That Time of Year Again (for ages 18+)

March...what's in a name?* Let's see, 30 days hath September, April, June, and November; 31 days hath the rest, except in February, which has 28. So March has 31 days, right?

[*you can figure out that ode, I'm sure. If not, ask the Bard.]

I'm getting old so I'm repeating myself but the month of March brings back one year in my life that marked a huge step up my mountain of success.

I know you can't read my thoughts so I'll let you know I'm remembering the Dixie Motel on Hwy 25E in 1985. Not just any room but the room I shared with Sarah one weekend.

Sarah. A name that can't be spoken aloud in this house.

I've told you that I attended a community college in Morristown, Tennessee, in 1985. In two quarters, I accumulated enough credit hours to add to my stack of credit hours from other institutes of learning to earn an A.S. degree. But the degree is not important to me (it was important to my family and society, though). Instead, the experiences I accumulated have impacted my life more than any mandatory exposure to packaged learning.

Not only do I remember the Dixie Motel, a place that Sarah took me so we would not be discovered together (although, in fact, she preferred the Hyatt Regency but I convinced her the idea of a seedy hotel fit more into my writing plans), I recall the national park, state parks and city parks of east Tennessee where we would go for our one-to-one gatherings.

[While I write this, an unmarked bucket truck is being operated by a couple of guys with hard hats, presumably to repair/add cable TV lines on a creosote pine pole across the street from my house. For fun, I'll pretend they're installing monitoring equipment for a government agency or private business. It makes all three of our lives interesting writing material later on.]

I don't claim to be a saint. Far from it. Thank goodness, my experiences are mine to call my own. I might have been encouraged to partake of recreational substances but no one forced them down my throat - I chose the peers with whom I shared the times where my desire for new experiences exposed me to unknown chemicals. So be it. In the same sense, I chose to follow a path where my relationship with women led me to a married woman's bed. Not only her bed, but a tent in a campground in the Great Smoky Mountains, at least one motel, the backseats of cars, park benches, various rooms in the house she shared with her husband, various rooms in houses that her husband was building as a general contractor, and just about anywhere Sarah wished.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. It was March where we literally stirred the ashes of a fire into raging heat. The 7th, 8th or 9th of March 1985, to be exact, approximately so, recounted in "Thus Spoke Sarah Through Straw."

Yesterday, I read about the death of a famous moonshiner in east Tennessee. His home address listed him as a resident of Parrottsville. When Sarah and I dated, she lived with her husband and two children in Parrottsville. I used to have one of Sarah's business cards that listed her address at that time. I've lost the card and the memory of the street name. But I'm sure she or her ex-husband knew of the moonshiner. Parrottsville is not that big. It's a short drive from Moonshine or Mason Jar Alley (a/k/a Newport). I'm sure times have changed there but it used to be really small. In fact, it seemed everyone knew I was dating Sarah, except her husband, of course.

I'm teaching students/customers who are now the age I was when I met Sarah. How many of them will flirt and fall in love with each other, recite and write poetry, and eventually have sexual liaisons? I can't believe I'm here now, imagining the possibilities. The circle is complete, I suppose. I have become that which I always wanted to be. The old man with the stories. Just like my philosophy/logic professor at the community college (except for the fact that he tried to seduce Sarah during a camping trip, not realizing that Sarah was trying to seduce me, instead. He was single. I am married and sexually committed to my wife, which changes the circle to a spiral, I guess.).

I have friends who have reached the "empty nest" age, where their hatchlings have fully flexed their wings and flown out of the nest. I never had a nest to fill but I am reaching the end of my first cycle of life at the same time as them. Instead of my kids leaving, though, I am adding someone else's kids to my life out here on a tree branch in the woods, teaching them how to continue the life of a free bird.*

[Obligatory Southern U.S. resident ode to Lynyrd Skynyrd's overplayed song, "Freebird"]

What now?

At lunch today, I met with the startup company and introduced them to a friend of mine who has been involved in more than one startup and thus has accumulated his 10,000 hours of startup experience. I asked him to speak to the startup team so they would know what to expect. I think it was a good learning experience for them. They are interested in adding my friend to their advisory board, with possible investment later on, after he's satisfied that the business plan is solidified. Next, I've got to get a sales/marketing person and legal counsel involved to complete their inner circle of business savvy.

What about me? What do I want next? At one time, I imagined I would be an older professor who would have a tryst with a student. Now that I'm that older professor, I'm not so sure. The generation gap is worse than I imagined. The interest in sexual experimentation is not strong enough to overcome the sexual barrier/promise I placed on my one-marriage-per-lifetime deal or the additional burden of a generation gap to deal with. I don't want a complicated life anymore (although I certainly keep finding business ways to complicate it a little, don't I?).

I'm back to the thoughts of the character who wants to live the life of an old hermit. Is it just a character for my next book or is it really me? I'm tired of conflict and doubt I'll write another novel so I don't need any new experiences to weave into a made-up storyline with love interests, conflicts and resolutions.

I don't have kids. I don't have a family to take care of. My life is complete. How do I walk this Earth taking only what I need for the rest of my days? A writer lives with the characters in his/her head, watching potential plots play out and then writing them down. I have to sort out where in all my characters resides me. Or if there ever was a me to begin with.

Until then, I wait and meditate. After all, what's the hurry? It's not like I have some place I have to go.