And again, like everyone else, I wake up with a strange sense of unease, the anxiety of not knowing what to do with yourself, so such thoughts as they appear in the mind, in my case as I shake the remembered dream of an old restaurant you worked in losing all its character, going corporate, if you will, old friendships strained where you are left high and dry, wasted of his years.  November Fifth, and I'd hoped by the morning there would be a clarity, better signs of a Biden victory, but for which we must be patient, painful as that is.  Still too close, uncertain by its own uncertainty.  When will, on top of that, my mind goes, Mom call, in what mood, with what questions...

Did we have too much confidence last night, after Wisconsin and Michigan went for Biden?  I chatted with an old friend from the hometown, Hilde...  who spent some time up in the Adirondacks, in rehab.  The convoluted way a woman talks, the mystery of her references and where's she going with this... a different kind of linguistic brain than mine, male, say what you will.  Male and female seem to endure one another, with some mild physical pleasures, good enough as they are, thrown in.  Too many phone calls last night, wearing me out.

Before the restaurant dream, half awake, checking on the news, too full of ache to rise, from yesterday's good yoga session in the sunlight in the field right on the grass the body turns all that alignment work into a consciousness that fires through the channels of the spinal central core, lighting on each chakra, from root to third eye.  If you're doing any pose involving balance, or stretching for that matter, you are engaging the energy centers, you can feel the channels of the inner Caduceus, energy belts spiraling within you, and what else is the point of life, but to make manifest what is in and of you and of where you came from.  Like bookshelves, making one at home.

In all this, with pressures on, one forgets that he could write, that he does write, even if the invisible authorities of the world of practicality one makes up in his own mind would require other things of him.  And writing is good.  The musicality in the fingers dancing their way along a sentence via the keyboard below their finger's tips.   Before the distractions of the day come your way.

And how easy to lose one's thoughts.

The Chakras have their own thoughts, their way of thinking, their way of being conscious in the world.  To tune them, or to them, is natural, just as to perform a yoga pose of balance and stretching, tree, plough, headstand, the energy must work through each energy center, so that then they will work together, as if one were asking different parts of the body to work together, to communally instruct the body as a whole to position itself for a successful pose.

The news from the outside world cools one's thoughts down, making them less accessible, like a plate of food, scrambled eggs, let's say, cooling.  Better when hot, better to enjoy them so.

Much is at stake over these days, looking bad election night, then better, much better yesterday afternoon, and then today, more anxious nail-biting.  We know the psychic cost, the weight of having that man Trump in the office...

I drink my pot of tea, Dragonwell green, to the point of almost getting jittery.  What to do, when the core of a person is surrounded, sort of, with challenging pressures.

I get outside to the field here to do my little yoga routine on the grass before the Urban Ecology Center.  The school kids at the middle school are out enjoying lunch break with the staff.  Mild air.  The stereo of the natural tuned down calm, crows orchestrating overhead flights.  I just wanted to get outside for some sunlight and fresh air, but the yoga was delicious yesterday, with inner soreness in joint and muscle to work out.  

So the back and forth, legs apart, lifting up arms from side to side, growing the wing span, and then mountain into down dog, warrior, and some down on all fours, then tree poses, one leg, then the other, tuning up and then into the good-for-the-liver pose then into shoulder stand, then plough, all the way back, then coming out exhausted and panting to recover lying down face up, sunlight feeling gentle and good on my old hide with its bumps and sun exposure faults.

The kids pack lunch and a  little ballgame and the forks with a walk around me on the side road by the gate, and I’m ready to get into headstand after pigeon, and I can’t resist tuning into my little radio of my Facebook feed on my phone, just after noon, and lo, the airs of Trump’s deceit and fraud are on the way out, the gentle miracle campaign of Joe Biden is surging again, the Blue Wave coming over the Red Mirage.  There’s staff laying out the coming results of the battleground states, and not without some surprise I bow and unfold my body over the cradled in hand top of my head in the best and smoothest and most self confident and upright free headstands I’ve ever accomplished as I listen, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia... and then after the counterpose of child pose I assemble my legs and pelvic structures into the most painless and easily stretched lotus pose I’ve ever done.

Self confidence, it is important.  And Biden restoreth, and how terrible for all of us the last four or so years under the demagogue.  Seriously.  

I try mom again, and while her answer of the phone might sound a little shaky, I have the good news that is on its way to us.  Yoga helps one gain in stature.  And today, this time, with me and my mom, it is a real conversation.  And she reminds me, you need space for your writing.

Keep in touch with your old mom, she says.  Of course.

I go back to lotus, and even note a brown recluse spider traversing the legacy of animal fur blond on my legs, who jumps off into the grass below without threat of bite nor causing her host any harm.  The company of jumping spiders, of which there are many, are more preferable, curious in their inspections, looking up, who are you?

You can’t help being sensitive, even these days, and the dark clouds of Trump descended upon us a gray January morning with helicopter and cruel shows of might.  Quite a bad vibe, back at the old apartment I used to keep.

A peaceful seat back against big pine on soft needle bed, then a tree pose—they see all of it, coming and going—on the hillock overlooking the old sleepy river that once divided the nation.  In the vines of Japanese hops covering the steep hill, cardinals, sparrows, a mockingbird.

Confidence is physical in nature.  It resides in the body.  Yoga is very good for it, and so with long walks.  Self-confidence is diminished when encountering the things outside of the self.  An elderly parent comes at you with feeble-mindedness, aggressive, upsetting, causing within you a great mix of emotions, along with them guilt.  Keep the body strong and you will stand against such things.

And Trump, who knows what he has done, all the damage he has done in his term.

But lo, after the subsequent early afternoon call, my attempt to shore up my mom’s confidence and peace in things as they are, as I stop into the little Korean run neighborhood deli, for cheap south of France Pinot noir and maybe cold cuts, after this victorious day of almost perfect yoga, a storm is brewing, yet one of such familiar circumstances of the everyday Covid time series of speaking with my 81 year old dementia suffering mom with her attuned personality prone to worries, an Aries of anxieties, from which I am still able to calm and placate her, mom have some wine, do you have any food, check the refrigerator, oh, feed the cat let him out he’ll come back, take your pills, what pills where, but I’m not in my home I’ve been moved around so much, pushed around...

It’s still okay at five and at six, but then she calls and tells me she’s made a tiny goof, that she might have walked into, by mistake, someone else’s apartment there at the townhomes where doors look alike.

Hanging on the phone, as she goes about, trying to locate herself and the cat, I hear in the distance a knock knock knock, oh Jesus.  I hear the interlocution, and the the policeman picks up the phone as it sits off hook.  He explains.  Paramedics, concerned neighbors, an evaluation...  Then a later call, soon after, they’re taking her in.

I’m scheduled for Friday night and Saturday night.  Still warm enough for foot traffic, outside dining on the sidewalk, while mild weather lasts...

Saturday noon, I call the Uber cab to take me down after a sleepless night.  14th and L, enterprise car rental parking garage puts me in the thick of it.  11:35 PA called for Biden.  The horns are honking, DC is finally celebrating.

I haven’t packed.  How long am I going for?  

Another week goes by.  $260 for the car rental per week.  But a $200 return fee if I drop the car off locally, here in this beautiful old working town by the big across the earth inner sea lake...  and a huge charge of $500 if I then must rent another car to get back to DC to find my food stamp SNAP debit card, my new issued drivers license, whatever else kind of shitty official paperwork I must keep on top of.

So now again, everyday, keep mom entertained.  Groceries to do later, first the Stewart Shop gas station quick mart for a NY Times,  A quick bite, a cup of coffee for me while mom waits oblivious in the rental car, tiny in the front seat, then down to the bluff overlooking the Marina work, the site of the old French fort lost to time behind us.  What to do today for fun, for a ride, for the imposed lunch or dinner so mom can have her wine, and maybe me too in order to endure, but sleep will be broken up, and I’ll probably vomit again when I get up, congested, sore.

In the nighttime, free for a moment, caught out in between, at a writer’s own Big Sur age, I run the dishwasher through, feed the big yellow orange cat, try to entertain myself, a social worker nurse coming tomorrow.

 Like everyone else, today, the fourth of November, 2020, I wake up sore.  Election Day, I had to go down to the old Georgetown Park Mall, to the Department of Motor Vehicles to convert my old DC Driver's License to the new standard of homeland security, the Real ID.  Something I'd been dreading for months.  I ride my heavy yellow mountain bike down to Foxhall, then down the hill and the curved path that goes under the canal in a damp tunnel.  Canal towpath or Capital Crescent paved bike trail, I chose the former.   Park my bike right there, lock her up, and into the building and down to the basement I go.  I have an appointment. At Noon, made months ago.  There's a line.  I get in the line.  I've got my paperwork, birth certificate of some ancient order, some recent bills, a W2 or 1099 to state my social security number...  I'm anxious to be in Georgetown, on Election Day.  A lot of it, shop windows, are boarded up, completely, as a protection should there come rioting and looting in the night.  

I go through the first line, and then to the clerk who prints out a service number, and I wait there and my number is called, over to window 10.  I say hello, how are you, politely, and produce my documents.  "The bill has to be in an envelope.  I can't take it without an envelope."  Okay.  But I've brought forth other papers, for back-up and it looks like I'm clear, until she tells me that I owe for a ticket, $120 plus the late fee.  Speeding, Suitland Parkway, 2010.  I've never even been to Suitland Parkway.  She prints off a list, so that I can pay.  A couple of parking tickets, from the old street, paid, okay, but...

She enters my credit card manually, entering my current data.  Eventually, we get through that, and it's time to sit down in the chair for my official photo.  You want to take that over again?  Your collar was doing different things.  I take off my blue cycling jacket, a snug fitting Spanish zip up thing with pockets in the back.  Who knows what my hair looks like.

Okay, I make out of there, gratefully, and out on the street the sun is out.  Okay.  Across to the sunny side of the street.  Working men are putting up window protection, and the sidewalk, busier than I would have expected.  The boss pays me in cash now, so I deposit the two one hundred dollar bills into the PNC ATM machine at the back, north side, of the old domed Riggs Bank.  Okay.  I can get out of here now.  The bum at the corner has gone away, so I cross Wisconsin to go fetch my bicycle.  It's nice to be in Georgetown, actually.  Clyde's Restaurant is boarded snugly from head to toe.  Back behind the old carriage house of Dean & DeLuca, a sleek coffee shop, seating at outdoor tables above the old canal.  I try calling mom.  

This time I'll take the path back, avoiding the mud puddles on the canal tow path.  I dilly-dally by the river, it is a nice day, there are people out, young college age couples, handsome, a light breeze over the river.  I wish there was a drinking fountain, my water bottle running low.  My niece had called out of the blue just as I was getting ready, rattled as I was, and it's hard to remember everything.  I go through the maze laid out in the park by the river, trying to be in a meditation, after all the anxiousness.  I better get going, I figure.  Maybe get some exercise in later.  I finally get through to mom, speaking with her as I walk my bicycle along.

I mount my bike again, Kryptonite U-Lock over the handlebars, pedaling away smoothly from the construction noise, etc., rolling along underneath the girder bottom of the Whitehurst Freeway.  Out by the boat houses, I get distracted.  Looking to the left for a possible drinking fountain, I find suddenly the closed part of the gate under the old canal bridge right in front of me, too late to swerve, so I fall forward and hit the deck, oooooph.   Ouch.  Landing on my palms.  I'm embarrassed.  I stand up.  Got to pay attention these days, I mumble, as a lady with a small dog comes by. 

Sorely, my hands now, feeling dumb for making such a mistake, rarely I crash my bicycle,   I pedal home.  A lot of people are out on the trail, joggers, bikers, which would on a normal day inspire me to go for a ride, but for the difficulties of putting on all my cycling gear, and by the time I get up the little hill up Foxhall, where I dismount, by the time I get back to the different climate of MacArthur Boulevard, a cloud cover to the west has come to the blue skies of Georgetown.

I lock the bike up outside, come in and wash my hands.

An agonizing night, waiting for clear signs of a Biden Victory...  I go to bed, and then Mom is calling, causing my iPhone to buzz silently next to me on my bed.  Then she calls again.  And once more, and I pick up.  "I'm cold and lonely," she tells me.  Well, Mary will be coming.  I tell her about how the election still hangs in the air.  She gets it.  Oh, wow.  Really...  Oh.  Yeah.  Well, I can tell you don't want to talk to me.  I'll call you later.  I'm just getting up.

I get up and have last night's brewed tea, along with the last Advil on the little bottle.  I look at my phone and open up Facebook to see what the news is.  It could be a horror show.  Mercury left its retrograde cycle yesterday, Election Day, at 12:50 PM yesterday.  Maybe today will be better.

I write for a bit.  Just to keep the mind moving.  I haven't written at all lately.  I call mom back, and she's doing better, and sane again, and not too needy.  The election is still not clear, and after writing, I take a little nap.  There's been a lot to swallow.  For, the more I think about it, a long time, ever since Trump won, somehow.

It struck one as if he'd been, along with his people, through a long forty days in a desert.   A miserable heat. A lack of sustenance and the water.  Temptations.  A voice telling you turn around, to turn back, to give in.

It seemed ordained almost that we would all have to go through such a time, something we had to go through in order to be better again.