Coming Down the Mountain

The performances are over.  I've finished up the after party.  I'm spent--rode hard and put away wet.  I'm not the man I used to be.  I think I've made promises that my body cannot keep.  Many things from the past week need reconsidering.  I was manic.  Everything seems possible in mania.  Nothing hurts.  Now, in desperate retreat, I wish to return to the quiet, contemplative life.  I've been pretending, of course.  I played the old hero, fearless, romantic, desirable.  But when the movie ends, the hero returns to being a broken, heart-sick man.  Lonesome, sad, and blue.  

There were many good things, though, some quite unexpected.  I was on my feet more than I have been for months, limping much farther than I have been used to, and I think that my knee has actually improved some as a result.  And my ego rebounded a bit, too, though I must be very careful.  I think I have committed to some things that I may not be ready for.  Do I really want to teach photography?  And oh, that warm breath on my neck.  But I may have only short term goals.  

So I thought as I lay in bed for most of yesterday.  I was exhausted, but I may have had a touch of something, too, some malady of the body and the spirit.  I only rallied at the last minute, just in time to get  morsels for The Derby.  Hot dogs, potato chips, baked beans, and beer.  I had been invited out to watch The Derby in a bar off the Boulevard, but I said I was not up for a crowd.  I said, "If you want, you can come and watch it here.  

We had a Maker's Mark as the ponies ran.  I don't even like bourbon, but it was The Derby, Kentucky and all.  And though the race was a very fast one on a good, dry track, and even though Mage made a charge from the middle of the pack and was challenged down the straightaway, the race just did not seem that dramatic to me.  I mustered up some faux-excitement, I think, but it really amounted to nothing.  

My friend left late again, and I was late to bed.  That will not be the case this week.  I have not been taking anything to sleep, no CBD, no THC, no Xanax, nor anything for pain.  And sleeping has been hard.  This will be a week of water and quietude, I hope.  Back to the Garden, if you will.  I want to come down the other side of the mountain slowly.  I don't want to take a fall. 

I'll get back to scanning films, both still and moving, and telling a narrative other than my own.  We've had just about enough of my Bluster and Babble for awhile. 

I took a look at some photos that have been in my camera for a long time.  I say I haven't taken any photos, but maybe I took some good ones.  Not great ones, but lovely things that speak to the quietude of home, of shadows and light and reflections. . . an outward rendering of an internal life.  

But I have new clothes now and can travel in public without fear.  Even my beautician said so.  I told Sky, who, like some fabulous fairy godmother, patted my head and faded magically into the distance saying, "My work here is done."  Mine, I know, is not the only life in turmoil, and as the old song says, we can't always get what we want.  

But those legs are really smooth and curvy, the shoulders solid, the waistline trim.  And if you try sometimes. . . . 

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