Comfort Zone

I have a place I can go, beneath layers of buffalo blankets, where I wouldn't freeze to death, much more likely I wouldn't be found until spring. Oh, we wondered what had happened to him. But I learn, you know, hole up when necessary, hibernate if necessary, pull the covers in such a way that my ears are covered and I can still breathe. I recognize it's a game but I don't speak the language. Fuck the death and dying thing, I knew I was gone from before the beginning. The taste of bile gave everything away. That luger you coughed, what you spit in the snow. I listen to the wind, what seems to be being said, it makes a kind of sense. Above freezing this afternoon for the first time in a couple of weeks, things will be messy for a couple of days, then the temps will fall again. D out most of the day, collecting art for the next show. I putter around, getting little things done, running errands. Off my feed, sleep issues from the really cold weather, and this damnable change in pattern. Slog up the hill through rotting snow and by the time I achieve the ridge, my spirits are lifted; home, and not so cold. Start a fire without that sense of urgency. I can laugh at my bungling now, instead of being dead serious. Strikes me as odd that I work in a sophisticated setting and live such a basic life, work at an art museum and don't have running water. An interesting dynamic. I live this life because I choose to, have subsidized living this way by doing more things than I can remember, and now, the employer of last resort is an art museum. I suppose it makes sense. It brings me to where I am, the arm-pit of Appalachia where I am serially robbed. What a deal. Maybe the lesson is to not acquire things, or to carry everything with you all the time, or to just live in a cardboard hut. I'm insured against nothing. I get sick, damage myself, the whole house of cards collapses. Why I'm so careful now, poking my footing with a stick; I love being here, where the crow meets the branch, where any sighting of the fox is an event. Being so fully engaged by the world that there isn't anything else. I knew I'd feel better when I got to the top. The ridge is a harsh mistress, ask anyone, but she is so cool, with just the tattoo you'd been hoping for, so you cut some slack, never a good idea, and are fucked up the ass again, wondering, why me, why again, why me again?