What the Mind Does in the Heat and Night

It is a fucking sauna on my front porch. But a cigar, drink, and New Yorker make it enjoyable. It is like Augusta, GA out here. Sometimes the feel of home is like the feel of home.

My thoughts are scattered more so than usual tonight. My hand-crafted soundtrack slides perfectly too loud through the front door—Van Morrison, Jack Johnson, Lyle Lovett, and a double dose of Tom Waits. I will see Tom in Louisville in about two weeks and I am as excited as a schoolgirl.

My mind is back to running rabbits, returning me to my surreal sense of normalcy. I am here, there, and back again… My only nephew was in a horrific car wreck last week and by the Grace of someone’s God, he escaped largely unscathed. I cannot quite process it yet without filling with emotion. The boy (actually a man), is my sister’s Emerson. And because I am close to my sister, I have absorbed some of her horror and made it my own. What if my son had such a close call? My being shuts down at the obscene possibility.

And I am traversing this mapless terrain of thought and find myself thinking about Lost in Translation. And how utterly wonderful that film is. How Tokyo is overload to the senses. How it is neon enlightenment—at once terrifying and calming. How I once paid $9 for a can of Coors there. How I heard Don McLean’s American Pie six times in a row in a bar beneath the city. How one way I will be able to write about my time in Tokyo.

I’m thinking of my friends, K & P. That they will have a new baby boy before July is done. How exciting and scary a new baby is. And how lucky that baby is about to be.

I’m thinking about my ramshackle, neglected house and my limping Jeep.

I’m thinking about the instability of my job.

And I’m thinking of driving to Evansville this weekend. Of swimming and sunning and fishing. Of making sure my sister’s son is really okay.

I marvel at how good I am at being alone. How much I enjoy it. How I prefer it. How liberating it is. And how odd that might seem to the casual observer.

I’m thinking—inexplicably—of Holden Caulfield. His inability to progress. His eerily understandable curse of being tethered to all things static. My unattractive ability to relate.

I smile at having introduced a learned friend to E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime. And how Doctorow’s writing is a revelation.

I’m thinking of shooting stars and where they go when they are finished.

I’m thinking of people I may have hurt to this point—and whether I am as innocent in that as I believe myself to be.

I’m thinking about my friend at Emory who has leukemia and a boy the same age as my own.

I’m thinking about the booze and cigar runs I need to make tomorrow and which credit cards are not maxed out.

I’m thinking about the too young girl I saw at work today with bad posture and brown eyes the size of saucers. How her eyes were vacant and all-knowing.

And I’m thinking of Emerson at his mother’s tonight. About whether he will call in tears at 3:30a, homesick and ready to come home as he has done the past two times.

I’m thinking it is troublesome to thrive on (and yearn for) this solitude, this aloneness and yet love women as I do. I want them and I want to be as far from them as possible. And I realize this is hardly new or unique. But the contradiction fascinates me.

I’m thinking I should be on the beach in Naples, Florida and fishing in Islamorada and drinking in Key West.

And I wonder if the pressure in my chest is anxiety or a heart ready to explode. Are the ocular migraines the result of having seen too much or a precursor to stroke? Is hypochondriasis quantifiable?

So much thinking. Too many questions.



And so the drinks are winding down. The second cigar is a memory. And the rabbits are slowing. It’s time to turn off my mind for the night and look for sleep.

If only I could find the fucking remote.