An Opening in the Woods

[This is a set of personal observations - no advice here]



Took a walk around the neighborhood at 12:45 today, returning home around 13:15. Walked south on the street until I got to a drainage ditch. I then walked up the hill, climbing from rock to rock, until I got to one of the streets in the new subdivision on top of Little Mountain. Soon, construction sounds will no longer emanate from the valley and echo off the hill behind us but fall off the hill onto our heads instead.

I walked to the end of the subdivision and hiked through the woods until I arrived at the path down to my house. As I hiked, I stepped over and around trillium. I saw one wild mountain phlox in bloom (Linanthus grandiflorus? Phlox latifolia?). Spring beauty (Claytonia virginica). Redbud (Cercis canadensis). Others my eyes saw but did not register.

Mainly, I was walking off my depression and paying little attention to what I saw, other than as a means to an end, a path to walk to burn off some energy.

I found out this morning that my next-to-last book did not reach the semifinalist stage in an online "breakthrough" novel contest. On top of that, yesterday my current part-time job had inadvertently exposed personal data to strangers, always a concern in this day and age of identity theft.

I live in a suburban area of North America, calling by right of civil ownership an acre of land my own. Therefore, I am undoubtedly dependent on other humans for my existence, the land I own not able to provide full subsistence (lack of natural freshwater source, the main problem).

And right now, I don't like that simple fact.

I want to be left alone for a while but feel obligated to my duties as a part-time (adjunct) instructor, the social experiment of mine that I'm working on, hoping to cure my and my fellow humans' social/economic woes through job volunteering (I'm working at a job that pays less than I'm worth in order to show those who normally see the job as a definition of their worth that job status is a lie we perpetuate to justify our current conditions, especially if we feel a situation is out of our control; anyone can do anything if s/he puts a mind to it and takes control). Thing is, I already see the social experiment is working. How long do I have to volunteer for this job to prove to myself that this sort of thing works for any volunteer? I'm not normally the volunteer type.

My depression gets worse just thinking about the long weeks ahead with nothing Rick-centric to focus on (too bad it's not wurst, because I'm getting a little hungry).

On top of everything else, I'm a guy. The older I get, the more women there are (and I mean real women with curves, not the anorexic waifs that advertising firms employ) who are attractive to me. I made a promise to myself when I got married that I would have no sexual contact with any women for the rest of my life except for my wife. I have kept that promise and will keep that promise until the day I die. Some days that promise is frustrating. But hey, like I said, I'm a guy. Is true monogamy normal? Or is monogamy, how do I say it...idyllic? Something we believe should be followed but really only practiced by the timid or risk averse? How many times have we read or seen someone say, "It's not what it looks like"? In other words, it really is only lust (or even shared autoerotica) and has nothing to do with monogamous love. Can we fall in love with love (seduce and hypnotize ourselves) and never know the difference? Time to meditate on a thought: Keep your mind on the things you want and/or can have, and not on things you don't want and/or can't have.*

[*Ode to my sales training techniques from my days with the Southwestern Book Company in the summer of 1983]

I'm a human being, through and through, no substitute or artificial parts added. I'm subject to my chemical makeup. Emotions. Cancer. Arthritis. Tinnitus. I deteriorate, therefore I am. Depression describes my emotional state today. Nothing more. I'm sure I'll feel different tomorrow.

Too bad today is St. Patrick's Day and I have to teach from 18:00 to 22:20. I could have drowned my sorrows. Maybe tomorrow. That seems like a pretty good idea to me.*

[*Ode to Wall of Voodoo's "Tomorrow"]