2001-01-05 - 22:24 MST

January 5, 2001

Slogging

One foot in front of the other, in the sticking, gluey mud, with rain in the face and a cold breeze filtering down my neck, my rain clothes are leaking and damp and my shoes a sodden mess. I had no breakfast, will have nothing for lunch but all the water I can drink, supper is lost in the future.

How many years ago was that fishing trip of misery ? Must be about 40 years ago, but the memory rides me monkeylike on my back. When ever I get sick and am miserable, that fishing trip re-enters my mind and leads me to think, "Yeah, I'm miserable, but not as much as I was on that long ago fishing trip. No distance separates me from home,medicine, warmth, coffee and food. Plenty of comforters, Heather here to spoil me again and the clinic five minutes away if I worsen.

That fishing trip and one of the times I stupidly ran away from home and spent the biggest part of a cold, cold night riding through the mountains in a open coal gondola, lurching from one side to the other and sometimes catching myself just before crashing headfirst into the side, now help me moan in the comfort of my home knowing that recovery is not far away.

Of course the tradeoff is that sense of wild, free, footloose exploration of the world I had when I was younger. You know, the time when I was young enough to think that it was only other people who got hurt, sick or died -- sure in my egotistical id (short for idiot) that I would never suffer any of those things. Now I live in the surety of the care of my family, the help given when asked for, the tender care of Heather, knowing full well that my life will come to an end someday. I will live as much of a life as I can and get as much enjoyment from it as is possible.

Oh, but I yearn for that unconquerable pizzazz of bubbling youth, the fizz in the bloodstream, but knowing that it is something in the past not to be regained except in beautiful memories blurred with occasions like the fishing trip where all I could do was stay out of puddles, hunch into my wet clothes and in my wet shoes, keep Slogging . . . .

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