Geez. The last time I posted on Substack, eight inches of snow had just piled up outside.
This time? Eight inches of hickory, oak and ash pollen is piled up outside (he says, after dousing his itchy peepers with “clinically proven” Bausch & Lomb Opcon-A® eye drops).
While I’m becoming more thin-skinned to frigid, snowy winters and more sensitive to seasonal allergies, I do appreciate the physical proof snow and pollen provides—proof that some things in our hyper-connected world of social, cultural and political illusions are, in fact, real. That the real world/earth—despite the fact that few human beings even notice anymore—continues traveling between equinoxes while spinning and tilting on its axis.
It’s been an enjoyable, restful, productive and miraculous “hibernation.”
(Okay, maybe hibernation isn’t the most accurate word. You know, since I haven’t had to live off my body fat while burrowed into a dank cave for the past few months. But, hopefully, you get my drift.)
Enjoyable - Visiting my daughter in Nashville. Laughing with my dear Memphis cousins until I can’t see straight. Playing guitar in an “old fart” rock band with some of the best old friends an old fart could ever hope to have. Haunting Shiloh, losing myself in its natural beauty (i.e., singing Moon River to calm a spooky herd of deer or beholding the swoops of a pair of Eastern bluebirds). Taking good books to bed, waking up with some new appreciation or insights into never-before-explored subjects, events or historical figures.
Restful - For a couple of reasons: 1.) I take luxurious 30-minute naps every day. 2.) I’ve also tried my best to limit swiping and scrolling to avoid images of the ubiquitous tanning-booth scowl, the tragic consequences of world conflicts and the unrelenting, round-the-clock deluge of capitalistic come-ons (all of which now constitutes the thing we once knew as the “Internet”).
Productive - I’ve been writing and editing for a few hours every day, trying to shape up a novel I wrote during the pandemic. When I’m finished, I might ask you to read a few chapters. But then again, maybe I won’t since asking the question “Will you read my novel?” ranks up there with a different question, i.e., “Will you pick my scab?”
Miraculous - Some days, when I’m hovering over the keyboard, strange and wonderful things appear on the electronic “paper” that I really have nothing to do with. The delightfully intoxicating moments that keep me coming back, day after day: being a conduit for some creative and ethereal force that resides outside my own heart, mind and soul.
#
A week from now, the Nomadkins on-the-road “rig” will be heading south to Florida for a few weeks to visit family and friends. After that, I’ll be returning to Minnesota again to work as a volunteer interpreter at Grand Portage National Monument. I must say I’m looking forward to spending another blissful summer living and working next to North America’s largest and most powerful outdoor air conditioner (aka Lake Superior).
So that, friends and neighbors, is my news as it currently stands. What’s yours?
Peace & Love,
Mark