Walking with Harry

I

nfinitely receding lines. Space and time incoherent. No turning back. I am writing words with the usual hope that somehow they will make sense—that I will hit on a theme of some kind. Something to justify the act of writing.

I went for a walk today with my dog Harry (as I do every day) and we took one of his favorite walks across Capitol Highway, up Galeburn, down a flight of 135 steps, across a middle school campus, and up Maricara to the Maricara Natural Area—a 17 acre park consisting of second-growth forest with a small stream running through it. It was a nice reasonably sunny day—very springlike—but I couldn’t enjoy it altogether as my head is hurting. Circling around on the paths in the park I wondered about how the hell we’re going to get money for next month’s rent, why David Barton would tell such an easily refuted lie as the one he told recently about an AIDS vaccine, why some other idiot would think that the US going after ISIL would offend Iran when Iran and ISIL are mortal enemies, and whether I couldn’t get some kind of entry out of that. (I couldn’t.)

Damn my head is hurting.

Shafts of light from the setting sun lit the trees sharply from one side, casting long evening shadows. There were other people out wandering along the paths between the trees, but they mostly didn’t concern us. Harry and I took the path along the east side of the park, where the neighboring houses are clearly visible through the evergreens, and I have to duck sometimes to avoid low-hanging parts of trees. There are roots pushing up through the path along in here, and it’s necessary to watch your footing.

Temporal worries thrust out meditations about forgotten texts, and all seem trivial compared to the horrors coming out of India, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. What difference does any of it make if barbarous thugs continue to triumph?

Harry and I came to the end of the park, going out the one legal north exit of the park onto some numbered street, graveled like a driveway. The rest of the trip back is comparatively dull; we’ll go alongside Huber back to Capitol, and then home. Even worries about finances and thugs abroad recede against the present menace of oncoming traffic. No point worrying about tomorrow if today ends abruptly with a tri to the emergency room or instant death. Incoherent time and space. Lines receding infinitely.