Author: Dave

Maybe if I just keep growing this beard, get it nice and ragged, unkempt, a twisting wiry bush of this way and that, maybe then the corporate world can’t take me back.

“Him?, No, he’s much too wild for a cubicle,” they’ll say behind the HR two-way mirrors. “Agreed. For goodness sake he looks like he’s about to spritz himself with deer urine and go kill dinner for the next month.”

“Sadly I doubt spreadsheets can ever hold his interest again, he’s been spoiled.” Being too rough and tumble for it, they’ll regretfully have to release me.

“Did you hear about Dave?,” they’ll say to each other in the aisles, taking a break from genuflecting before fat rolls of money money. “I heard he grew this massive shitpile of a beard and they wouldn’t take him back, told him him to clean out his desk and turn in his badge.”

Nearby heads prairie-dog from hiding positions below four-foot dividers, chiming in with what they know. “I heard he reeked of patchouli and was talking about his soul!” Timid chuckling, furtive glances, a general insecurity.

Into legend, then, I’ll pass. The guy who couldn’t climb the ladder anymore for tripping over that shitpile beard. And is he even bathing daily? Isn’t that in Scripture? Bathing daily? Pretty sure it is and comes with a “thou shalt.” What the Hell does he have to be smiling about, anyway?

Hurriedly walking between meetings, “What’s he doing now anyway? How much does it pay? What do you mean he said he doesn’t care? If he’s not counting dollars how does he fall asleep at night? Sheep? Like the fourteenth century? God did you see that absolute shitpile on his face?”

“I heard he gardens and is writing a book,” hand on belly to soothe cafeteria indigestion, “Bet there’s just bags of money in that.” Timid chuckling, furtive glances, a general insecurity.

“Yeah. That beard and that trip ruined a perfectly good capitalist.”

Changed plans and came back to Pennsylvania Amish country vs. going to Philadelphia.

We drove through on the way down to Delaware and it was just too beautiful to not stay in for a few days. Of course today is thunderstorms all day so the place had a different cast to it than.

Moods are contagious. Especially moods bottled-up in two hundred square feet, where they are on full display and don’t have anywhere to hide. Yesterday the sour mood here was a pandemic to our little world.

I woke up in a bit of a funk, thinking about mortgaging my soul for a paycheck again once this trip is over, knowing there are better ways, and wishing.

Sharaun was unhappy with the results of her lunchtime stopover hair appointment in Dover. Some stuff is harder from the road, consistency in this area is one.

Both kids were in full protest mode at school, Keaton being particularly challenging. I know selfishness comes as a package deal with kids, but it’ll be nice when their self-awareness develops sufficiently that they choose to act for the best of the group.

At the end of the day I pulled out the awning to fend off rain and sat outside under it in a camp chair, needing some removal from the shared space. Sat and listened to innumerable birds in Spring song and tried to shake it off.

Peas.

Pine pollen swirls in thick clouds like yellow smoke. My phone us dusted with the stuff as I type.

A fat red snake moves easily through the sand and disappears into a patch of dune grass seemingly too small to hide in.

Another frustrating morning with Keaton. Tooth and nail and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Seems every few weeks. I forgot how hard it is trying to become an adult. I try empathy but she’s not stable enough to recognize the kindness in the heat of her emotion.

Fingers are greasy black. Raised my handlebars and tightened Cohen’s chain for the ride into town. Wasn’t happy as I worked and a foul mood always makes a poor effort, nicks and scratches and bruised knuckles. Rubbed some sunscreen into yesterday’s burn so it doesn’t get worse on the ride.

Leaves in the sun without glasses like pointalism. Old Glory stiff in the breeze and a layer of yellow snow blankets everything.

Loves.

I can see the sun bright through the stitching on our front windowshade, like it’s hemmed with light, little lines of glowing pinpricks.

The birds are in riot and started just before the sun around five, I can count at least six different calls, probably more. More faintly, I can hear the waves on the beach. The nose of the bigger ones crashing carries more than I’d figure. Also an occasional horn, I guess maybe the ferry to Cape May.

Bought a glass crock yesterday at the thrift store; two dollars. It has a loose fitting lid, also glass, an eagle embossed on either side, and raised ridges ringing the top and bottom which are lined with little even-spaced stars. It’s very patriotic. I was looking for a suitable container in which to begin a sourdough starter, and the choice between this American masterpiece and the plain old mason jar was no choice at all.

Sharaun couldn’t sleep again last night, think she was up until four. I went outside shirtless at eleven to watch the meteor shower. Tried waking Cohen, even scooped him up abd carried him outside, but he wasn’t having it. Instead Keaton joined me and we both stared up until our necks were sore.

Sometimes I just want to freeze mornings like this, keep the contentment that I feel in my heart and belly forever. I have done so little stopping in the past ten years, no time to just think, this trip has been like rain after a long drought.

Bugs.

Made it back to the sea today. Trying again, for maybe the fifth time, to read Ulysses. We’ll see how it goes.

Atlantic ocean Delaware. Last night in a sleepy Walmart parking lot near Hershey Pennsylvania. Lovely little campground on the dunes. Black tank was overfull on the way here, belching whiffs of sewage. RV feels perfectly level, hammock is strung out back between two trees.

Took a bloody mary to the beach, walked past an old WWII fort. Temperatures in the high seventies. Twenty-three stations over the air, good old westerns abd vintage sci-fi. Beautiful pink and orange sky at sunset, meteor showers tonight.

“Relaxed at a cellular level,” that’s what she said and I feel it to be true. I will it to be true when it might not be, for that matter.

Shrugs.

I want to learn to be removed from decisions.

Take my brain out of it. Discernment by feeling, heeding some tug that I can’t convey in pros or cons or spreadsheets. To sway with the leaning of my body, bones and blood and bile, to resonate forward and to follow the pull of my heart.

It’s shit-hard.

And people will make fun of you because it’s not logical and it’s irrational and what are you thinking you stupid hippie.

And it’s scary because I don’t know how to do it and I don’t even really trust it in my brain, it’s just a feeling, after all.

Sometimes you climb and you climb and then you’re at the top and then of course to move forward you have to go back down again. But maybe it’s a bowl, a caldera, and it’s up again in any direction to keep moving forward.

So which up feels right?

Hugs.

I think we are good guests.

We are aware of the space we consume, and endeavor to contain, or at least pick up after, our sprawl. We take the washing after receiving the charity of food, doing our best to divine what goes where in foreign cabinets and drawers, getting things right enough if not perfect.

Adopt the air of the house, drop-in with the routine and work to not upset, as much as us possible being in some other’s castle, the normal goings on. We stay clean, both body and occupied space. Listen 2:1 to talk, ask questions and draw-out stories wanting to be told instead of only regaling with our own.

Compliment the wine. Appreciate the local. Smile over shared interests, delicately unearthed via a fishbone path of light interrogation. Inquire after history of the things aland people and places. Genuine, all – not a putting-on.

In hopes that, upon leaving, it’s not just us that enjoyed our time.

Peace.