Ice Event

Missed a day of work, a first, but the forecast was for increasing weather, starting bad and getting worse, and I didn't want to get trapped away from my house. My door was frozen shut, the porch and deck covered in ice. Finally thaw the door open and get some wood, wearing crampons to get safely across the yard. Warms to maybe a degree above freezing, spitting tiny ball-bearings of ice, then snowflakes. Call the museum and the Deputy says to not attempt town, so I don't; slippers and mufti, sipping tea, rereading "Moby Dick". Perfect conditions for an ice storm, but it's supposed to clear after midnight. Best I write early and avoid the dreaded black-out. I start a list of things I need to do before heading off to see the girls and my parents, planning on leaving next Wednesday, the 17th, be back here late the night of the 30th, the longest I've ever been out of touch. Mom is preparing a list of meals she wants me to fix, and the girls also a list of favorites. Chief Cook and Bottlewash. Long range forecast is good for the trip down, the trip back is a turkey-shoot. People travel, it must be possible. Not just my daughters and my parents, but I'll see my brother and sister and their families too, probably have to do ribs for 20 while I'm there. Looking forward to seeing Kim and the brickwork, walking the beach north of St. Augustine looking for sharks teeth, visiting a museum, the used bookstores, replenishing my meager wardrobe from the best Goodwill Stores in the country. People go to Florida to die and I collect the denim shirts of the dead, I can't afford them otherwise. Probably go to a movie with the girls, I haven't seen a movie in six or seven years, and Samara will know one she wants me to see. Rhea will be shy and willowy, the whole reunion thing will be bittersweet, because some of us won't live for another, the odds stacked in favor of death. Going or coming, I intend to spend some time In the Marshes Of Glenn, I'll take route 17 either into or out of Jax, stop at a fish camp somewhere and eat a great meal of really fresh fish and hush-puppies, with cheese grits and white bread, walk one of the paths that always border the estuaries, that fishermen have made, to get to a spot where they can bank-fish with a cane pole, sitting on an over turned five-gallon bucket, spitting tobacco juice into the grass. These paths are standard, always there: you can depend that they lead to very nice places. Bank-fishermen have an interesting ethic, or the fish draw them interesting places, but I've never followed one of these trails that it didn't lead to a beautiful spot. Now that I mention it, though, trails generally lead to interesting spots. It's the nature of trails. In Colorado, on first entry into a new zone, I'd always follow deer trails. Mostly because they found the way, established a path, cut across the scree at just the right angle. They know more than me about this, I know when to follow a lead. Why I'm good to work with is that I'm always willing to admit that I'm wrong or that your idea is a better solution to the problem at hand, otherwise we do it the way I had planned, which might not be elegant, but at least solves the problem. I'm not above using roofing tar, the least elegant material known to man, the grace of an oyster, the consistency of sticky baby poop, and smells like your truck back-fired, burning out smell cells. Second time I go out to get wood, I've got the crampons on, and the aluminum broom stick I use for walking when the going gets tough, so I venture down a logging road, looking for nothing in particular. There is nothing. It's a perfectly gray winter landscape, spitting snow, not a sound but the soft mumble of the wind. It's beautiful, sublime even, the world I live in, right there in front of me. Sandal-slap to the back of the head, of course, what was I thinking. This is it, it doesn't get any better. So I'm sitting there, on my foam block, and I manage to roll a cigaret, and I'm thinking about that, how this is it, but what I was enjoying then was not any kind of large thought about the nature of reality or anything philosophical, but just that I was sitting on a foam block on a stump in the woods in spitting snow thinking about that. Got me laughing so hard I fell off my stump. Bad form but funny, I about peed my pants before I could peel through the layers and finally pee. Something about that whole dervish thing, spinning in the snow, made me question myself, spinning, but I just laughed, went home, made and drank a very good cream of asparagus soup, wrote you (the writing stands for me), and went to bed. Slept the sleep of the innocent (I'm projecting now) and woke to do it all again. Listen, I had this thought, maybe we could work together, failing that, we could sulk, make noises, maybe you would understand that I didn't mean anything, maybe not. You can call me at any place, either I can defend myself or not. I actually have an formula for this, I misplaced it but I'm sure I can find it.