The Third Wheel

Full time school and part time work. Living the dream. I just moved into a three bedroom farmhouse built in the 1860’s. That’s right. Thee 1860’s. In the basement you can actually see where they used to shovel coal in to heat the place.  Understand this is when Abraham Lincoln was president. I live in a house that was built whilst a nation divided and fell upon itself. Seems fitting.

I would. I would believe you. but the ocean is ebbing. and the tide won’t hold to the shore for long. Those are your emotions. The moon sinks away and the sun comes back and the water sings into the sand and by morning it’s as if nobody was there and all the footprints are gone and the etch-a-sketch edge is begging another canvas walkers walk upon its wake. I wished at times that the summer sun would hang there forever. hang there with this glow, this breeze, and this warmth. Just pause. Everything still but that sound. That lapping. That continual rebirth washing over. and over. and over. You could have stayed you know? I probably could have too. My dog got ran over a bit later. It hurt. sure. But mostly the consensus for me was I miss you but as is life. I have dealt with the dead and I have played with the missing.

To be remembered for the fire of our words long before the ashes of our bodies. That’s really what we were struggling for this whole time.

In this month I have had six interviews and four jobs. In this week I have made russian soup, applesauce cake, banana cake,cinnamon coffee sticks, stuffed mushrooms, and cheese filled pears all while trying to read harper lee, robbins, vonnegut, fulghum, safran foer and sedaris at once.  My ducks will never be in a row. Far too boring. I will probably stick it out with whole foods for a bit. I am pursuing organic farming (wild fire farms). For the most part and to circle back to the mid of this, I’m trying to keep this completely fresh and new. The two mentioned stable staples are purely of contentious coincidence. They shouldn’t even be mentioned. I did it anyway. Aint that just like me. Oh, and to the people I’ve pissed off. Oops. I mean, oopsie. You hate me? Really?!! I said oopsie. Okay, fine you hate me. You read it anyway. I’m sure you’ll exchange some verbal reviews with eachother. CAAAAN’T WAAAIT. mwah.

Whether or not I wither depends on whither I weather so

You are formidable mountains that I don’t wish to climb and have no want to conquer. You are eroding back to sea level always. You are conglomerates of a weakened and imperfect bond. You call out, you howl, and sigh…..to be higher. The earth undulates, amalgamates and now feeds some other summit and you fall into foothills into the sea. Always. My footprints once around you too wither away.  But note dear, do note dahling-the footprints that are disappearing are none the less headed in a direction away. Well away. Never to button hook or meander across your confused and dynamic terrain again. Only once, one time to turn back and SAY- Ah a boy could get lost there, and to KNOW- It is not nearly as beautiful as from the road. There, in a valley, and you are that valley, this valley a mountain so surrendered, so resolved to resign. A place to lose the view, and to lose ourselves. A place better left alone. 

    When I stepped down on to a public access dock a curious event took place.  A ring billed herring came at a terrified pace from beneath it. This seagull tied to a string tied to a tree that had used the dock as the only refuge of safety went about fifteen feet to the threshold of its restraint. I pulled the captive, the aviator in by this fishing line, which has an uneasy vibration and uncomfortable feel, refreshing each foot nearing me with the reiteration that it is for the good, that this is the humane thing to do. How a pediatrician with a shot must do every day. Naturally the bird was hissing something you could see the mirror of the dinosaur in. Unnaturally it stopped, tame and docile. It stared at me as I worked the string between the feathers as if it knew it was for the good. As if it knew I was helping with a strange faith. When unfettered and unrestrained, it stayed. I made several attempts to scare the thing out toward the lake so that he/she might not remain threatened along the shore yet unable to fly.

Then finally it kicked and peddled a paddle. And it was the only bird. The only bird there beneath the cloud gray sky going toward an unknown center. Until, from every direction came what must of been forty seagulls on previously a birdless sky. Out from all things cumulus and all directions atleast forty or more. They circled and called and circled and called as if beckoning the injured to fly again, to join them.

In wonder, in part awe, in great calm I knew then…Everything is going to be okay. and it always was. Somehow.

So….on a nice drive with my mom around the lake having what seemed to be the way of relatively profound conversation she tries to color in the analogy with the reminder of a show she recently watched. Whats it going to be, I wonder? Something probably from nat geo or discovery or perhaps free speech or even some spiritual memento picked up somewhere obscure like from a tribal islander of sorts.

“You know that, that Notorious..uhm…B-I-G.

“Mom, stop. Seriously Right There.”

“Haha, no. but listen its-“

“Mom. Never say Notorious B-I-G to me again. I’m serious. It’s important.”

“Haha”

Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.
-vonnegut

Dear local huron humane society,

skeeowdaheeer!

signed,

Fred