And now I have arrived,
at that precarious hour of the night and life,
when I see my life somehow superimposed, or is it the other way around,
with old Jack Kerouac.  Except that he's done far more work, collected letters, intellectual discussions, whereas I was just in my own world, sort of, a private person with a barman's life, toiling away with hand and fist, legs, back, my old now face, my having shot all my chances at a decent life, family, wife, income, retirement, all that sort of thing.
But in such an hour, here, 2:30 AM, The Dharma Bums being the last of texts I've really pondered to absorb, along with the usual Buddhist help, Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hahn and the like, I am, I am more, I have gone further away, it seems, from the conventions, in order to find the bravest work an artist can find, a real normal, a real normal that works, that includes weird stuff, going out at night and walking under pines, the ground soft and welcoming, a blanket, calling you, airs you cannot find in any man made domicile...

I am more drawn to, rather than all the so-called fixes of life, the should-do list, the practical responsible list, (believe me, I'm responsible enough to show up at a job I've always had a very hard depressing time with, and in the end, at least on some days, made it work, making it more than it was, adding the Amherst College to the task, I've made it a wonderful place for all of us, even as I grit my teeth with worries of ultimate homelessness, the pointlessness... I've brought things you cannot qualify or quantify to work, made some magic out of it, when the mellowness of memory in the lack of self irritation comes around, as it does, like the visit of a bird...) I am more, still, even with a greater pull, drawn to the Kerouac hours, drawn to the out on the road, the hike, the trees, the remedy of nature against the craziness that our mixed humanity suffers insult by enduring...  as much as the riches of driving by Coney Island might be...

And you cannot inhabit the whole range or brilliance of a Kerouac or a Larkin, or any of the many who have fallen into this poetic sweet spot, here in mid-life crisis, having harrowingly survived the Sirens Singing and what not else, the dark stuff too, mistakes made, without being there yourself, even if you might feel presumptuous about being so.

I write, because you have to write.  It's natural.  It's beautiful.  It's a thing you have to do.  It's a thing that you can do with very little what do you call it, economic investment, start up costs, I guess you'd say, where everything else does, even a simple roadside taco stand let alone a wine bar, in this day and age...


The reward.  If you sit long enough, with your own inner Queequeg, or whoever he is, the strange inner Polynesian, whoever this strange person is, the only one to have a conversation with, now, here, in life, with you, at this hour, everyone else having tucked in to some safe life away from such strange flux, you will see the miracles of life, my point here.

This is what you see, late at night, even with no one else to enjoy it with,