Lughnasa Elk Rut Moon
Near the old capital of Illinois. 3:45 a.m. Awake.
Sleeping is not a gimme anymore, if it ever was. Now something in me wants to be awake late in the night or early morning. I fight it sometimes. Other times I get up. Like now. Once in a while I’ll take a sleeping pill. Like last night. I no longer get agitated about it, which obviously makes it worse; but, I wish it were different.
The road from Alexandria is literally and metaphorically a long one. One friend yesterday told me his son, a successful petroleum engineer, had an even more successful wife and ended being a stay at home dad. “I had more problem with it than her parents did,” he admitted. Another woman, a long time girl next door, told me she had a son living as a gay man. It wasn’t until later, when she told me she was now a member of the Christian Missionary Alliance, that the phrasing struck me as odd.
Cooking the pig, though it troubled me, produced the warmest memory of the day. Leonard, Frank, Tom, Eugene, Steve, Jerry and I stood around the barbecue talking, laughing. The years had not dulled our appreciation for the silliness, the strangeness of being together, separate, as we humans are, yet bound to each other, as we can be, too.
I plan to get to Abilene, Kansas today, perhaps a bit further. Then, into Lakewood to drop off the rental car, over to the lab to get my PSA test underway and home. Back to Shadow Mountain.
