Category: walking

Friday’s Theme Music

Weep for yourself, my man,
You’ll never be what is in your heart
Weep, little lion man,
You’re not as brave as you were at the start
Rate yourself and rake yourself
Take all the courage you have left
And waste it on fixing all the problems that you made in your own head

But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn’t I, my dear?
Didn’t I, my…

h/t to AZLyrics cuz cut and paste is easier than typing.

So it was that “Little Lion Man” by Mumford & Sons (2009) was going through my head this morning. Writing, a dream, and cats share almost equal weight in bringing the song into my stream.

The dream was about jigsaw puzzles, parties, hockey, and drunk celebrities in a brightly lit and strangely joyful montage that also seemed a bit fucked up, and left me to, well, puzzle it out. The cat was the little ginger lion that I was talking to this morning (you’re not as brave as you were at the start). Writing…well, writing is all about fixing the problems in my head. Not exactly a dark place, but not a clean, well-lighted place for enjoying life, either.

So, now, after singing the song to myself yesterday after writing, it returned to me after thinking about my dreams this morning, and gained strength when I was talking with the cat. Thus, it must be outed from my stream before it gains too much steam and stays too long.

For the record, I enjoy Mumford & Sons’ style, and its infusion of unique sounds in rock music. This video, with its intensity, and the sense of isolation and alienation that I find in it, keeps me watching. It’s like a confession that he’s making to himself but also a dialogue in his head that he imagines having, as the others play and listen. Then, they all join in, as though it was universal to the band members. Through it all flows introspection, a simmering sense of regret, and a realization.

 

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Saying Good-bye

It’s time. I didn’t want to face it, putting the reasonable off, but finally acquiescing to what needed to be done: I was replacing my Tilley hat.

I’ve had it for a number of years. Like a good companion, it’s with me all the time. I wear it all the time when walking and about ninety-five percent of the time when I’m outdoors.

It shows; the color has faded. Five inch horizontal rips gap along the crown’s front, nicely complimenting the small two inch vertical tears. I’ve taped them together.

The Tilley comes with a Guarantee-for-Life replacement policy. I went to their website and filled out the form. They responded within a few days.

Hello,

Thank you for submitting your request. We would be happy to help you with your Guaranteed for Life claim.

We do require some additional information to determine the eligibility of your item. Please reply to this email with 3 photos (.jpeg preferred as small a file as possible) of the following:

    1. A photo showing the entire item
    2. A photo to clearly show the qualifying damage
    3. A photo of the inside label. This should show the words “Guaranteed for Life”

Once we receive these photos from you, we will review them and determine the eligibility of your item. You will receive an email from us within 2 business days with your next steps.

That was done. A few more days passed.

Then came their answer.

Thank you for submitting your photos. We have assessed your item and agree that it qualifies for the Guaranteed for Life Policy.

Your Guarantee Identification Number is RMA#G00665

Good news! You no longer have to return your item to us in order to get a replacement!

In order to complete your request, we require the following information:

    1. Credit card information for shipping fee –
      • $12.00 CAD OR $9.50 USD  $35.00 USD international . Your credit card will only be charged at the time of shipping.
      • you may contact us at 1-800-363-8737 and leave your credit card number with any agent. Please use your RMA# as reference.
    1. Proof of destruction Photos –
      • We must confirm that your old hat is no longer usable before we can honor a replacement hat.
      • Please Write the RMA# clearly on the hat. If the hat is a dark colour, you may write the RMA# on a white piece of paper and include it in the photo
      • Cut off the crown (The top part) of the hat.
      • Take a photo of this so the removed crown and the RMA# are visible. Save as a .jpeg in the smallest size possible

Once we have received your photos and credit card information, you order will then be processed. Please allow up to 2 weeks for your replacement hat to be shipped. We will email you once your order has shipped.

Destroy my hat? Shudders swept me as I read these words. Yet…yet…the time had arrived. The Tilley was failing. I needed a new hat.

So I took the Tilley for a final walk in the snow. After he dried out, the cats gathered. I played taps on Youtube, cut off the crown, and took the ghastly pictures.

IMG_0984

The deed is done. Now I await my new hat.

 

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St. Asphalta

Many are familiar with St. Asphalta. Her origins began after motorized transportation such as cars were developed and grew popular. Although her exact heritage and origins are shrouded in exhaust gases, one popular belief attributes her early beginnings to the first automobile accident fatalities.

A benevolent god (she eschews being referred to as ‘goddess’ as an outmoded and unnecessary distinction based on gender), St. Asphalta is most associated with parking. People typically pray to her, sometimes making a sacrifice (such as buying her a beverage, such as coffee or tea) when they need a parking space.

But limiting St. Asphalta to parking overlooks the many ways this modern god can help. Did you know that St. Asphalta’s realms and powers extend beyond mere parking issues? St. Asphalta relates to everything involved with wheeled transportation and their systems, processes, and issues. For example, although you might be walking, St. Asphalta is the god to address when you’re crossing a street. She’s the one who’ll wake the drivers up and drive them to notice you and provide you with the right-of-way.

Likewise, St. Asphalta should be contacted for safety when there’s a traffic accident, or the one to appeal to for help during road construction, congestion, and traffic jams. Appeal to St. Asphalta when you have car troubles such as a flat tire, or your car has been stolen.

She’s a good god to know. Like a car, she doesn’t demand a lot, but she must be given her due. If she’s not given it, then, like a car, she’ll let you down just when you need her most.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Well, time was up.

Past ‘up’.

I was supposed to have departed the fix about fifteen minutes before, so I was now behind my schedule. Couldn’t help it. Couldn’t stop writing. Coffee was gone, butt was uncomfortable, and my sciatic nerve was causing pain issue from being perched on the coffee shop’s new hard chairs. All the signs were aligned, time to go, mo-fo.

But —

Yes. Closing up with a stern order, go now, I packed it all up, strapped on the backpack, and headed into the sunshine. It was doing little good against the wintry air, but it was in the low 40s, a better place to be than, say, single digits that some in Alaska are enduring, and it’s better than Australia’s fires and blazing heat. So, couldn’t complain.

Walking up the hill, the distinctive piano playing of the Moody Blues cover of “Go Now” (1964) arrived in my stream. It’s a wondrous juxtaposition when the thing you’ve been doing, memories of places and events, and what you’re now doing come together in a perfectly mellow mood. I usually need a beer, a glass of wine, cup of coffee, or the toke of a joint to arrive in such a state.

But here I was, just me and the small town, with myself and music in my head, cold in the air, and sunshine on the other side of the valley.

 

 

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Writing Time Again

Yesterday’s writing session went well. Only five pages finished, taking me to two sixty, and closer to the story’s end. More of the final details flashed into me, which was really exciting.

I kept writing in my head in my après-writing walk, which ended up being two and half miles. I’d just kept writing in my head and forgot about the time or distance. I was ravenous by then, as it was after three and I’d not eaten lunch.

Books had been given to me for Christmas. I began reading one of them last night after watching the news, but had only read a paragraph before the urge to add a line to my novel jumped into me. Opening the document, I added that line and then experienced more ideas and wrote three more pages.

This morning, as I fed les chats, I wrote in my head and decided to add another line to the novel. So I sat down in the sweats that I wear to bed and wrote two more pages as I ate breakfast.

That seemed to satisfy the muses.

Breakfast is finished but I’m not dressed or anything. Must clean up, shave, brush the teeth, etc., so I can go out and write like crazy, at least one more time, and have a cuppa coffee. Haven’t enjoyed a drop yet today.

I take it all as it comes.

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The Dream’s Train Segment

I was in Germany, walking along railroad tracks in the countryside. An elderly man was there. Tired, in holed clothes and mismatched shoes, he was befuddled, trying to say something and not saying much. I thought he wanted to get on the train, but I wasn’t sure. Nothing coherent came from him. While I wanted to help him, exasperation crept in; I had things to do, and he was not making sense.

I missed the train. I began to chase it. I didn’t run, but walked, and not at a fast pace. I followed a path that ran parallel to the tracks. The train would stop a bit ahead, and then, as I grew closer, take off again.

Then, I don’t know why, I decided I was going the wrong way. Reversing direction, I passed the old man again. I told him, “There’s the train, I’m going to catch it, if you want to come with me.” But he stayed where he was, in the sunshine, glancing around.

The train was stopped. I caught it, got onboard, and found my wife. She and I began shopping. It was important for her to get a supply of food. These were big emergency bags. Everyone was going for them. I didn’t think we needed them, and questioned what was in them, but she was insistent, so I took one.

Then we were walking through a department store with other shoppers. I had no idea what we wanted, so I mostly focused on killing time until the next part arrived. I was certain that was about to happen. An old friend, who was a first sergeant in the Air Force, stopped me to ask for some advice about what she should do regarding a personnel issue. As I was giving her my opinion, my wife returned looking for me. I introduced the two of them and they chatted. As that happened, others hailed me, seeking advice or help. I helped them as I could, and then my wife and I went on.

When we went on, my wife said to me, “I see what you mean. Everyone wants some part of you.”

We arrived at a cabin where we were going to stay. It was luxurious but small. I decided that I needed to prepare for the next day. I removed my clothes, which turned out to be a military uniform (light blue shirt, dark blue pants), and steam-pressed it so it would look good.

The segment ended.

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Enough

He ignored the man in the crosswalk, almost hitting the guy, not laughing about it, but feeling smug — hey, what’s the problem? I didn’t hit you, you’re fine, so you had to wait two seconds. Big deal.

Speeding up, he cut across lanes, scaring and angering other drivers, shrugging them off, pulling into the parking lot with a little squeal of tires. A space was there to the left, the car just finishing backing out, so he pulled in, cutting off another who was waiting. “Sorry, you snooze, you lose,” he told the woman giving him the finger, giving her the finger back.

He walked straight across the street, making cars stop — what were they going to do, hit him? As he reached the curb, he heard a ding. It wasn’t his phone, he didn’t know what it was, so he shrugged it off, turning right to go across another street, not looking, expecting the others to stop —

The truck driver couldn’t see him. “The sun flashed in my eyes,” he said. “I didn’t expect anyone to be crossing the road, anyhow, because I had the green light.”

The wayward pedestrian was crushed under a wheel, almost like a fluke accident, he heard the police say as his spirit departed his body. Only then did he realize that the ding had been a warning.

Karma had said, enough.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Still raining.

Still walking in it.

Still fun — or pleasant — but a little less so than yesterday or the day before.

Smoke was rising from the hillside, leftover from the controlled burns in the watershed the other day. But I thought, yeah, maybe someone set fire to the rain.

So then I was thinking about Adele’s song, “Set Fire to the Rain” (2011), a powerful, powerful song about love, relationships, and re-birth. I (probably like many) enjoy her refrain:

But there’s a side to you that I never knew, never knew
All the things you’d say, they were never true, never true
And the games you’d play, you would always win, always win

h/t to MetroLyrics.com

That’s what you find as you go through relationships, the pieces that aren’t revealed, whose revelations (when found) fundamentally shift your thoughts (and feelings) about the other, leaving you to ask yourself (as you search), what do I do?

Sometimes you walk on, sometimes you stay, but the relationship has been changed.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

It was a rainy night so I started humming the Eurythmics song, “Here Comes the Rain Again” (1983). So sorry they broke up but bands have their own cycles of life, death, and creation.

I enjoyed the construction and sensibilities of these lines in the song:

Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion

I want to walk in the open wind
I want to talk like lovers do
want to dive into your ocean
Is it raining with you?

h/t Metrolyrics.com

I happened to be walking in the open wind and remembering walking in the rain, alone, something that I enjoy. A sharp cold wind was knifing across my cheeks, and I breathed it all in with joy, satisfaction, and nostalgia. Then the clouds broke and there was that brill full moon, coming on like a spotlight. With clouds skipping past the moon’s surface and the wind quickening, it seemed like the moon sprinted across the sky, a trick of the mind. Clouds closed over the moon, and the rain came again.

Is it raining with you?

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