The Long Quiet Highway

Found in Solitude

2013-04-25T21:33:00.003-07:00

I want to live on the mountainside; surrounded only in my solitude and the cold, foggy mist in the early morning.
I want to sip and drink my hot chocolate, or coffee, or maybe even hot green tea, and look out in wonder at the evening stars.
I imagine what it would be like to wander through its halls; alone, with only the sound of the voices in my head to accompany me.
I want the road to be long and winding, making those who travel it wonder if it leads anywhere. I want to shed this rusty writing behind and wallow in the solitude and protection this mountain hideaway offers.
Sometimes I wonder at the phrase "lost in solitude," and wonder if it's something I made up. I roll this thought around in my head and hear how different it sounds from "found in solitude."
When I die, when I'm really dead and gone, will they find me in a place like this? Will I be "found in solitude?" or will they say "He was lost in solitude, all his life." Either way, I suppose, doesn't really matter.

Journey Without End

2013-04-12T23:07:00.001-07:00

Writing has been a journey for me. It is a journey that has no end. Sometimes, it really is like being alone on the long quiet highway. Other times, there is a cacophony of sounds trying to distract me from the journey. There has been a long time of distraction. I'd like to say I'm back and focused, but only time will tell. I'm writing on two other blogs, and life is flying by like a semi-truck on an empty stretch of road.
Soon, I tell myself. Soon I'll have time to write.

Ramble

2005-10-27T23:17:00.000-07:00

I am my brother's skin,
Yea, and my sister's also.
Kindred spirit
Flesh, bone and gristle to the very soul
Separated by the miles of time, distance and space.

Bury your head
Against my shoulder
Wait until the tidal wave
Comes rippling, roaring,
Crashing down upon us.

Your soul touches mine
Like the hand of God
reaching forth to meet
The original on the Sistine Chapel
Skin upon skin
The temperature rises,
Then dips
Behind the waning sun.

2005-10-26T23:44:00.000-07:00

Standing At the Edge of the Great Unknown

Roadside Eulogy

2005-10-25T23:37:00.000-07:00

I should have just turned it off, pushed another button, any button, just to keep the memory of you from crawling all over my skin. Instead, I had to stop, pull off the road, and sit weeping, letting your voice pour over me, encompassing me, feeding the ache that's been eating my flesh since the day I last saw you.

Memories flash in black and white, and I see that image of you, wrapped in clear plastic, your hair matted by the blood that dried three days ago. I had to get rid of you, with your incessant chatter, and the smell of cigarettes coming off your breath.

I buried your mother too, long ago, long before you picked up the silly prattle and nagging whine where she left off. You thought she simply abandoned you, and she did, but not by choice.

It was my choice, and I had to do it, if only for a litte peace and quiet. Oh how I hated the way she looked at me, raising that self-rightous eyebrow behind her horn rimmed glasses, then blowing that self centered puff of smoke from those too-red lips. "Whore" I imagined those lips mouthing, self condemnation without sound. She breathed her guilt like she blew that smoke, and that guilt was eating us up.

Today I wrapped your body and carried it under the shroud of darkness and laid your body in the trunk of the Caddy. You would have been so proud of me, the way I wiped your hair from your eyes, then tenderly, oh how tenderly I deposited your body in the carefully dug ditch alongside the road in the middle of nowhere. I loved you once, and now, even in your death, I love you still.

'Til death do us part.

Big Sky Country - unfinished

2005-10-24T00:36:00.000-07:00

There's a certain numbness to sitting in solitude underneath this majestic wide open sky. I can feel the breeze caressing my skin, and for just a moment, as I close my eyes to enjoy its warmth, I am flooded with a rush of memories from those latter years.
My memories come in black and white, moving pictures, and they fill me with an ache I haven't felt since the day we said goodbye.
Yesterday is gone, and there's no going back to that moment in time when all felt right, and our life was one of ease. We were young, and living in the basement of a college professor while I finished my degree in mathmatics. We didn't know sickness then, and our evenings were spent drinking wine and playing card games.

Singular

2005-10-16T23:52:00.000-07:00

A freewrite in exasperation.

I feel a certain sadness to writing in solitude, yet my life's destiny seems to take some cruel pleasure in wringing out the joy of writing in the company of good friends and the occasional writing buddy, leaving me with what seems to be a singular inner need, and no one with which to write.

I wonder if I've had enough to drink, some desire to nurse my muse, that one that appears only when slightly inebriated, and if I close my eyes I imagine a make-believe fairy, with a magic wand and blue silk wings, tipsy with the power of words and language, too drunk to make sense, flitting here and there with an exasperated sigh because absolutely nothing is making any sense.

"Burp."

Is there any sense in singular, like the tense in present, past or future, and I think that all I need is another stiff drink, well maybe a first, and a clue of what to write would be good too. Writing in singular is such a passe' notion, one that precludes the you and the me.

Short, sweet, and to the point. Singular.

Now for another cup of coffee.

The Road Ahead

2005-10-11T22:27:00.000-07:00

And I struggle to find a voice, my voice, traveling on this long silent highway that stretches out before me, endlessly touching a distant horizon.

There is only perspective from this point of view, and even as I look at the line where the earth meets the sky, I wonder if I can transcend the distance between time and space to stand in that very place, and I imagine that if I could, lightning would strike, thunder would clap in the sky, and tears of a thousand previously unfelt emotions would stream down my face and run in rivulets along the ground towards the previously traveled places where I began my journey.

I see the faces of friends I have known, now friends no longer, who, for reasons of their own, have simply abandoned me. There is no shame in being left alone, because even now, especially now, I am driven towards a greater purpose. Yes, those are my hands touching the wheel, pushing then pulling the lighter from the dash to light the cigarette that dangles from my mouth. My hands. The hands that once long ago gently stroked the face of the woman I loved.

If you had known me then, you wouldn't recognize me now except for perhaps the limp in my left leg. Here though, in the early evening darkness on this long silent highway, you wouldn't see the limp except when I get out to stretch my legs and take a piss.

For a moment, I sit on the hood of the old blue Cadillac, then toss the cigarette to the ground and watch an eagle fly towards the horizon. I am alone in this journey, alone on this road. Just me and the eagle, heading north to Big Sky Country.