Sunday nite: I notice the sun lingering at 
dusk—those shorter nights are coming... 
but for now I'll take what I can get...
I'm desperate for a steady companion.
Later: waking up remembering a dream
about living in this state of pure bliss—
but I can only achieve it if I leave everyone
& everything I know—
I'd exist beyond the milky way galaxy 
somewhere & would never be able 
to return... there I'd be with dusk spirits—
& together we'd wait forever.

I'm looking at some picture of a Van Gogh 
painting—it's of trees blowing into the wind at 
night—it looks violent to me...fast curves & 
scratches over & over...making sense of 
movement on the page. It reminds me of 
this area later on in the yr—when the sky is 
grey & clouds will keep the sun away...
I remember when I was in my room 
growing up feeling cold—or when I would
camp out by the window looking out the 
front yard before bed trying hard to sketch 
out the trees over over over & over again...
sometimes with color & sometimes not. 
When it was nice out I'd go up to the lake 
& try to draw up there too. I thought about 
all of the insects & worlds hidden in fields 
near me...how I would never know how 
many ecosystems were here breathing 
together all at once—I would lay into some 
of the grass & flowers by the bluffs hoping
I didn't destroy any (but knew I probably did) 
& just listen to the action on the water
pretending I was a pioneer or something.

Dream memory from Puget Sound: some 
western red cedar that I drive to early in the 
morning...the dirt road circles around this 
gigantic tree—early light from the canopy
pinholes through in dusted rainbows. 
Tonite is when you will suffer I tell myself—
to cry & if youre lucky realize that every 
tiny dream of the soul will wrap tightly 
around you if you ever need comfort—like 
a song when youre tired & dont want to think 
anymore... you will dissolve into something 
that isnt & forget why there was ever pain.

I've never had memories about past lives but 
I'm here for it. I like the idea of being some 
sort of energy perceiving cycles and hustling
my way thru time. 
Maybe I was the saltine air felt on a sea journey 
when the sea was young. 
It breaks my heart that we can’t see the cosmic 
machinery working all the time.

Lately I've been looking at images of tent
packs, poles, flags, oxygen masks, ropes, 
beer cans and other shit frozen with human 
remains at the highest camp on Mt. Everest. 
But we are the seeking type. It's hard to think
that when I die, or when you die for that 
matter, we still won't have any answers— 
except for somehow knowing that before
the water there was no chaos.

It's been about ten years since I've hiked up to 
Algonquin Peak, so I made it a goal to head out that 
way this summer. I was working my way up to the 
summit last week I had a weird thought just after 
my first break for water and something to eat. I 
wondered how the mountain was doing and wanted 
to get caught up after this long period of absence. 
This ancient earth breathing in slowly for billions
and billions of years must surely want to know
what I've been up to—or probably best to keep 
moving. The hike was long but it's always comforting 
when you find yourself entering into a new zone 
with wild bird sounds and the softness of moss on 
ledges. You pause to breathe in with all this alien 
alpine consciousness and she whispers to shut up 
and just move... and so you do. At the summit there 
was rain water in natural basins molded from elder 
rock and in the dark, seemingly fathomless pools I 
imagined the types of creatures lurking at the 
bottom defying the architecture of this existence. 
I felt both very full and very empty at the top.

On long rides into the mountains I watch the 
wires on telephone poles move with my 
breathing. Still above, thousands of birds in 
unison overlay the heavens in one shared 
thought. I try to remember those things
when there's absence.

To feel footsteps and the rain and
the story within a story of insects 
and all seasons and so many thousands 
of deaths collapsing into eons again and 
again until you dissolve into golden pollen 
or maybe music. To be at the end of 
memory with the dying sun hiding behind
wreckage and the curves of mountains. 
Being part of it.

I don't like thinking about those who will abandon
me or those who will forget me but I suppose that 
all has to play out in a lifetime. A little over a decade 
ago I had shingles which surprised everyone 
including me considering I was only in my early 
thirties. Afterwards for about a month every time
I entered a grocery store it was a sensory nightmare.
The familiar became the uncanny and I felt forsaken 
and lost in my own nervous system. Only recently 
I started to think that it's really a miracle that we 
can experience anything at all. When the trail feels
serpentine it's important to remember the perfect
pattern. The other day I spotted raspberries growing 
in a far field and wondered which animals would 
come through to eat them first. 

Move forward—it’s your responsibility to feel your 
way through uncanny territory. I was outside last 
night with the humidity gripping tightly around 
my skin and looking up at fast moving clouds. 
It created a nice breeze, and I hoped a rainstorm
would wash away the muck and cool things off. 
I couldn't recall the last time I was able to just lay
like that looking at the sky and letting my mind
wander. It felt like it would be something healthy 
to continue if I remembered to give myself 
that space. I noticed some stars trying to come out 
after that and other blinking colors just past a thin 
layer of clouds spreading outwards and then 
separating. It's always felt like there's a sense of 
history up there. I played around with the idea that
it's a history made up of first-hand accounts 
from voyagers with names not yet known to us. 
Maybe we don't have the language or open 
tunings for that sort of thing yet... and there's 
something satisfying about trying to project a 
little more order onto the cosmos. The storm 
came in and it was brief—I made sure to get out 
of there before I was rained on. Afterwards, the 
sun went down with its grapefruit colors and 
seemed to then tuck itself under the lake. 
There’s enough out there to keep us curious. 

Sunday night: there is melancholy in the way the 
sound of rain from inside the house makes you 
pause and sigh. I like this kind of night when I 
don't need to be anywhere the next day and the 
dog is asleep. I'm not making plans.

In the pre-dawn darkness
there was a breeze on my sweaty skin
that was comforting like the beginning of October.
It feels like a foolish life to spend time dreaming 
when the guides we seek are mysterious but reveal 
themselves in beautiful moments like this.

Lie. Especially when there is a terrible undercurrent 
in the mind. Especially when you're not yet what 
you want to become. Especially when the memory 
years break you down. I wonder if long ago people 
recalled the smell of spring late into the year and if 
it made them restless with thought. 

The other night I had the windows open and I 
thought I could catch the smell of forest fires up 
in Canada. Last June it smelled like burning plastic 
for a few weeks and other times it smelled like 
waking up on the last day of camping. 
Maybe there's some wild old god up there 
burning memories for fun I thought.
The sunrise the next day felt unnatural. 

My old brain is a relic in an old world on the 
verge of collapse. But there are all sorts of 
wildflowers growing now in the fields and hills 
up by the lake. It's morning after a heavy 
windstorm and in the woods a few trees were 
split and collapsed on the trail. I forgot what it 
was like to be at the mercy of this immensity 
and I think somewhere locked in our old brains 
we recall the very oldest storms and creature howls. 
It was on this trail I also thought about the future 
curses that await me. Those people and animals 
I will know and lose. This suddenly seemed so 
unfair to me and I wondered if there was any way 
I could declare mutiny on the whole shitty deal. 
To my left, Lake Ontario came on in a wash of 
blues and allege greens. There was heavy wind still. 
Time to turn back. Whenever I'm driving and I see 
people cycling, running, or walking their dog I 
silently wish them well. It's an easy habit to form.
It scratches an itch in my old brain. 

There's a satisfaction I find in wandering into 
dreamy corridors not meant for me yet—of 
glimpsing a future memory. I'm content 
because I know I'll be there and somehow 
it will all work out. But there's plenty to not 
understand. I foolishly try to make sense of 
cosmic order the best I can. I'm putting the 
work in—but creation is unfolding too fast 
and I don't even know what I'm looking for. 
Instead I put out some water for a raccoon 
that's been hanging out in a tree above my car 
for about a month. It's a hot day. It splays 
itself across a cool elder branch and watches 
me come and go. This tree feels special 
anyway. In the winter an eastern screech owl 
took up residency in its hollow. Sometimes I 
could make eye contact with its yellow resting 
orbs during those cold days. I wonder where it 
went for summer. It's been a hot day, like I said. 
Later tonight, I'll take comfort knowing that 
animals are seeking dreams too.

Because I've missed myself lately I decided to 
forget this hoax and go to the mountains. 
I was in no hurry and took the steeper trails. 
A few miles in and I was too aware of my 
climbing feet and my lungs sucking in air.
Maybe it's the humidity I tried to reason. 
It's easy to think of your limitations at times 
like that. Still, it put a damper on the day.
I tried to reason again and thought of how 
many times this has been played out. 
We all want to know the memories of floating 
worlds. We all want to be wiser at the end 
of the day. You'll miss yourself less.

You wouldn't think it if you knew me but
sometimes I get a warm feeling when I find
moments of pattern recognition in my life. 
It's stupid I know. Yesterday I read the word
virtue and moments later heard the word vice
and suddenly the universe collapsed. A secret
whisper in my ear from the gods. I had to 
study the combination of words in relation 
to the junk that cycles its way through my
sense of self for the rest of the night. It's 
similar to dream interpretation. Some sort
of ancient masturbatory crime we commit 
for solace and that warm feeling. Sometimes
I think of a musician that makes an error on
stage—say a wrong note—and tenses up. Of
course the audience never notices a thing. 
They're too entranced and it wouldn't matter
anyway. It's the worst and best night of the 
week all happening at once. There's virtue 
and vice in every song. There's tension and
release in the grooves we tread. It's quiet. 

I used to barbecue and smoke meats a lot more
than I do now. I was obsessed with it for a long
time but got it out of my system I think. I was 
talking to someone today about when to use 
cherrywood and how hickory is pretty universal. 
Then I told him about passing out on the couch 
plenty of times only to wake and open the egg to
deliver a burnt dark eerie thing. What a mess. 
But that got me thinking—I don't think I'd be of 
particular use when we start to re-emerge out of 
some inevitable calamity that will someday destroy
us all... assuming I'd be lucky enough to survive. 
I can't farm or hunt or anything like that so don't
think I'd be around for too long... I'm sure everyone
thinks about that once or twice a year—if not I don't
really want to talk to you anyway. I'm probably just 
jealous that you're good with tools or won't burn the 
food. Maybe I could gather wood or something. This
morning I wondered why beautiful surfaces break 
and you sink into something darker. I wondered 
about this temporary interruption to come that has
already been performed so perfectly before.

I keep thinking maybe I'll get into gardening
when I'm older. I could spend most of the day
without speaking to anyone except plants—
that’d be nice. I'm not sure what I would grow 
but the idea of getting my hands inside of the 
living earth would be satisfying I think. I hope
it's not a lifetime spent with fears that present
themselves first thing in the morning. Lately I
notice that I keep waking up earlier and earlier. 
Lately I notice that my movements seem so 
involuntary. I knock on the wall to ask if I’m
in a dream. I feel the breeze on my arms now 
that it's spring and the windows are open. I 
spent a good amount of time in the shower the
other morning trying to save a spider from a 
pelting of hot water. Yesterday it was in the 
corner of the ceiling circling its cocooned prey.
A perfectly handsome coffin I thought.

This week I've been thinking about long 
drives —the kind you plan ahead for and 
so maybe you take a nap earlier in the day. 
You want to leave after dark and avoid any
heavy traffic. You start off strong enough
and have a supply of road snacks and 
energy drinks to power thru the long night. 
When you start to see the gentle corals of
sunrise ease into your field of vision you 
realize you're fucked. Your body didn't 
plan for this sort of nonsense and then
it hits you just how exhausted you really are. 
And then I get to thinking that maybe 
every sunrise is a creation myth and every 
sunset honors our failures. Drive safely 
out there it gets tricky.

I'd like to think that the heavens are spooked 
from the sweeping sound all around that goes 
anywhere it wants to. I'd like to think that animals 
don't really know what to make of all of our 
racket but put up with it until something 
beautiful is made or we quit.

I'm sure we still have that ancient
automatic urge to escape—maybe
even fly away. When those old creature
feelings show up you'd better watch out.
With you I'd confirm all of my obsessions. 
When my dreams become extinct maybe
they'll be pinned up like some type 
of exotic taxidermy bat hidden in the
oldest part of a museum. Some weird 
human shape with wings and I don't 
think that I'd remember them.