haunted by the end
not past, but what’s yet to come
let go the future
I have done so many dumb things in my life.
Can’t worry about them now.
I am going to do so many more dumb things in my life.
Can’t worry about them now.
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. Psalm 56:3 (NIV)
Fate keeps taking me
places do not want to go
stranger is myself
I stole the lines, ‘Fate keeps taking me, places do not want to go,’ from a preview of the TV Show, Lodge 49.
Describing me, my life right now, too well to be ignored, I shamelessly took the line.
‘Gaed a Wyrd Swa Hio Scel’ it says in Beowulf, or, ‘Fate goes ever as she shall‘
The older I get, the further I seem to move away from what is familiar and comfortable.
Who I am is a stranger to myself.
Who this person is, is still me.
I am comfortable and familiar with that.
Fall’s first days? Not here!
90 degree days for weeks
no frosty pumpkins …
Hotlanta (oh wait, media is forbidden to use that term) usually has 37 ninety-degree-plus days per year.
In 2019, there are have already been 79.
Hoping for some relief to this heat fatigue, I look forward to fall.
My mind has turned to pot roast, pies and other eatables that use the oven.
Looking forward however, the march of ninety-degree-plus days continues.
Comfort food on hold while the air conditioning stays on to keep us comfortable.
Unexplainable?
Unexcuasable? Michigan?
Writers saw same team.
Michigan, as a football team, stunk up the joint yesterday.
Michigan, as a football team, stinks.
Michigan, until about 2PM Saturday afternoon was thought to be one of the best teams in the county.
A top ten team.
Michigan changed everyone’s minds with their game play at Wisconsin.
Their performace was unexplainable.
Their performance was unexcusavke.
They were pretenders.
They were a fraud.
Now wait just a minute.
The only reason most of us had any idea that Michigan was a top ten team was because the people who are paid to know such things told us such things.
Like Will Rodges, all I know is what I read in the papers.
What, where, who, how and why did the collective sports world think Michigan was so good?
And because the sportwriters thought so and wrote so and said so, it is Michigan’s fault that the team is not as good as the sportwriters thought?
How dumb and I to listen to sports writers?
At the end of the day, I am a Michigan Man, so called.
A winning football team would be better than a losing football, but I do not consider myself a Michigan Man because OF the football team.
While in no way comparable, I am reminded of the Iron Brigade in the Civil War.
The Iron Brigade was the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the 1st Corps of the Army of the Potomac.
The wore distinctive black hats called a Hardee Hat which looked like a Lincoln stovepipe hat with a wide brim, pinned up on one side, aussie style.
This in the Army of the Potomac, the army of the Eastern United States, was made up of regiments from Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan.
It was recognized as one of the hard fighting units in the army and was famous throughout both the armies if the North and South.
At Gettysburg, when the Iron Brigade came into view, Confederate soldiers were heard to say, ‘It’s those Black Hat fellers again.’
It was at Gettysburg that the Iron Brigade was wrecked.
In the first day at Gettysburg, the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the 1st Corps of the Army of the Potomac lost two thirds of its effective strength of 1800 men.
“And,” wrote Bruce Catton in Glory Road, his thee volume history of the Army of the Potomac, “for the rest of the war, it existed as a shadow, always a great name but never again a mighty force in battle.”
Like I wrote, the state of Michigan Football cannot in anyway be compared to the Iron Brigade.
But the simply poetry of the phrase, always a great name, appeals to me.
I hope I am wrong.
I hope the eggheads in the Athens of the West can collectively come up with a Coach who can prepare a team of athlete’s to compete on the big stage.
If not, win or lose, always a great name.
I can live with that.
in my brain, twisted
tangled wire coat hangers, sharp
spinning, endlessly
Big part of my weekend is the opportunity to sleep in.
If lucky, I can stay in bed to 8AM instead of my weekday 5:15AM.
I look forward to that a lot.
Maybe too much.
Last night, restless leg woke me with a sharp stick.
My head was pounding.
My brain was racing, flashing pictures and bits of movies and scenes from my life like the tunnel ride in Willy Wonka.
Somehow my nose and my throat are also plugged up.
Disoriented, confused, I rolled over to look at the clock.
12.37AM
My heart sank.
So much for a night’s rest and a lay in.
Sleep would now come in short blurps.
Succession of drinks of water, cough drops and trips downstairs to ‘read for a bit to clear my head’ and the drags on.
My mind would keep moving, racing, spinning, twisting.
Like a tangle pile of wire coat hangers.
Unable to be untangled and full of sharp points.
I give up, get up and make coffee to get some caffeine in my system.
Don’t ask me why, but it moments like this, it calms down the system a bit.
Saturday morning and 3 cups of coffee and my mind has slowed down but my brain feels like its filled with styrofoam.
Precious sleep.
Refreshing sleep.
How I covet this seemingly simple gift.
No Haiku For You 