old chief shook my hand and asked me how I was doing and an unspoken outrage passed between our glances. The new chief ignored me completely.

This country is hard on people.

I remembered this stupid movie that I watched with my ex, a drop in the bucket of stupid movies that we watched together. Stay Hungry. The Governator was in it, and I remember him giving this surprising and poignant monologue about how it was important to stay hungry in life, because hunger (figuratively and literally) is one of the best motivators there is. Complacency being tantamount to death, atrophy. I would like to work my fingers to the bone, I would like to toil until my clothes are threadbare, my body is sinew and my mind finds the strength that exists beyond exhaustion. I want to wake up hungry and work for my reward. I want to be old, and weathered, and grey, and to walk into a room and just be barely able to fit my spirit inside with me.

Because in all of these trials I keep coming back to the knowledge that there is no normal life. The belief in such a thing is a farce, that the avalanche of decline can only tear down.