Independence Day 2012

A part of everything is here in me. So sings John Denver as I hurtle eastward in my trusty steel steed this Independence Day. The mugginess of the midwest's fertile green-ness reawakens visceral memories. Minnesota and Wisconsin are the first places that I knew. The latter being my hometwon through my early teens.

Progress has been steady, at times harrowing in the world destroying crucible that my insides have become. My progress forward is dependent entirely upon my fixation on the promise that each yard I move away from the life that I have been living grants me another small respite from my sorrows, a pardon, if you will, a pardon designed to absolve me of self-blame, of anger towards the unkind deeds of my last love, and ultimately, I suppose, the gargantuan helpings of self-hatred that I've managed to continue to pile onto my platter in this cartoonish, carte blanch smorgasbord that we name life.

This sprint across the better part of a continent is the manifestation on the physical plane of my fairly desperate need to break out of the prison that I have spent my lifetime crafting. So proudly crafting. What's the phrase, the intellectual who is proud of his mind is no different than the prisoner who is proud of his cell. Sure I can talk a mean talk about the rationalizations for how I got here. I can use big words to do it as well. But in the end the soul knows its own unhappiness and decay and no polysyllabic litany is going to do more than cleverly gild the totally corroded emotional constructs below.

I'm sitting in a collapsible camping chair on the concrete walk in front of my mother and step-fathers' house in Milwaukee. We three observed a fine civic display of fireworks from the parking lot of the small Catholic school across the street. We had a drink and talked and now it's just me here cogitating, recording, expressing. I'm sort of counting on the therapeutic power of this process to aide me in my search ofr clarity. What's that sublime phrase from the English author E.M. Forster, "How can I know what I think until I hear what I say?' Ergo I'll continue.

It's still 86 degrees at 12:15. Thankfully there is a breeze. The upper nineties that I drove through today was tough. It was tough especially on Cherie, that's my bus. Being air cooled, she sucks in blast furnace temperatures off of the asphalt and attempts to stay cool enough to not break while I try to draft off of the big rigs in order to ease her workload. Good girl, I say, patting the dashboard. We can rest tonight.

The humidity here is outstandingly present. I showered shortly after I got here and as I began drying off I realized that I was sweating profusely and couldn't qwuite manage to achieve any state of dryness. That kind of heat and humidity, yep. I've certainly experienced much less discomfort in, say, New Orleans at this same time of year. Unseasonable they said.

Now a few minutes later I'm laying in an air conditioned bedroom preparing for rest and wondering again about this place I've taken myself to (the metaphor place, not Milwaukee!). Obviously my choice to bleed myself dry in a seven year attempt to 'make it work' was probably seven years too much. I'm one of those people who presupposes that we all know precisely what is going on with everyone else yet we mostly all go through the motions of acting as though we don't. Call it collectively agreed upon protocols, customs. Call it convention.

Example? Well, as Ram Dass has been wont to explain, there's this gal who has a history of being with the wrong guy, read as domestically violent. She goes to a party and is drawn to one of these same types. Across his forehead is quite clearly written, "I will screw you over. Count on it." And looking at him she says, "Golly you have the most amazing eyes.'

Call me that girl. Why is that a pattern for me? What is that pattern? I can save you. I'm that guy for you. You will change your blind spots because I am that good. Yeah, sure. Sure I am. Just ask her.