The Super Moon had brought with it strong emotions, mini tempests of anxieties while lying awake early in the morning, a general difficulty in finding calm.  Getting to work had been difficult, full of weariness and heavy emotions no customer really, arriving later once the wine bar was open, would have imagined.  The sun was out higher now with the clock change, and off the bus I walked up past the fire station over the newly laid brick sidewalk with the sand still spread over to sink in finally, and I thought of who would be coming in and what the night would bring and how I should set up.

I'd walked home the night before, Sunday night, thinking of Sam the Man, the DJ at the front room, The Gold Room, who had passed away earlier in the week, the news just getting out.  I would have wanted to pay some visit of homage, but money was tight, and I was tired, as Sunday night, despite all appearances, turned out to be busy, and long, too, and even emotionally demanding.

And fortunately, the first people in the door and up the stairs, except the quiet two-top, a man and a woman having some sort of catch up from a previous business relationship, sitting far in the back room so to not be bothered, were the two musicians, David, and Tillery.  I had the John Coltrane station playing, mellow, and once Tillery had taken out his cornet out of the case, and blown a few notes, as David returned with more of his equipment, then looking out the window across the street at the bright green soccer field tucked this side of the woods, remarked quietly about the innocence of the kids across the street, absorbed in their game, far from adult burdens...

I was up at the wine bar all by myself, and sure enough, the bar itself was soon full, my saving one seat for my friend, Leslie, an investment strategist, who I'm sure was having quite a day as I put out a little reserve sign on the dining mat laid over the slate bar top.  And then in odd syncopation, along came more people without reservations, here and there, and I had to hustle, and dodge, directing traffic, coming out of the bar mouth as the musicians gathered to re-water on their first break, to get out to the little tables, trying to read people, Ambassador Towell in by himself, to catch the music, asking me straight out what the soup of the day was, Sweet Potato, fine I'll take it, and then I tell him the entrees, and he'll take the Flounder a la Nage...  and red wine tonight...  The other couple, they're just hear for dessert really, after I seat them, following them with menus as they consider where to sit, and later, a big man in a suit with his girlfriend and another young lady, whose birthday it is, gives me crisp directive orders right out of the box, as I squeeze the three of them into the two open bar spots, hopeful that the other seats will open up soon, and I have two little tastings of three glasses out for the two at the bar and for Mr. Ambassador, and I'm trying to keep them straight, tell specials, etc., ...

Whooof, and finally, after the Eastern Turkish woman who can be problematic over the drink, after I try to hustle the bar clean, feeling my energies drop, "where's your drink," she asks...  uh-hum, and I bang around taking the ice out of the big Veuve Clicquot orange plastic wine bucket and then the other sink, and putting everything through the dishwasher, and the busboy man hustling behind him to take out the trash as I summon the three plates of dinner for the jazz trio...  finally, they all go into the night, and no more strain about keeping the different conversations in some form of continuity, I send a text off to my brother inquiring about the health of his lovely old chocolate Lab bitch, as I had received a call earlier, a sad call, from my mother, telling me Ella is bleeding from the nose again, oh boy, not good, not good.

And so are my anxieties a bit tweaked as I sit down finally to have a bite of the flat-iron steak with spinach, Beech mushroom on top, being a soothing addition...

I am compelled to take some time after all this to set the bar back up, as tomorrow is going to be busy, a 15 top  back in the wine room, Micheal's 50th birthday party, Dennis, on top of Tuesday night wine tasting...

I get an Uber, too late to catch the D6, and by the time I get in the door, yes, it's a good idea to go take  a little walk, across the street, down across the field with the brooding high dam of the reservoirs, just to get some fresh air, walk it off under the moon.  A deer darts out from by the Urban Ecology Center building, bounding easily with a bit of a back and forth wobble viewed from behind.

I pass under the pines and then toward the moon again, along the long yard of grass, little dark circles of new grass tendril leaves rising out of the dry flat grass, up to the bluff, and as I come around the deer, a male closer to me is rummaging through the leaves, and a last plane comes in flying downstream above, crossing over me right under the moon.  I sit down and talk to the deer, and the deer with his short antlers keeps his little efforts neck down, undisturbed by my proximity.  My footsteps in approach were slow and heavy, the human creature obviously sore, not up for any hunt, and indeed, as I might fancy, giving out such an honestly serene vibe that of course the deer has accepted the inter-species friendship, and his girlfriend deer, further up the hill sequestered behind a bit more brush and honeysuckle tangle scrub with vines, keeps up the same quiet rummaging, also undisturbed by my presence by them under this full moon called a Crow Moon, a Sap Moon, or a Worm Moon, and anyway a Super Moon.  I take a little sip from my repurposed little Canada Dry club soda bottle canteen.  And as they depart back toward the low schoolhouse like building this side of the reservoir's bank, I am following them, back to the apartment, for shower and bedtime, after a little bit of almond butter over little slices of packaged fresh mozzarella.


Those friendly with witches and the other passers on of ancient earth-related nature wisdom who I've come across on Facebook have offered a good explanation of all these ups and downs, the verging tears, and ruffled anxieties, of this full moon, but these missives of explanations are also helpful.  There will be new purpose and an energizing effect brought about by this moon's passing us up above as it raises tides and does its thing.  And oddly, in a strange way, although they all might have sloshed around in their basins, the customers tonight were oddly peaceful, as if worn out by it all.  It had been a bad day, the worst since 2008 for the stock markets, and all minds were grappling with the new realities brought by the arrival of the new Corona-virus, as just blocks away, Christ Church down in Georgetown had suspended its operations after the rector, returning from a conference, tested positive.


By the light of early morning, with work ahead in the evening, uncomfortable hours to wait for it, things are, of course, anxious again, and I have no idea what to do with myself and feel like hiding under the blankets.  But I get up, and I take in some tea, open up my smartphone to examine the writings leading up to this moon and before, over the events that have shaped whomever I have been over the last weeks over the months of late winter, and really wonder what I am indeed doing with my fine self.  I think of my brother and his dog, his family, the house, I think of my mom, whom I call.  I think of the nice lady in last night who invited me out to dinner before, a while ago, and now that is coming soon.  My throat scratches, allergies still, tree pollen count high.  What do I have for breakfast, make another pot of tea.


I had some thought, passing through my mind like observing a particular constellation in the sky, of the book I wrote, and where it fits in, the whole personally story behind it.  And then, as you know, the attempt to place some measurement upon such things through the spiritual wisdom that has gained upon one, for the time being.  And one has to be reminded of a process.

And this process, as it works in nature, amounts to a sloughing off of an old personality, and in Christian thought, it's a bit more serious.  One is about to, potentially, go through a potentially awful process of losing a self, a personality, a selfish minded thing, on to something else, the only picture of which we have is of a vague new way, but one full of, I suppose, accuracy, of realistic behaviors...  A new light, allowing us to step forward somehow, even as we worry about all things, all things practical, all things pertaining to the living of life.  And who knows.  Who knows?  Who knows...




In the night, by the deer, under the moon, even hemmed in by the small two-lane highway of Canal Road below me, lit brightly enough, and cars and service vans passing, by the canal, and beyond the river the divided highway of G.W. Parkway, and then on the other side by the settlement of quiet houses and beyond them the apartment buildings and the small row houses this side of MacArthur, the thoughts of peace and peaceful vibrations, at the end of this missing poet's workday night, were brightened and heightened by the full moon's light.

And today we are back on earth again, with work to do, and with the sins of my own slothful selfishness and years given up, gone by, days of wine and roses, returns.  It helps to write them out a little bit.


Leave that old self behind, the one whose actions and behaviors can leave you dejected for the things you missed.  But on the other hand, honor that self which went through the difficult process of preparing itself to be less selfish, more selfless, more aligned with the will of a poetic heavenly father who sees all things through to the good.  Fardels bear.



Yes, as a barman, you do have to make peace with everyone.  You're going to have to deal with them anyway.