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if nothing else... surely, not for great wealth of peace of mind, or immersing myself in the possibilities of a large, diverse population... this whole "double-life" of migrating long-distance to work has left me with one safety valve: distance. distance from whichever source of upheaval and silent rage has upset the precarious semblance of "normal" or "tolerable" on any given week. distance, to assess from afar the adversaries, the situations, the raw emotions that draw an impenetrable fog over where my feet should go. distance, to think... perchance, to act. but, it's the same distance that throws on the brakes when the impulse to act arises. maybe this is a good thing... especially, this week. i left my home behind under a cloud of ambivalence and apprehension: the stalemate of a marriage, impassionate and reeking of "i-told-you-so"; the so-called "friends" whose sole purpose is the gain of more material and carnal wealth, regardless of its origin, or its victims; the absence of dreams and purpose. well, i must be dreaming something. upon waking this morning, in my other "home", the sheets were twisted and uprooted as if there was a life-or-death struggle in linen. yet, there is no clue as to the mental warfare. must have been mythical. instead, what comes to mind is an interesting bit of coincidence from Sunday, a circumstance that i considered writing about, last night. that afternoon, i was rooting around the yard, doing some mundane chores for my mother, just finished with a session with the oxygen tank. rounding the corner of the bungalow, i managed to dislodge a cinderblock that was binding the garden hose: beneath, coiled loosely, a surprised little snake... if snakes van be surprised, of course. just a small ring snake: dull, photo-grey body, shiny black scales assembled to form its head (no larger than my little fingernail), the only colour, at the neck... a butter-yellow choker. we observed each other for a few minutes: me, studying his conformation; "he", imperceptibly rippling his coils, "sniffing" with his tongue... probably looking for an exit. and then, we went separate ways. no sooner had i returned home, Yoko approached the car... and told me she had just watched a snake skitter across the base of the steps... before i'd had the chance to relate my little encounter. described exactly as my friend from just a short time earlier, just five miles between the two experiences. now, i know that this was not a hitchhiker... but, with encounters with scaly things rare, and the same species, as well... there must be some kind of surreptitious message here. and, since i've been sensing a philosophical snake for days, i doesn't take a Freud to figure this one out. but that time, the distance was lots shorter. |
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