october second twenty twenty four
Today is an annular eclipse. I am reminded of when I saw the totality in April. I had been waiting for that day for my entire life. I went back to see if I could pull up the observation journal from that day but I started keeping these logs on April 11th. I am incredibly shocked that I didn't write retrospectively. I am learning that my memory and mind might not be all it's cracked up to be (and boy that thing's cracked up.) Writing about it now feels inauthentic, since so much time has passed, but I'm going to do it anyways for today's (10.2) entry. It is a very lovely memory.
10.2.24
The total solar eclipse was one of the coolest things I had ever seen in my life. I had known about this occurrence since I was a small child. There was a Land Before Time movie where they go to see the eclipse. In the extra content on the DVD, it included educational bits on eclipses. The first one I would be able to see in Totality would be in 2024. I remember thinking that was so unbelievably far away, I hoped I'd remember to go see it. I did.
Leading up to the eclipse I had drafted at least a dozen different locations, plans for the day before and after, routes for driving, ideas for food, etc. I think we were gonna try boondocking somewhere in Rangeley, but it snowed a couple days before the eclipse and I decided against it. We went to northern New Hampshire instead, drove up through Grafton Notch. We got breakfast at a new cafe in Bethel. I see two people I used to work with here. One doesn't recognize me, the other recognizes me but doesn't want to talk to me. Me and Neale eat bagel and a ham and cheese croissant, delicious lattes, and we get some pastries for the day.
We get to New Hampshire and pull over on the side of the road somewhere. I enjoy car rides, being outside, and marveling at the wonders of nature with him, he is my favorite company that I've ever had. I am so grateful that he is here experiencing it with me. I like when he sings to the songs we hear. I like how he looks out of the corner of my eye in the passengers seat. A beautiful image, the clearest in my mind as I write this.
It's only like 10:30 am or so now. There was absolutely no traffic headed in, I remember. We really beat the crowds. We find a place that we think will have an amazing view of the eclipse right between two mountain peaks. We take a nap. As time drags on, we think that maybe actually the mountain will block the view of the eclipse and we find somewhere else to go. (Later, I find pictures of the eclipse at the spot we were at. Should have stayed.)
We end up on the side of another road, between two huge expansive fields on the side of a mountain, by a state park, in Colebrook NH. There are dozens of other cars lined along the sides. This is where we stay.
While the sun begin eclipse the moon, we play with the shadow projections between our fingers, through the holes of a straw hat. It is very very cool. I remember thinking this was one of the coolest parts.
Then totality hits. It is immediate and sudden. I can not accurately describe how this looked. Like sunset, around the whole horizon, and the darkest night sky. The suns corona twinkled in colors I have never seen before or since. It is silent. The world is bathed in weird shimmering rays. When it is over, it is over as soon as it began. Everyone jumps in their cars and drive away. Me and Neale decide to wait around a little, we know we'll be in traffic forever no matter when we go.
We notice someone's abandoned backpack in front of us. We go check it to see if there is maybe an id or something in there so we can find them online before they're too far away. Their backpack is full of like, laptops and wires and someone's daily meds. But nothing identifying them. We leave the backpack there, it is kind of the middle of nowhere and we don't even really know where we might be able to "turn it in".
When we leave, we enter an eternal line of traffic that lasts all the way to the state line. The road is torn up from all the flooding that had happened, and everyone comes to a complete stop as their car hits the dirt, seems to be the hold up.
Somewhere around here, while we are standstill, Neale takes over driving. One of my favorite images is him in the drivers seat. He often holds the steering wheel with the arm closest to me. I love the look of focus on his face. I love his handsome profile, his soft lips and perfect triangle nose. I like his sunglasses and baseball hat. I get to take it in a lot better when he is driving than when I am. The best view I've ever seen.
We are able to get out of the car and get snacks, water, whatever, from the trunk at least twice. Neale drives us all the way home. It ends up taking us like 5 hours, but once we are out of traffic it is smooth sailing. I make him pull over on the side of the road so I can poop, like twenty minutes from home.
I am reminded of my hope and excitement for the future from this day. If only I knew what was coming.
10.1.24
It is cold today. I wait for a blanket in the mail.
"Don't turn into another person just because I said to change your action." - Synecdoche New York (Kaufman, 2008) {i have added a link to watch this movie on internet archive in jays picks}
I am watching this movie on my iPad and Shady sits beside me. Eventually I notice his son Jethro had wandered in too. For a moment I am briefly, although sarcastically, recognizing myself as the Holy Spirit. I wonder how long the Son had been sitting here.
"Jethro!" I call sweetly.
He runs away.
I feel as if the lesson I am never going to learn in this life is when to give up on something that I have committed to. I'm never going to do that, and I don't think I will ever learn to stop fighting until the flags are drawn for me.
I am simply not that person. I'm just built different, with a hand permanently outstretched, unmoving, waiting to be filled. I have now learned how much this hand is able to hold. I am beginning to see what happens once I reach that limit. All I am able to do is increase the capacity I have, but making your hands grow seems asinine...
I am learning that not giving up doesn't mean what I once thought. There is always something that has to be the last. Is this life's greatest joy or pain, to be the last one standing
I am lucky to have ever stood
9.29.24
Today my mom and dad and I went to Mt Washington. I'd never been there before. It was a beautiful, perfect day on the summit. Sunny and warm, mid 60s or so. Wind was about 8MPH which is nothing. My mom and dad had us bring all our winter clothes, because they had been to the summit before. We didn't need them. There were hikers up there who had hiked the mountain with literally nothing but shoes, shorts, and a water bottle. I read in a book I buy at one of the 4 gift shops on the mountain, that the highest warmest temperature recorded here is 72*. The average wind speed is 35 MPH. Turns out we got very lucky today.
Being on the summit of a mountain truly is a feat of humanity. When they were my age, both of my parents were regularly hiking Washington's neighbors. My dad says he never wanted to hike Washington cuz he could drive to the top. Which, like, yeah. I find myself turning fuzzy, thinking about how I am able to accompany my parents to the top of a mountain for likely the last time in their lives (unless we drive to the top of Washington or Cadillac again. but even now, physical ability seemed to impact enjoyment.). I find myself feeling grateful that there is a way for people who would never be able to complete a hike to enjoy the wonders of nature. Standing here with my parents, one of whom now has difficulty with the stairs from the parking lot as if they were the entire mountains they had once conquered, is also a feat of humanity on the complete opposite side of the spectrum.
I am dreaming of being of the physical ability to climb through the different biomes. To enjoy the day crawling up the side of a mountain. I overhear two hikers saying it took them four hours to get to the top. They look like they have hardly cracked a sweat. I watch another guy, from my vantage point of the observation deck, drag himself up the last few hundred feet. He has two walking sticks and is wearing white Nike sneakers. When we leave about an hour later, I see him just entering the plaza.
In the alpine zone, the expansive red ground cover and the tumbling piles of rocks turned green from lichens, appears alien. The mystique is tuned up a notch as the clouds roll through, completely enshrouding the mountaintop, and the view fades to white. I imagine this is what it is like on Mars. Or in Heaven.
Headed down the mountain, the trees appear, tiny windswept balsams that perfume the hills. You can see down into the valleys, the layer closest to us of green dotted with yellow, then warming into rolling shades of red and orange in the valleys.
9.27.24
I'm on my way home from seeing a movie by myself when I watch a comet streak through the sky. It's a real fireball. I've never seen anything quite like it before! At first I think it is a satellite which is still pretty cool, but then as it speeds towards the ground in the horizon I watch it grow a long tail. It gets bigger and brighter and more orange. I'm able to watch it for a pretty significant length of time before it disappears from sight. It looks like maybe it burnt out, but if it landed it was quite large.
9.25.24
I am sitting at Schoodic peninsula today. My mom tells me it is her favorite place in the world. She can't walk too well these days, so I help her find a nice spot at the top of the rocks to sit. She tells me to go to the edge of the water, she knows I want to. "Get going before I hit you with my cane." She says.
As I am sitting here, watching the crashing waves that are my favorite shade of blue, I see the cute little face of a seal poke up above the water. Then, he dives down. I am close enough to see his beautiful spots and the warm sunlight twinkle on his wet sides.
A few minutes later he hops up onto the rock in front of me and the other nature watchers. The waves crash over him and toss him all around. It looks like a lot of fun if you are a seal.
I think of my own seal man. Who I couldn't keep, and who slipped away back into the deep blue. I miss him dearly, every minute of every day.
When I get back to join my mom, she asks me if I was down in a little alcove of rock. I say yeah. She tells me that that is where she and my dad would sit when they would come there. They would get salad from the shaws salad bar, clam chowder from wimpy's, KFC, and a bottle of wine and eat it in the little alcove there.
The room of rock where I sat and watched the seal.
9.23.24
Looked up at the clock thinking I'd go to bed. It was only around 7:30. Pitch Black. Went to bed anyways.
9.22.24
Today I went to a ritual and drum circle at the American Stonehenge. It was very enjoyable and I had a good time. I had heard about it this place many times as a prehistoric site but had never gone, despite that I used to live only half an hour from it.
It was a very nice time. I enjoyed the ritual, it lasted many hours and was very reflective and uplifting. The company was good, too. I always go to these kinda things and just end up hanging out with oldheads the whole time. Whatever. Oldheads tend to make better conversation. The drum circle was great too. I enjoyed this "more" (I use quotation marks because it was more fun and enjoyable but I LIKED the ritual better and it was better for me).
Guess I'm becoming drum circle guy in my unfortunate return to bachelorhood. I had found some old abandoned bongos in my parents house when I returned here. Conditioned the heads, tuned them up, and they play all right now. The sides are cracked up from losing the fight against the head's tension, and they are slightly off kilter from each other but I love them.
I love restoring old neglected objects. They always serve me very well. I think they appreciate being seen, helped, and believed in. I think mainly they appreciate the second chance. I know I would.
I also revived an ancient banjo in the spring. I had known of its presence my whole life as I would often play it like a drum. It was my dad's. Once it entered my possession this spring, I learned his dad had got it at a pawn shop so who knows how old it is. I haven't been able to find any info on this banjo online at all. It was pretty rugged when I got it. No tuner heads, strings, or a bridge. A few of the tension hooks were missing. The head of the banjo itself was all pulled up, and the neck is cracked up its entire length where the truss rod is trying to make a run for it. I quickly learned that banjos are made in a fairly modular way, and most of these things are in fact designed to come off.
9.21.24
Today is cold, like fall. The leaves are red now. I didn't even notice them beginning to change. I go and get plums, peaches, a tomato, and candy crisp apples. I love candy crisps they're my favorite. I couldn't identify them for a while; I would pick them at Spiller Farm in Wells.
I pull over on the side of the road by a little pond and watch the water for a while. It is silent and still.
When I get home I watch some cop show with my mom and dad. It is an episode about some hard willed bad attitude business man who is dying of cancer, and he keeps having hallucinations of the ocean. At the end of the episode it's revealed it's a memory of him and his wife and his son visiting a motel at the beach. I know at the end of my life I will be at a beach. I am so curious to wonder which one it will be. I have a solid guess. I remember the best day of my life.
9.17.24
Tonight me and dad and the animals are home alone. It is incredibly, wonderfully silent. Around 9 we go out to have our individual smokes. Dad sits in the porch. I head to the back yard. The dog, Midnight, follows me. The moon is less bright than last night. It looks lopsided, like fullness had passed already. The "eclipse" is crystal clear. I've seen more orange moons on a regular day.
I sit on the ground beside our last dog, Max's, grave. He passed last year. Me and neale came up to help bury him. I got to see him the day before he passed, I was coming home from ritual market and my mom called me and said I should come see Max. I knew it was his last day. He moved on the next morning after my mom went to work. He was my mom's dog. Midnight is my dad's dog. Midnight is a handful, because he's a puppy. He is trying. It has been very insightful watching my parents rear a puppy. I can obviously see so much of myself in him. His desire to be heard, his desire to play, his desire to be good, his desire to be loved.
jays picks : songs i like right now (CLICK THE WORDS TO LISTEN ON YOUTUBE)
synecdoche (kaufman 2008) - full movie free on internet archive. to beat the devil - kris kristofferson . soldier - destiny's child. old college try - mountain goats