Uphill, with Horseflies
I've been living out of a suitcase. A couple of tank tops and a pair of underpants before I reach the bottom. After that, I'm not sure. I may repack and start over. Did I mention the suitcase is in my closet?
I went to visit an old friend and didn't want to leave. Or maybe I didn't want to come home. Did I say that? The point is, the suitcase allows me the illusion of still being gone. Away. Elsewhere. My friend and I drank wine and told secrets and conjured a few ghosts, and the next thing I knew, it was tomorrow. Who was it said tomorrow never comes? What a line. It always does.
Just before my little roadtrip (from which I haven't yet returned), we were visited by a Big Wind. I'm talking huge. Tropical-storm strength. It toppled trees and blew cars off the road and downed power lines and generally wreaked havoc. I've always thought of the wind as a presence, some sort of sentient being, and not a particularly benevolent one. I've been known to punch the air and start hollering at it. So when this Big Wind of several weeks ago finally blew town (so to speak), it felt like the entire northern half of the state had been the victims of an enormous home-invasion.
"Who was that?" I kept muttering to myself as I readjusted my wig. "Who the hell was that?"
Not missing a beat, my daughter, a veteran eavesdropper, answered,
"God."
Which, in spite of her being raised in a godless pagan family, was the accepted reply. Like saying Fine when somebody asks How are you?, instead of I'm fucking hungover, what's it to you?
The point is, because of God, I missed a day of running. So, taking my cue from the wind, I blew town.
I'm a running addict. And when I'm training for some road race (in this case, the annual July five-miler down on The Shore), I'm obsessed. I can run when it's 80-above or 10-below. I can run in the rain, the sleet, the ice, the snow. I can run when it's dark. In the woods. On the beach. Between headstones. I have dreams of running. I could probably run while asleep. Possibly in a coma. I can run uphill in the midday sun in the dead of summer along Highway 61 with 18-wheelers streaking past less than 36 inches from my elbow and a squadron of horseflies attacking.
Which is to explain just how big God was that day, the Day of No Running. Hardcore as I am, I couldn't do it. God won. Which is what God always does, right? Wins. And who needs it? I mean, life is hard enough without Something Greater than Oneself always having the last word. Like librarians, or Dick Cheney.
But now God's history, and so is my little roadtrip, and this week we have The Heatwave. Not to worry, I know how to run in the heat. What concerns me is those two tank tops. I'll go through them by this afternoon, and then what? I'll be unpacked. Back in the present tense. And I'll have a decision to make...whether to hold onto the illusion of being gone, or bite the bullet and return. I mean, how long can one hold onto an illusion? Until there's no more clean underwear? Until the Fundamentalists stage a coup and reinstate prohibition? Until an act of God?
I know exactly how long. Until tomorrow. Which, if history is any indication, will surely come.
posted by six spruce @ 7:35 AM
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