sleeping on the other side of the bed

The coldness of it, the stiffness. Its newness, unused and absent the human imprint. Mine or anyone else's. For the longest time, a set of pillows on that side, away from the end table and lamp, museum-like, virginal. Pillow props. Faux companions missing their heads, and bodies for that matter. That side of the mattress not virginal. That's a convenient fib, but let's not get into that, not today. It's a good thing I didn't say "almost virginal," because, well, that's not even oxymoronic. It's lexically lazy. I switched to that side because I feared ruination of the year-old bedding. Trapped in the imprint of a nightly journey, bearing the weight of dreams, seasons, and fantasies, my habits having embossed that side of the bed. Nocturnal branding seen from an aerial view, i.e., from the loft's high ceiling, the contour lines of my personal topographical map impossible to hide or erase. I am surprised at how I've adjusted. The light on "the other side," "the far side," is bright enough for me to read in that space, a necessity. It's a shorter trip to the bathroom. I assumed I'd do this other side thing for a night or two. It's caught on. It has a momentum I never expected. Do you insist? Really? You're going to go there? The whole business about flying solo versus partners, paramours, assignations, guests of the demimonde, one-night stands not getting traction of their own into six-month sequestrations, the lonely man in his lonely bedroom. No, it ain't like that. I'm slightly offended you swerved in that direction, you fuck. How long will this last? More concerningly, how would I adjust to a bedmate? Could I have merely flipped or repositioned the mattress? Not without looking like a one-man Marx Brothers sketch. I've heard people say, "You can act yourself into a new way of thinking." Counterintuitive, and all that. I'm hoping that's the case here. That Sleeping on the Other Side of the Bed will translate into my becoming another person, one with another perspective, figuratively and literally. The Sleeping on the Other Side of the Bed Person. Can a left-handed person become right-handed? Not this guy. But can a right side of the mattress person (me, from an aerial view) become a left side of the mattress entity? So far, yes. There are other dynamics at work here, opportunities for growth. They say, "Don't go to bed angry." "Don't let the sun go down on your anger," etc. Add to this: the perils of the Silent Treatment. How does one apply this to someone who is flying solo between the sheets? How does this pertain to a single occupant in a queen-size bed? One thing is sure, no one to blame for "stealing the covers" except moi.What's next, a shower immediately upon waking, before my breakfast rites? Never.

mother's day, first and last

so dawned the day

breaching my birth

of quickening light

so broke the bleak midwinter

bearing December's child

too early on

touch and go

no breastful of milk

while homeward bound

we now ask what

moonlight we can give her

besides memory

of love like a stone

dropped into an empty well

echoing

still

trench warfare

They've been out there day and night. Bright lights run by portable generators keep the operation going in the dark hours. The backhoe burrows its way up the street, or down or around, carving a narrow path parallel to the sidewalk. The trench is no wider than the backhoe's digging bucket. A trench box sits idly by; no one is ever in the trench when I stroll nearby. From the look of it, they dig, fool around down in the dirt, add or take out pipes or cables or who-knows-what, and then cover it up with dirt and zip it up with some asphalt. It looks shitty afterward, bumpy and lumpy; unfinished.

You can hear them when you try to sleep.

They say you get used to it, in the way that people who live near train tracks do. 

What are they digging? Why? What is taking so long? What are they putting in? Or taking out? When will it stop?

UTILITY WORK AHEAD announce signs on every corner from every direction in the neighborhood of a dozen or so streets.

At first, the backhoe (always just one, on its solitary mission and journey) was accompanied by two or three vans from the local power utility with its crew of hard-hatted men smoking cigarettes, lolling, laughing, and pretending to play their roles as Official Construction Voyeurs (OCVs).

Then, on the same streets, rectangular tree-lined city blocks, east and west, north and south, hill and dale, flat and sloped, a new squad of support trucks arrived. The same trenches were dug again, in exactly the same manner, sequence, and pattern. Only now, the vans and hard hats were ostensibly with the phone company, if that's what they still call purveyors and providers of phone service, be it cellular, land line, or any other kind of phone service, such as it is.

In a span of fourteen days (I started counting by making daily notes on my wall calendar, opposite the window looking down onto the street they always start and end with), day and night, night and day, the trenches are dug, inserted or lifted or subtracted or added, bright lights illuminating, generators gurgling, chewing up and chugging the recently excavated miniature dirt-filled canals.

Fiber optics?

Then the water company came in. How did I know it was the water company? The blue vans displayed the logo of the water company, as did the hard hats, the jackets, and the vehicular warning signs.

I wanted to talk to the OCVs or a foreman (no women ever join the crew, not yet).

'What's going on?" I shouted.

They looked at me blankly amidst the din, as if my vernacular is foreign and unintelligible, as if they couldn't read my lips.

During the next fourteen-day cycle, the yellow backhoe was accompanied by white panel trucks with no identifying name or signage or license plates. The six-man crew wore white work pants, white vests, white hard hats, white boots, and white gloves. Three of the six wore white balaclavas.

During the most recent fourteen-day cycle, the yellow backhoe was accompanied by black panel trucks with no license plates and no identifying name or signage. The six-man crew wore black work pants, black vests, black hard hats, black boots, black gloves, and black balaclavas.

Then the streets went dark, no power on any street light or in any house. 

No car driving by shone its lights.

The only light shone from the pole-mounted surveillance cameras on the two corners, their iridescent blue eyes blinking silently.

And the UTILITY WORK AHEAD signs are gone.

walk a mile -- or more -- in my shoes, or yours

Why does anyone decide to take a walk at 1:17 in the morning? Would it be more ill advised for a woman to do so than for a man, and does that consideration involve common sense, sexism, or practicality, or all of the above, or does it solely depend on locale? 

Questions, questions. 

He walked out the door and into the night. He had brought along a long-sleeved shirt in case it was chilly, now that the storm seemed to break the heat wave.

She wore sensible shoes for walking, more like sneakers but not quite.

His pace was steady, not aggressive but determined.

She had a flashlight and a pocket knife at the ready.

He had a destination.

She had a destination.

Few cars drove by. The streets were as deserted as during an air raid.

Few pedestrians were about, none threatening.

No bicyclists.

No motorcyclists.

Some streetlights, some dark stretches.

No other walker walkers. Yes, some walked, but not as if they had any place they were fixing to go to, not at that hour.

They wore no earbuds to listen to music, podcasts, or audiobooks.

He rehearsed what he'd say.

She imagined what she would hear.

A summery breeze made a cameo.

It was as if the footsteps touching the sidewalk, in some cases the roadway, were dissipating anger and anxiety, like waves emanating from an earthquake, weakening over time and distance, evoking fears of a tsunami.

There was no turning back now.

The tsunami warnings were posted.

The pebble had been dropped in the pond.

A Sentence of Enlightenment

Walking the dog in the too-early night, not being accustomed to this artificial invitation to one hour less of evening light, I am buffeted by whirling winds while simultaneously amused by Maggie's chasing of a wind-driven leaf here and then there, as if it were an escaping prey, and then dazzled by the surprising array of whitish-yellow lights draping two maples at the crest of the hill in the park overlooking the city, awaiting the advent of a feast of light on the darkest night.

The Dawn's Early Light

I do not count myself among those who are "morning people." I awake slowly and reluctantly and typically with some measure of grouchiness. I count myself among the night owls.

I used to work roughly 3 p.m. until midnight or 1 a.m. at a newspaper. Loved those hours. Never set an alarm clock in those days. But, alas, my working those deadly nightshade hours became a skein of ruinous and profligate ways swirling into a self-destructive vortex. I was plucked from that vortex, rescued in ways that are hard now to define except to echo the title of a tragic but heartfelt book by Joseph Heller, one that used parentheses more artfully than any other book I've read:

Something Happened.

I used to feel guilty about not being a morning person, as if it reflected a negative and defeatist and bankrupt view of the world.

I'm resigned to it now. . . .not the worldview but the morning's slow march. I don't think there's much choice. It may even reflect my alleged sleep apnea and multiple awakenings every night. Hence, my nearly daily morning heavy weight of grogginess. The hangover of memory and night and darkness.

But is there anyone more luminous and prayerful and mystical and poetic about morningtime than

The Secretary of Dawns?

I offer you the rich tableau of his incandescent and singular ponderings of dawn.