Red dirt

You never took yours off, so I put mine back on again. It's been four years. It's tight, a reminder that I am not as svelt as I used to be when was when I walking regularly and not drinking so much wine. Funny how it feels to wear a band of silver again, one that reminds me of times long gone.

It's a simple band. The Estranged One found it in the back of a sewing box that she picked up at a garage sale years ago. She had a wee sentiment engraved in the underside of the band and passed it along to me on our wedding day. I wore it day in and out until one evening late in March of '06. It came off after a row we had in the kitchen, over what I can't remember. I never wore again until today.

I don't know why I was inspired to put it back on. Frankly, I thought I had lost it. I cleaned out the old Honda wagon prior to sale and stuffed everything salvageable in boxes and placed those in the little house. I went to look for it a month or so ago and couldn't find it. Forgot I placed it in a wine glass in the living room hutch. Stumbled upon it last week when I packed it out. I placed it on a shelf and thought of it today as I walked the track.

The track. We truly loved that place, total rendevous, chance opportunity for us whenever you could pack in a store run while I was out walking. Nevertheless by spring of '06 the track was a last resort. We were pretty lucky that one spring day. You came down to see me as I got in a morning walk. I was already fighting with TEO and needed to get out, get some air. I called and you ran over. Little did we know that we narrowly dodged a bullet. The Detective had planned a reconnaissance mission for the track, something to do with getting your girls ready for their upcoming track season. Last minute cancellation. Would have sprung our trap a month or three earlier than anticipated. Oh well, didn't happen. I went home and fought and carried on wkth the TEO until supper time. Sat in my car in the Saars parking lot and took off my ring, put it in the coin tray, left it in there until the day I got the car ready for sale. There it goes.

So I walked the track this afternoon and thought about of all that, thought of you and lines in the sand and the red, hard, sandy path I was walking round and round on and wondered when I would somehow get around to truly embracing the lesson plan that has been placed before me. I know that this long time off from work, this endless time away from you, this long period of readjustment and learning about life anew has a purpose and meaning, but damn, when am I going to get it the way that you did?

I walked the track and marvelled at the weather, the fantastic clouds, the stiff breeze that promised more rain, maybe later on when I was asleep, in a perverse way reminding me that I needed to be woke up. I watched folks meander around the field, amble around the wet path just like I was, wondered if they, too, were working through things, finding meaning in their Zen type exercise, extracting some sort of gold from the hard lessons of life the way that I was doing. I know that the element that I am gleaning from all this is no Fools Gold, it is the real McCoy, the real deal, a signed PhD from the School of Hard Knocks. I know that someday when I see you again I won't be shuffling my feet, I won't be hemming and hawing. I will look at you straight in the eye and tell you that I am the product of Broken Man University with a Master's Degree in Reassemblage. Baby, I know now that I am good for the long haul. My load has been shaken, stirred, unboxed, trashed, repacked and made good and solid for the road.

Baby, I am the road. I know this for my feet and my shoes and my soul are marked with the red, red dust of the track we once walked on. I am ready to take on those miles, those endless circular miles, and put them to work, translate those footprints in the red clay into lesson plans, and get them out there and find a place where the road goes straight on for miles. As the Byrds sang I can see miles and miles and miles...

..and my dear, at the end of all those miles, I still see you running, running over the grass towards me and those lines on that red, red dirt.

Love, your WHMB

Stemware, 10/06, 3/10

I packed out alot of wine glasses today, almost too many for one man to use and break over the course of a lifetime. Looking back I suppose there were a few things that got my collection going again, a collection that had gone into remission a number of years back.

Long time ago when I was young and wagons still had wooden wheels I had pals who shared my jones for champagne, for large quantities of wine and beer and somewhat wild parties. I had folks over the house back then on a fairly regular basis and went through crystal glassware like mad. I was always on the lookout in toney department stores for nice stemware, for nice bowls and plates and such, but after awhile, especially after the kids came on the scene, found that that wasn't important anymore in my normal everyday life. After awhile it seemed that most of my company was The Estranged One's family, and for the most part most of the libations we shared were found in twelve ounce cans and bottles. My collection of wine glasses wound down to a pitifully small number and since I wasn't partaking much in the grape anymore and had no one around to share the habit with the need for wine glasses went away. The collection wore down to what I had in my old hutch, which, by the time you came into my life in earnest in 2005, wasn't much of a collection at all.

It may have been that one letter you wrote me in September of '05 where you told me that you were a social drinker that started me thinking. It could have been the night of the Gala when we broke open that bottle of bubbly here in my house, or maybe the trip we took to Chelan for WALE when we sat with our colleagues at the hotel bar and sipped the night away. No matter, I saw clearly that my collection of wine glasses had become shabby and needed an immediate update. More importantly I felt that I had found someone who would make a difference in my social calendar, who just might make some sort of concerted effort to help pull together some sort of organized entertainment in my life for a change. One talk or another that we shared on the couch made it clear that we needed good heavy beer mugs that could go into the freezer, that we needed a table full of nice crystal goblets, that we could use a matched set of plates and possibly a nice assortment of sparkling wine glasses to toast in some sort of special event.

Maybe it was my imagination running away with itself, but I started looking for stemware in second hand stores in earnest that fall. Even after the wars, once you were gone and I moved back into the little house I kept at the "hobby", accumulating glassware knowing full well we would never share wine in those cups again, but by then I was buying housewares in bulk, engaging retail therapy, dreaming of pulling together trunk loads of kitchen stuff for the kids, piling up goods for the day TEO would go away, knowing full well that the day she left she would strip my shelves bare .

Well, she left in the summer of '07 and left me with all of my accumulated stuff. All those goods I worried so hard about remained stacked up in back house for years. TEO never took a thing, left me with crockery and cookware and tools all stacked away in on shelves and table tops. I moved back into the big house only to find that all the things I bought and accumulated during our time were still there waiting for me, too. Why would TEO want to take away wine glasses and table settings when she had all that and more waiting for her back in Boise? Why would she want to accumulate crystal goblets when she had no intention of entertaining let alone using those kinds of glasses for drinking? They would only get broken, or worse, clutter up the shelves and get dusty.

So I went about my packing today and thought of you and that one night when we opened up that bottle of nice California sparkling wine at the end of Gala shift. We had two mismatched glasses on hand that night, two glasses long leftover from my wild old days when I entertained on a regular basis. Didn't matter that night if I had dozens of them waiting in the wings, there was just the two of and two glasses suited us fine. I looked hard at the boxes I have stacked in the living room, ready and waiting to be added to the rest of the boxes I have stacked up next door. That waiting area is starting to remind me of that one scene in Citizen Kane, the beginning of the tale when all the stuff is being shoveled into the great fireplace. I know that I have too much, that someday I will have to unload some of it and pare down that collection of stemware but know that that time is not now. I still am waiting for that one great party that will take place someday, the one that you painted such a nice picture of in my head. Someday someone will come into my life and fill up my house with people and laughter and a sort of hungry joy, one that says that love lives here and that people are welcome to partake in it.

You came through my life one time and made it clear that two glasses were not enough. I thank you for that, not only now, long after the packing is done, but also at some later time, when I'll hoist up a glass of fine chilled wine, knock it back and think of you. Of us, of two fine people, both in need of a table full of glasses and room full of company that say love lives here.

To your health, my love.

Your WHMB

Kindly fetch me some words, wouldja dearie?

Darlin'..I have been off of the road now for over a week, have walked the Woods two or three times, cruised all the old spots, watched countless movies and heard tons of music and found that I have been noticeably wanting in the words to share department. Not that I didn't have them by the bushel basket full for you on that long and dusty road trip I took a couple weeks back. And not to say that I haven't had an armful to share with you while job opportunities fell by the wayside and house offers stacked up. No, it's just that I am in this interesting spot, which sounds like something like Pooh might say. I am not so much sitting and waiting as I am shifting stuff and looking at various options as things like unemployment checks and joblines yield less and moreso of it every day.

Looking back it seems like I went on that trip not only to talk to Santa Clara County and to see the kids but to look at the land and see where a full grown man, his stuff and his cat might land once the house was sold and out of the way. I thought, once I got out of the Puget Sound region, that almost anyplace would do, but then I kept running up against the walls of memory and decided that where I should go is a place where my kids and you and I and an awful lot of life lived over the past twenty years really hasn't had much of an influence over my emotional and mental state. A fresh start would be mighty nice about right now, you know?

To that end I thought that Portland would be nice, as I have tons of great memories there, and maybe Grants Pass would do, too, as I had a good time when I lived there and the beginnings of my travails weren't too pronounced there. I thought, too, of Redding, for there was no bad there at all, just good Mexican food. As I kept making my way down the coast I kept finding more and more places to consider, to the point where I was overloading the ledger, outweighing the scale. I have to be serious about these places I'm considering, for I believe I am good for one really great move and then two or three smaller ones once I find the region of my dreams. As for that drive, once I finished up my interview in San Jose I said to myself, I could live here. I had all the things a man could want, that is, except for an immediate job. The one I interviewed for didn't pan out but the region is still interesting enough for me to consider. Another opportunity awaits. Hayward wants to talk to me next week. Let's see where it goes.

No matter what the house is being looked at hard, with a house inspection already out of the way and ready to be negotiated. Whether or not the gal who put earnest money down on it continues to be interested in it remains to be seen, but I know, having finished that five state journey on a good note, that I will soon have to make up my mind where to go, and where I go needs to be a place where my heart can be handled gently. I know that I can fantasize along with the best of them, pretend that places like Vancouver, WA and San Francisco and Huntington Beach would get me through the summer time, but why would I want to be so far from the kids when I could just as easily look for temporary work in the Treasure Valley as I could down south? Why bask in the sun on the beach in SoCal when I can ride the Wild Waves with my kids in Boise in June?

When I ran into you the other day I left many words unspoken because I felt it would be unkind of me to share words with you that wouldn't be appreciated. Know that those words were thought of and tossed off into the wind on that long journey of mine, one that that had me looking hard all over the place for a place to lay down my head and hang my hat. I found many places along the way that I could find some sense of peace and solice, that I could be close to my children and yet within some sort of hailing distance from a part of the world that colored my history in a such a bittersweet way. Know that all those words and that rough mileage and those elusive jobs and the location of my next new homes all sort of come together here, and that when I finally do find that place in the road where I am comfortable and that welcomes me you will be one of the first to know.

In the meantime, I need to go out and round up some fresh new words to share with you. New adventures await and new stories are aching to be told. Let me finish up this old saga and then we'll start the fire anew, pass the pipe and let the stories roll.

Your WHMB

Answer to your question, 2/21

When I saw you on the boulevard the other day you asked me where I wanted to go when I told I was looking for work. I said I would go where the jobs were. Sure, I said, I would like to be with my kids, but a man has to pay the bills. Yeah, I'll go where the work takes me.

Did that give you pause, my dear? Did you feel the breeze of a bullet dodged? Did you feel relief in not having chased after this wandering spirit, knowing, if you had, you might be with on that very same road, chasing after yet another library dream? Could you see or even hear that maybe, just maybe, this man is after that unseen commodity, is walking along a rocky path only because he chose to wear his heart on his sleeve? And that that heart had your name embroidered all over it?

I am on the road today, once again chasing down an interview, taking a long sweet journery to a place that might very well possibly connect my past to my future. I grew up fantasizing about the Bay area, about living in proximity to the City, about being within hailing distance of decent sourdough, cable cars and coolest summers a man could ask for. I think now, knowing the financial dispostion of the grand state of California, that I would rather be almost anyplace else, but I also know that beggars, or at least, underemployed librarians, can't be choosers. With as many applications as I have out there I think that whoever choses to be interested in me is who I want to work for.

But as to where I want to be? Don't you know that there is only one answer to that? As I was walking in the Woods the other day I thought of a song that you played one time for me. You were about the most musically inclined gal I ever known. Country, pop, classic rock, Christian, classical. You knew your artists and had song lyrics down and would quote lines to me that were particularly apropo to our situation at the time. You cut albums for me on your computer, Norah Jones and Seal, but it was a Dave Matthews album that you played for me in your car one day that stuck. Where were going that day? A bookclub meeting? Audubon? Does it matter? We were together and it was all good.

So you asked me the other day where I wanted to go and it was that Dave Matthews song that rang through my head as I walked your neighborhood. If I had my sense about me that day, if hadn't worried so much about what to say as opposed to saying what I really needed to say I wouldn't be jotting this down, thinking song lyrics out loud on hard, sweaty walks.

Where do I want to be? There's only one answer, my dear M, and that's with you. Yeah, I'm no Superman. Where are YOU going? Let's go!

Your WHMB

"Where Are You Going?" Dave Matthews Band

Where are you going?
With your long face
Pulling down
Don't hide away
Like an ocean
That you can't see but you can smell
And the sound of the waves crash down

I am no Superman
I have no reasons for you
I am no hero
Oh, that's for sure
But I do know one thing
Is where you are is where I belong
I do know where you go
Is where I want to be

Where are you going?
Where do you go?
Are you looking for answers
To questions under the stars?
Well, if along the way You are grown weary
You can rest with me until
A brighter day and you're okay

I am no Superman
I have no answers for you
I am no hero
Oh, that's for sure
But I do know one thing
Is where you are is where I belong

I do know where you go
Is where I want to be

Where are you going?
Where do you go?
Where do you go?
Where are you going?
Where do you go?

I am no Superman
I have no answers for you
I am no hero
Oh, that's for sure
But I do know one thing
Is here you are is where I belong
I do know where you go
Is where I want to be

Where are you going?
Where do you go? Tell me, where are you going?

Where? Well, let's go