Friday, October 21, 2005

 

It’s always foolish to deny the obvious and the obvious is this: it’s dark when I come home from work. That’s just the plain fact of it. Nature has this sort of clock-like regularity to her. I just noticed. She’s nothing if not strict.

I’ve decided I’m going to forego the annual “I dislike winter” parade. I think it’s gotten old. I should go back in this journal and look at the last five late Octobers and I believe only the dates have changed. Whole lot of whining. Yes it’s getting darker and colder and I have very little vacation time to make up for it. Whose fault is that? Why do I use up my vacation time when it is warm and sunny? Oh, yeah, probably because it’s warm and sunny.

The mornings are dark now, just like when I rode a bus as a kid. I’d wait on the corner and watch my breath in the cool morning air and then board a big yellow bus. One time I heard the song “Seven-oh-seven o’clock!” and it was pretty near that time. I thought it amazingly ironic.

I can’t believe how impossible it is to slow down September and October. A big part of it was the consecutive Boston/Toronto trips. In fact that’s probably all of it. But the Quarterhorse Congress is in town this week and it just melts my memory, it sounds the nostalgic chimes, those dusty years spent wearing cowboy boots and listening to Randy Travis music. Time slowed then or likely I slowed then. I’d like to go and see a barrel race or two.

I’m mindful of Jeff Culbreath’s grand experiment out there in the dusty plains of California. I’ve always been attracted to the movements to simplify, and to get closer to the land. We miss much in enclosing ourselves in our homes, which is part of the reason I dislike winter. I read somewhere that the average hunter/gather worked 15 hours a week, and that has a kind of appeal to it too. But I suspect Jeff is working much longer. I’ve no doubt that the hunter/gatherers were as happy as we are, but also no doubt that we would not be as happy as they were if we lived like them, since you can’t undo the knowledge of the comforts of modern life.

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