Monday, January 16, 2012

Back Roads Inspiration

I prefer to take the back roads, and am lucky enough to live in an area where the back roads are gorgeous.
I used to be a highway, fastest route there guy when I lived in Massachusetts. Maybe I am a product of my environment, but I can tell you I like the back roads me better. When you are zipping down the highway you are not experiencing anything except concrete and barriers and signs signs everywhere a sign, and meth heads screaming up on your bumper and then careening over into the left lane. The passing lane. The only thing passing in that lane is life. Or maybe gas. The interior environment of these white knuckled Neanderthals may be compromised and I'm not sure I would like the aroma.
When I decide to follow my road to its logical end and proceed through the heart of town and beyond, I end up driving through the cemetery. I say driving through because it is on both sides of the road just as you leave the heart of town. Maybe the cemetery is the heart of town. I don't know. Something to think about.
It always blows my mind because the natural beauty is suddenly interrupted by death. I can be looking at the trees or old New England houses exploding with character or digging the sunshine and suddenly I am surrounded by tombstones. I kind of like it because it is a brief and somber reminder of reality. Go ahead and dig nature's beauty and the town you so intelligently decided to call home 26 years ago, but don't forget that times is passing quickly and you need to make your life your own before you end up here.
It blows my mind even more because I know at least five people sleeping there. If I had a conversation with Carol I'm sure the tally would go up because my memory is faulty. But think about that. Five people who came into my life only in the last 26 years are dead. The closest to home being Chip. A friend of mine who died in 1999 at the age of forty four. A drinking partner, racing buddy and conversational confidant who died in his truck in his driveway after a day's work. That one should have taught me to dig every day but it didn't seep in. Not right away. But beginning last year and stumbling into 2012 my brain is starting to appreciate and enjoy. Could be delayed Chip-ness. Thanks for not giving up on me, man.
I want thirty more years. 88 is a ripe old age and that would give me plenty of time to wrestle my life into shape. But they have to be healthy, aware years. No torturous cancer, no Alzheimer's, no diapers, no assisted living. I do not ever want my sons to see me on the same level as cauliflower. And I do not want them soiling their hands on my diapers even though I did on theirs hundreds of times. It ain't about payback. I smiled as I applied wet wipes to their butts because I could look down on their faces and their bodies and sense their souls; my beautiful, precious sons. They won't be smiling if wet wipes become a means of communication between us in the future. Hopefully they would be crying. But I am not going to let that happen.
I want to be massively dead. I want my life to explode out of me and leave me massively dead. It's 2042, I just experienced Whipping Post on whatever unbelievable medium exists at the time, I jump (?) up excitedly out of my recliner because I still cannot contain myself when it comes to The Allman Brothers Band and BOOM, my heart explodes. There is actually an audible though muffled explosion, my eyes open wide in surprise, and I fall to the floor with a huge smile on my face. Gone.
Or maybe just go in my sleep. That would be less stressful for anybody around at the time. I do have a flair for the dramatic, though. The muffled explosion thing kind of appeals to me. I came into life on New Year's day with a pointed head. I might as well go out with a flair as well.
I don't know, but I have thirty years to think about it.

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