Get Ready

Get Ready

01.10.06 (11:42 pm)   [edit]
Rare Earth In Concert is currently making my dick into cement. Sweaty white boys at Motown, doin' up some killer rock/r&b groovin' shit. TWENTY-THREE glorious early-'70s minutes of Get Ready. What the fuck more is there to life, anyway?

I managed to have a good weekend in spite of being away from my daughter. Saturday was relaxing, and the wedding was great. The least religious wedding I've ever been to, which made it a LOT more enjoyable for me. The string trio was a great touch. A lovely chamber-esque version of I Will by The Beatles. I'm pretty cynical about marriage these days, but some people make it work great, and I hope it works for you and your lady, L.A. Thanks for inviting me. You guys look great together, and even I was pretty fuckin' mushy for a while there. Good luck. You're gonna need it, motherfucker. :)

Sunday I thought about Katie more, but I managed to keep it together. Spent a lot of time at the guitar, more than I usually can wrap my brain around. And in the mid-afternoon, I realized how warm it was. It might have hit 60 out there, and I went to a nearby park. I'd been there with Katie before, and I wanted her there with me, but I was able to do things i'd never have tried with a four-year old.

The last time, we walked some trails back in the woods, but now I kept pushing along into less-used trails that were growing over. I found myself moving at a good clip for some reaosn. Looking around and enjoying the scenery, but still moving faster than I thought I should. It almost felt like I was running from something. Alone in the woods, escaping from some predator. What the fuck was THAT about?

I followed Buck Creek around, it's at least 60 or 70 feet across. Maybe more. I wasn't sure how to get to the other side. There were bridges for the smaller creeks off it, but not the main one. Finally I started to find trees fallen across the creek. The first was impossible to get down to safely. When it fell, it had taken a lot of earth with it, and the trail was right next to the 4 or 5 foot drop off the side of the bluff.

The next was a bit safer. I grabbed a long stick (huhuhuhuh) and broke off some twigs from the end. I made my way across the creek (which, according to tests with my new walking stick, was at least four feet deep) trying to keep my balance on the fallen tree, then on a couple other smaller ones. It took less than three minutes and I was on the other side.

I hit the trail again. Wow. How long had it been? Twenty years? I'd walked through the woods with Katie this summer, had done it sometimes on my own recently. But when was the last time I got out there alone and really took some chances of semi-bad injury? I stayed inside for nearly my whole 20s. But I was an explorer when I was a kid. Went out in the woods often. Never far, but it felt like a big thing when I was a kid. Climbed trees as far up as I could. (There's probably a special interest group of "concerned parents" out there trying to ban that activity.) Stole a cigar from my uncle and went to the woods to smoke it. Probably 11 or 12 years old. Coughed a goddamn lung up on the first puff. Fucking pussy.

But it had been years. Decades.

I followed the trail on the other side, apparantly cut by an off-road vehicle. Then, after going past another tree-bridge, I found the trail disappearing. There were signs up saying "Indy Parks Property - No Weapons Allowed Of Any Kind" but it seemed to be away from the real park. Probably not intended for public travel. Fuck it. I pushed on.

A dog barks. I see two of them 150 yards ahead. I pull my stick tight. They look at me. I look at them. The black and white one barks again. I pull the back of my jacket over my head and put on my best Mike Judge impersonation.

"I am the Great Cornholio! Are you threatening me???"

They ran away.

"Come back! I need TP for my bunghole!"

And I did. I REALLY had to take a shit. and I wasn't sure how to get back across the creek. I wasn't even sure it mattered. The restrooms had been locked the last time I was there, with Katie.

I pushed forward.

The trail ran out altogether. I jumped across a muddy patch where a stream cut across a slice of low land. Up a little higher now, hearing the traffic on I-74, probably only a quarter mile away from this point. A house up ahead. Was I even on park property now? There had been a sign only a few hundred yards back. But there had been no real bridges acorss the creek. And I had to shit. And nothing to wipe with.

I dropped my rancid deposit on a pile of rotted leaves and left. Clean up later. I felt like an overgrown squirrel. Shit and run.

I went back the way I'd come. I'd passed another fallen tree. It was a bit of a drop down to it, but it looked very sturdy across the creek, which was more shallow at this point. I could see through the trees on the other side, to the cars in the parking lot.

I held my balance across, and saw three figures coming my way. Two girls and a guy. The brunette had a camcorder pointed at me. Watch the fat hairy guy fall into the fucking water.

I made it across at the same time they got to the fallen tree. The blonde (utterly fuckable in a high-school cheerleader way, though she was probably closer to 25) asked if it was hard to cross the creek there. "No, not really." And on they went.

Back on a normal, wide trail. The kind I could be on with Katie. I walked it for a while, back towards the car, taking a couple long ways around. I probably had gone four miles.

I threw the stick in the back of the car. I pulled out as a couple were walking into the woods form their SUV. About my age. Good looking guy, lovely woman. Brunette. It was warm enough for shorts. Great legs. They had their dog with them.

For a moment I felt something tear at me. The desire to be there with another person. A woman. Walking through the trees together.

But why? I'd had a good time. I was back there for well over an hour and had nothing but fun. The most relaxing bit of exercise I'd had in a long time. It was GOOD to be alone. I'd not thought about anyone but Katie the whole time, and her only at the beginning and end. During the rougher parts, it was all me. And it was all good.

I called Katie on the way home up Thompson Road. They'd had a good day too. Sometime I'll go back with her. When she's 8 or 9, maybe we'll cross the creek together on those fallen trees. Maybe someday I'll be there with someone else. I thought about Amanda. But mostly I knew that even though I'd had to spend a weekend away from my little girl, it had been good. Necessary even. I won't have a day to myself for at least a month, maybe two. Tomorrow I start my new teaching job, and I've now got gigs six Saturdays in a row. Seeing Katie on Sunday after a few hours of sleep. I'm glad to do it, but this time off was important. It felt good. Only a few hundred years ago, most of this part of the country looked like that. Trees for miles. Fallen trees to cross the water on. I'd come closer to the earth than I had in a long, long time. I'm happy to be in a warm apartment now at the computer, listening to a Rare Earth CD. I'm happy to have what I have. But sometimes it's good to get back in there with just the trees and the birds and the creeks and the air and just BREATHE.

I need it more often. It's a place where healing occurs.

Love,
Dougie