Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Barn Door Open

Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.
-William Techumseh Sherman, 1870

It's too late for me to get into this. I am far too worn and haggard from weeks-on-end of putting someone else's well-being before my own. I'm not bitching. I know what I signed up for, and the pay ain't half bad.

I'm bushed, however, and barely alive as I hit the pillow. But there's this thing that keeps me from my dreams of Sweet Colleen in her chocolate bikini.
It's this ... uncertainty ... (but we will never call it that) that appears behind shuttered eyes. A reluctant, but compulsive, fingering of the internal GPS for the coordinates as to where I am, relative to the rest of the world. As if it mattered. One guy. In the whole universe.

But tonight we'll start in Singapore and move northeast, over a thousand Phillipine isles and out across the wide, blue Pacific. The globe spins past ten thousand cultures and ten thousand tongues, yet here I am above it all, moving. Moving. A billion lives past beneath my wings and yet I am focused on one Place, the Place that I am. And soon enough, I have found me. I'm right the fuck here, of course. But the World has come to find me.

And then I have to decide whether it matters at all where I stand together, or whether I stand alone.

And in the meantime I pray for sleep.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand!
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.

"I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown." --
Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
This body dropt not down.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
------
Keep the faith, spd.

-Don whathisname

KJ said...

You had me a chocolate bikini.

camojack said...

Rough day?!

spd rdr said...

Okay, Snips, how do YOU fall asleep? How do YOU turn it all off or distract yourself long enough to slumber? Yeah yeah type A type B yada yada yada. ButI think this might make for a pretty decent discussion. If, of course, I can stay awake.

spd rdr said...

And by the way, Don whathisname is the first inductee to the Heigh-ho Hall of Fame.

Coleridge???? My God,Coleridge???? On my blog?

I'd kiss you, Don, if it wasn't so icky.

Anonymous said...

I stay up surfing the 'net for hours on end, until my bleary eyes can no longer stay open, then crawl into bed.
Then go back, Jack, and do it again..

That, or play Halo 'till all hours of the night, and that makes me sleepy, too. Damn X-Box is broke now, and my kids are in revolt. :)

Reading the Bible makes me sleepy too. Lately I've been reading Psalms and the Book of Job. Somedays, I feel like Job, ya know?

-Don Brouhaha

Anonymous said...

OK, so now you're doing your best impersonation of Mark Foley? :D

Thanks but no thanks, bud.

-Don Brouhaha

Cassandra said...

You fixed your GPS :)

Welcome back, mr rdr.

camojack said...

Being a third shifter, I've learnt how to sleep when I can...although I know how impossible it can be when one's mind is going a mile a minute.