Uphill Staircase Easement from Winter
I’ve never been a January man. The slog through the dog days of this season is for another kind. I’m from California. We do facelifts, tennis and brunch on the rear sundeck.
My week in Arizona cheered my seasonal affective disorder for a week. I’m back here in this paltry excuse for a sunny day. “Get over it…” I’ve tried. My mother said I was incurable.
Much of my living has been made hustling in outdoor venues. When it rains I’m not working. When it blows I’m done. When its cold nobody will stick around. Lousy weather will land this hapless rogue on ropes of the penniless poorhouse of busking fame.
It isn’t so much seasonal affective disorder as rational fungible illiquidity dis-ease. Of course by now I’ve piled together enough symbolic firewood to make my way to one more spring time or three or four. The mood is more habit I can’t quite convince myself to break.
I vanquish the demon moods with joke writing, juggling workouts and leisurely hours idled away perusing possible June routing options. Los Angeles to Albuquerque. Rendezvous with wife and slow roll north through Colorado’s high country. Fort Collins for street shows, Thermopolis for hot springing, Lethbridge of necessity and Edmonton because I want to.
By the time June is here I will be in full denial about the rot gut bottom days of January. I’ll be out in a field singing with the other birds of play. Fingering me for winter gloom by then is like trying to land a punch against Muhammad Ali. It’s all floating, butterflies and bees by then.
Walking with the Dead of Winter
My hands are cold. The leafless trees mock me, long underwear and a brisk sail across the bay is meted out as recreational punishment. There is in this corner of my own making. There is no sympathy, no compassion, no shoulder to lean on. Suck it up, this is that famous now you’ve heard so much about, this is earth in all her splendor. Get up off your sorry ass and dance…
Takes One to Know One…
I think I’ll curl up under a blanket and read a book, sip tea wait for dusk and pine for longer days. I only wish others could understand. None of you will. I know. This is seasonal affective solitude. I am left to reckon with this phantom icy demon alone. It is my curse to have been born in California. Only the price of real estate evokes even a glimmer of understanding. This other matter is all nonsense. I know. I will resume my silence now.
