third quarter recap

Two down. One to go.

Three deep breaths.

I've been twice asked by well-meaning individuals who have encountered my works as to why I am where I am, doing what I am doing. On the third query, the shell cracks...

I remember when I was working selling cars in Mississippi, one of the guys found out I used to be a youth counselor and drug educator in California. He sat me down and said "If you can do something that important, what are doing wasting your life here?"

I had to explain to him my wife wanted to be nearer her Mom.

It tasted wrong, it was true, but it tasted wrong...I had, again and for the last time, placed her desires ahaead of the common good. That was the moment when the marriage began to unravel, not when I peeled the cover off the illusions and found out what was really moving beneath the surface, behind my back. That was all just justification. The outrage helped move me to action, but it was action poured like burning, liquid stone into channels already carved by my awareness of lost time and mistakes unrepented and perhaps unrepentable (is that a word? if not before, it is now...one of the great things about being a poet, you get to coin words)

Yes, I am hiding. From the world, from the challenges. Bruised and bloodied, but resolute, knowing that I will eventually return to the front, but wanting to draw every last bit of healing before I must. For those who think I think myself a messiah, consider Morgantown my Gethsemane. I have no delusions or illusions of such, but, people are more comfortable with their perceptions than reality. There is comfort in the tapestries we ourselves weave, even if they are flawed.

Health is good...getting another doctor to tell me it will take kryptonite to kill me is always revitalizing. Having college-age women guesses my age at 35 is a pleasant thing. Having three books and fantastic reviews under my belt from this year, no complaints.

Yes, Peri and Ann have proven to be a drain, emotionally...making me question my value as a human being. Ann is a simple thing, my choice of the Leopard as her totem was more than coincidental, psychologically. Peri's stance is more corrosive. Not fully aware of her purposes and thoughts, I have had to separate myself from speculation and merely treat the wound, rather than the cause, which is always frustrating to me. Apathy is always more insulting than anger, although I suspect the root of her apathy is anger with me, probably misinformed or misplaced, but I'll probably never know, so I'll drag this part of myself as a bloody, paralyzed stump and keep moving.

So far this year: Best Year Ever, as a writer. Other career paths? Don't make me laugh. Relationship wise? Depends on whom you ask. Many friends would beat me over the head with a copy of "The Four Agreements" and point out that other peoples' conduct is a reflection of them, not me. But telling a person that the barbed poignard should not hurt does not make the agony less.

Not feeling down at this time, but rather, intellectualizing it all.

What miracle do I have prepped for the final act of 2005? Hint: I shaved off the moustache last week.

And what makes you think I have anything planned? (twinkle in eye giving me away...)