Batten Down

First winter storm of any intensity and there are things to do. Missed my chance to get the truck down yesterday and it drizzles through, but a lull early, just at sunup, and I walked over to the driveway. B went out at dark last night, down to the other house. His tracks were a full, locked-up skid trail, all four tires. I think he enjoys this, because he's a good off-road driver and because the driveway is designed for this weather. The camber moves you over into the beginning of the grader ditch, where you can control things, and then, before the curve, you almost stop and creep back out on the driveway. Nothing to it. Problem is clay at the top and there's not much we can do about it. But it hasn't rained for several hours and the outside track seems fairly solid. B went right for the ditch last night, not a single wiggle in the straight line of his skid, but and also, I don't want to get in his tracks, they're slick, already churned, and I don't want to make them deeper. Driveway Management. Goes fine, exhilarating way to start the day. Quick breakfast and coffee, then the stations of wood, kindling, starter sticks, and sections of old planks that need burning, hot fast fires with too much ash, but on a cold morning just the ticket. Cold rain, 34 degrees, then mixed with snow, then snow. With two left-over chicken thighs and egg noodles, make a note to buy chicken stock in quantity, I made a very nice chicken noodle soup. Reading this newish Paul Theroux novel (B thought I should read, brought it over) "Blinding Light" which is very good indeed. A wonderful command of language, complex plot overlays, fully realized characters. When I first sat down to write, at exactly four o'clock in the afternoon, the snow was coming down hard, straight down, then the wind picked up and it stopped snowing. The wind establishes dominion over the winter landscape, becomes a presence. I hear nothing but the wind for weeks on end, and It's like Bach, composing for the cello. I must say, last year, and this year, I don't really feel prepared for the demands, but this is my life and I'm comfortable in this place, I'll make do, I always have. Still, because of the wood-shed, I want to get a year ahead on firewood, simple now, just drop the trees and rick them in the shed. I imagine a wall of pallets to break the wind and driven snow. I was kneeling on my foam block, in the wood-shed today, splitting kindling, humming a Partita badly, thinking about a pallet wall, and I was inordinately happy, being there. It's snowing again, lovely, in the failing light, I couldn't do it justice, but this is the place I find myself. Not to take the wind out of my sails, what a batten is, always considering load, never wanting to just sail before the wind. Begs the question -How can you miss when there's nothing but target?- which I asked myself recently over some failing. I had no answer. I don't trust myself. Several times recently I've not made sense, and my actions could be deemed inappropriate. By default, I am the Old Man On The Hill, how do you think this makes me feel? Is it a role, or do I play it straight? Theroux does this wonderful thing with voices. They'll haunt you. Have to say, too, that I've probably done more psychotropic drugs than anyone still alive, and he gets it, why you would do that. Death by datura is a small price to pay for a book. A questionable surgery. Whatever. Who am I to judge. I'm not a doctor, I'm actually just the janitor: on the first floor, you might tell them, dust-bunnies accumulate in the corners. See if they get it, if they don't, fire them. I grow increasingly impatient with lack of understanding, assume you know what I mean. It's easier to make everything a fiction than it is to positively describe something. I could make this up, substitute some things, but what's the difference? How would you know? This is as good as anything else. Life at the museum. Wherever we found ourselves now, we all know this place, the excruciating present, we live with it. It's a condition. A cross-road you're confronted with constantly, yes, or no? A simple bifurcation. All that is required is that you make a choice. And All is a joke, a stupid elected official, nothing is what it seems. Mining grants are ancient, grand-fathered, what is the common good? I hate seeing Ute cows munching in ancient grain bins. History is tenuous. I come down nowhere as a champion, I merely record, some things just seem wrong. Have you ever tried to control a sword at your hip? It requires a double swivel or a whole lot of luck. I have scars, the hooks pulled through with pliers, when the lures went astray. Life is an imperfect model, oh, wait. It's all imperfect. Life is, sure, what we think we have.