***This may or may not be a running piece – meaning that I’ll add to it as I go. It is a bit of a thought experiment, a stretching of the rhetorical and imagination muscles. I have no idea where, if anywhere, it will go. I like that.***
Not quite late at night, I wanted to create. Nothing came. We no longer stare at blank pages except for those people who run poetry groups and hold on ever so dearly to anachronisms like typewriters. You know the type, stylish glasses retro and color block sweaters living an argyle life. They were not here, just an image in my mind of who would stare at a blank page while I looked at a screen – cursor blinking, not creating. There’s a stack of unwrapped canvases leaning against the wall in the nook by the dining room table. They taunt me – why don’t you try painting something. Nothing came. Long hand – I did have a blank page. I wrote the phrase “We slipped in to the forgotten hours.” It seems nice, soft, a slow letting go, something painless like drowning and evocative of night or deep blue sea. I looked about and said to no one in particular, if nothing comes, let’s have music. There are nights when output isn’t appropriate – nights when all is intake, and also, nights of nothing.
My neighbors are much younger than I am. They go out when I’m getting ready for bed. This is LA. This is Austin. This is Punta Gorda. The place doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I tried and nothing came. The place absolutely matters. Do I see my neighbors in the sunny parking lot of a low one story apartment building? Are we in tiny shotgun houses with narrow yards down a dead end street between two industrial parks, metal fabricators, plastic coatings, chemicals too toxic to name? Will their kids – the ones they don’t have yet end up with tumors because the water table is polluted? We slipped in to the forgotten hours.
I can’t remember the first thing that happened this morning. It might have been the cat, or a dream, or the heater clicking on. That’s why place (and time) matters. The heater doesn’t click on in mid-summer Florida or Georgia, or really anywhere. It was definitely the heater that clicked on. The music playing liltingly pines on about the road side on the way to Reno – rooted in place and time (after a difficult break when memories stretch in to endless highway dawn). Maybe that’s the way to start? Establish a place and a feel and a time.
Now I remember. It was the cat. 5 am. I made the stuff up about my neighbors. I don’t know any of them. I put some extra kibble out. I originally wrote extra dry food, but didn’t want extra to modify dry. Nick, he’s my cat, wobbles over, squats and eats. I try not to give him dry food, too much filler, and he gorges himself until he pukes fist sized piles of undigested dry food. “Guard the castle, buddy.” I didn’t take much with me, a pack, some snacks. The woods would be forgiving. Daybreak, Tuesday. Dammit, I thought about place. Nothing came.
Julianne is a single mom. Two kids. Steven is seven and Stephanie is four. Both have blond hair. Stephanie’s is long and curls past her shoulders and often tangled. Steven’s hair is tight military style with a slight cowlick in the front. These are my actual neighbors. Julianne’s husband died on an adventure trip in the hills of West Virginia (offroading, boulder scree). I stole that technique from Nabokov. She’s trying to keep it together. Steven is on the spectrum. Some nights I hear them through the too thin walls screaming and crying over homework. He tries hard. She tries hard too. On Tuesday’s we have tacos, and she and I drink wine late in to the night. I want to ask her about Stephanie – does she ever feel forgotten, left out, unattended to? Steven is such a handful. They have a rabbit named Hugo. He’s white with brown splotches in the shape of an artist’s palette. He only has two splotches. The larger one curves over his right hind leg and when he hops it reminds me of the swift clouds of a time-lapse video. Hugo peed in my lap the first time I held him. I can’t tell if the kids like me. I try to help out when I can. Julianne, like so many of us, is barely treading water. She works at Club One Casino down in Fresno.
It is Tuesday and the cat really did paw me awake at 5am. I’m heading east in to the Sierras for the day – maybe two. Julianne will check in on Nick if I need her to. He’s a fat, blind, and pre-diabetic black and white love bug. He’s been with me for a little over ten years. Whenever I leave I either tell him to be good, or don’t throw any parties, or guard the castle. I’m not sure he’s ever done any of those things. He’s usually sleeping on a throw blanket when I come home. I try not to leave him too often or for too long. He’s been a trooper following me on my adventures from place to place. We once had a more rooted lifestyle. I’ve learned all he needs is a comfy sofa, a little sunlight, and regular feedings. I sometimes try to model my life after his – cat simplicity.
I turn the lock on the door, re-shoulder my small pack with the boots dangling from the side. Wallet, cell phone, keys. It’s that 6 am cool of spring type of morning. The sun is out and there’s a light dew over everything. When I look close enough I can see beads of water clinging to the tops of grass blades. The morning has an unexpected shimmer.