overmatched

Somehow, the whole of whatever it is that seems to be the presumed ecosystem of this life, dissolved and threatened to float away yesterday. A concatenation of events -- none of them terribly important from an ordinary point of view -- just huffed and puffed and blew the house down. Where did it go and what was left ... I really couldn't say, but I felt under assault and overmatched.

First, my wife and two sons took off for a family wedding in New Jersey. The old man doesn't travel well or willingly these days, so suddenly the house was empty of human touchstones. Then next year's load of fire wood was delivered and dumped in the driveway, awaiting whatever solution will be found to stacking it.

The old man doesn't stack wood as once and even a little of that effort is likely to reverberate into subsequent days of aching muscles ... to the extent there are muscles left. But that doesn't mean the mind can't formulate what it is/was to stack wood.

Then a carpenter came by to estimate the time/money that might be required to fix the back stairs leading out of the kitchen. Something broke and it needs fixing and the old man doesn't fix and fiddle as once.

And finally, there are the painted concrete stairs outside the front porch. The paint is peeling, as it does every few years. It needs scraping and repainting -- hardly a significant job but the old man's mind, while capable of remembering, remembers the aches and fatigue such a small chore might create.

Everywhere I looked, there seemed to be an "I can't" that was not entirely assured: Was it "can't" or was it "won't?" I don't cotton to laziness, and yet seem to cozy up to its environs in ways that memory finds unpleasant ... the ecology says "get up and get going;" the capacity says, "forgetaboutit." The mess mounts up. And I abhor with childish, foot-stomping frustration the cozy nostrums others might slather on... peddle your crap someplace else!

Yesterday was a day when I could see the handholds and yet, like some opium-den customer, was somehow left biting clouds that neither fully satisfied nor fully dissatisfied. And then, to top it all off, I would whine about it.

The graceful cohesiveness of whatever my ecology had been became as piss in a snowbank. I didn't like it and yet saw no way to escape it or revise it. Maybe it was just my turn for depressed and lonely, but even that seemed too agile without discernible result.

Oh well, it's a beautiful day and perhaps I will try to do something concrete.

There was too much happening yesterday and yet nothing much happened at all.