I go days without really giving a shit about much.
I eat my face off and read my books, go to my little job and rake leaves or pull up old carpet. I sit behind my little girl on the floor as she dances around in front of the television and I stare at her and hold her in my eyes. I'll put the dogs in the back of the Honda and take them to the place where we walk. I throw tennis balls we find in the bushes until we lose them again, in other bushes.
At night, I flop down on my bed when the house is still and quiet and before long I can't hold my eyelids up anymore.
Weeks go by for me when I don't let the past in. Any drips of nostalgia that leak out of the ether, I blow them off my skin like knats. People I knew before, I bury them in chunks of rubble, in piles of yesterday, so that only their dusted hands and feet stick out here and there. And those could be anybody's. All the good times I had in the band, I shove them off. Because inevitably, nights out in Spanish bars or afternoons spent laughing out loud in vans ripping down lost highways, sooner or later they lead to faces and names and so many of those are tainted for me. It was a fun life to be sure, but it was a castle of dreams too. A castle often ripped down by things ending badly. Pride plays a part, I guess. And hurt. We're only human, I tell myself, and we have to forgive and forget and blah blah blah. Still, most of the faces: they walk into my head, stroll up behind my eyes and smile one of their old smiles, and before you know it: I got the grenade in one hand and the pin in the other. Adios, amigo. Again, I guess.
My blues come on like a lot of people's probably. Slow. Like cars poking around Christmas lots, far from the store doors, just looking for any damn spot they can find. Eventually they find one and park and that's when I have to just deal with it all. And I'm not complaining and if you think I am, well, you can kiss my ass. I eat my Zolofts and plow through my days and try and be the best dad I can be without ever dangling my blues in front of her. But there are times when I wonder whether she can tell. People smell other people's burdens sometimes. And little kids: I get the feeling they are sniffing stuff out long before they could dream of explaining it to you. It's just a vibe; a couple pink or grey clouds rolling slow across the living room ceiling.
And, I know this much too. Kids love you so much, just like you love them. And if they could slice off a fat wad of your blues and just deal with it themselves, I bet they would. But, it isn't that simple really.
Time fucks with you like nothing else. Good wise people all over the place surprise us when they show up with new obvious sheens on their skin. Noses get rearranged on purpose. Grown men go out to bars wearing Ed Hardy shirts, believing they have found some little secret on slowing time down, if only for a couple of hours. But its all useless. Inside of you, clocks are ticking and they don't care about your hide or your outfits. You're just an hourglass marching around, wondering if people like how you look. You're just doing your best, I guess, finding your own little ways to deal with your own little blues.
Me, I haven't done any surgeries yet. And I own less clothes now than I ever have in my life. If you were to watch me from behind trees for a week or so, you'd wonder to yourself why this guy never changes out of his tattered work pants. And that's a fair question. I think it's because I've been battling my blues with some sort of Peasant Power for awhile. I figured maybe less was more. I started reading about North Korea a lot, trying to see how people there got through their days. They must know blues, you know? But I don't find all that much. It seems like no matter how bad it gets you either clench your teeth and plow on or you don't. The conditions change drastically, but the mantras don't.
Satisfaction comes back. It always does with me. And I guess that makes me lucky, because for some people I think it doesn't. It comes back for me probably because I chase away everything that could possibly keep it from bolting out of the dark woods at some point. Old faces, old times. The here and now. Everything but the push, the forward momentum, I bitch slap them away from me.
The sun comes out and I find stuff to get high on. Jelly cheeks. Little trout. Something I was able to write or something some stranger wrote to me. My wife's fat belly and the boy cooking in there. I take a shot of that and before I know it I'm getting off on something good, something ancient and strong. Tomorrows. Tons of them, lined up like an endless ranch fence, only disappearing over some slight rise so far off across the windy barren fields that you don't even have to worry about way out there for a long long time.
This isn't advice from me. I don't have any. And I ain't looking for any either. Maybe you don't have much blues. Good lookin' out.
I'm just writing shit down that's way too long to put up on stupid Facebook.
Later.