A Man, A Move, A Mission

It's a strange time in life for me. Though I'm avidly pursuing a longtime dream to become a

Image by Jasmic via Flickr

writer, I have to leave everything behind--a lifestyle that I once knew--in order to put myself in a place to realize the dream. I've rented out the condo, packed and placed most of my worldly belongings in storage, taken to a quiet life in the country... last night, I sat in the hot tub, jets off, listening to a sundown party of yelping coyotes, an owl repeating to me, "Who-who? Who?" and watching night creep up a nearly leafless tree, bright yellows and oranges slowly turning to muted, sleepy colors.

The beans need harvesting. We can't burn scraps from the woodshop for fear that an escaping spark might ignite the field. The road that winds through the country has recently been repaved. "We tried an experiment," said the road worker, because you can stop and talk to them out here. "After we drilled a core sample, we found thirteen inches of old road, so we ground it up and recycled it by mixing it with concrete before laying it back down." We wonder how long before the dump trucks going to and from the quarry will mold this "experiment" into the bumpy ride that we knew before. A man walks through the woods a quarter-mile away, two dogs by his side, surveying the tree line. We wonder what he seeks. Yesterday, we were given a basketball goal by a friendly neighbor, and my stepdad dunked for the first time in his life.

The Internet was my mission today. I had to answer the question, "Where can I find it?" Mission accomplished, though the woman walking around this small town library in bare feet (it's forty-something degrees outside) concerns me only slightly less than the librarian who is re-stacking books, but breathing with such intensity that it sounds as if he just walked twenty fights of stairs.

I overheard...
"Do you ever get a song stuck in your head?"
"I was listening to Sha-Na-Na this morning and now I can't get 'With Doctor' out of my head."

Two massive tomes rest on the desk next to me, MOTOR: Auto Repair Manual, 2002.

I woke up this morning to find frost, and it made my question whether I wanted to go out in such temperature to exercise. But, what I realized was that it wasn't the temperature that dissuaded me, it was the urge to write, since I haven't been able to do so for many days.

So, here I am.