Chrisonomicon

Monday, April 30, 2001

I hike to this spot in the bluffs behind my house ? a new one ? where there is a flat, square stone like a table with no legs. I take Sumo out there, and sit on it and look out into the gullies and trees. The sand falls away from the edge of my seat, into the canyon below. I imagine unloading the violence within me onto the hillside. It tumbles down with the waves of sand and dead leaves. The troubles that are too light to fall get swept away in the strong wind that blows in the opposite direction. They flutter quickly, and get caught in the trees like plastic bags or tissue. Some escape into the red horizon.

Warm air and blooming trees have stirred something within me, making my lonliness terribly apparent. At the same time, I am so content being alone. I don't know what I'm waiting for, and I wonder if I'm deluding myself by waiting at all. Waiting to meet someone, that is. It's been said that you find what you're looking for when you stop looking, but waiting only makes the fact that you're not getting anywhere more obvious. I'm in the same spot I was two years ago. And two years before that.

I keep telling myself that love is as perennial as the grass. I think in the higher altitudes, the grass grows slower.