But I always find, one cannot be holy holy holy every day, not every day inspired, not every day, but rather very rarely feeling the holy presence or the actual applicability of Buddha-wisdom, no.

Such days require their own misadventures, a bit of action, as if things could not exist in the vacuum of one's own aloneness.

The scab on the inside of the left elbow, a burn from helping new neighbors lug up a sleeper couch up flights of narrow stairs, the skin rubbed up against wall or the upholstery fabric, the pain administered to with wound gel and a bandage pad turns now to itch, after the painful scrubbings in the shower and the rub of alcohol and then hydrogen peroxide.  The itch a big improvement over the rawness' pain on the soft inner skin of the arm.   Right where the bone is.  Around the arm just an inch from when forty years ago on my old blue Peugeot UO-8 I dropped the bike coming downhill around the corner from Champion to Ernst Road, those beautiful views of the valley below the farmland fields and the old barn and the farmhouse on the corner with its smaller cribs, from all the sand and salty silt left from the winter snow plow trucks, putting a nice dime-sized hole through the fascia there, Dr. Moore picked little rocks out of it then stitched it up...

My little adventure as night turned to ten PM, and me out of wine,  I built up the gumption to get the yellow mountain bike out of the basement laundry room and out on the road up to the old bistrot.  I figured the kitchen guys would still be there, mopping up...  I'd be there on Sunday 'til midnight waiting for them, Jules from Cameroon who'd come up finally and put a quick large glass of red wine down the hatch as he waited for the bus to come to take him one leg of his journey back to Silver Spring...

But the lights are off, nothing, as I roll up the alley behind, so I go around the front, lock the bike up. I'm timid about going in, but I still have keys, and after monkey with the front door a minute, I remember how, and I hope the security code on the key pad to set the alarm system is the same, so I open the door, quickly get to it, punch it in, and it seems to work, by the little beep beep beep.

How strange.  The walls, the old color, of paint bistre, that served the purpose of making the best of the stains of tobacco smoke into a pleasing sort of terra cotta brown, earthy, has been redone in a new shiny bright yellow, and with white trim.  I don't enjoy it.  I look around with the light of my bicycle helmet shining around, like a crime scene.  I go up and look at the bar, and even the bar top could use a good cleaning.  All the reds that used to be on top of the cooler lined up ready to go have been taken away downstairs.

I pour myself a glass, a taste of the Pinot Noir, barely worth serving by the taste of it, open too long, a taste of the Beaujolais, a wine I love, tastes great, then the Chinon, a 2015, so the dirt clay mineral edge has softened into a grand view of the river bank, enjoyable to all creatures, those who do not have to fear for large lizard reptiles with sharp seizing maws, for ever.  The Cotes Du Rhone, imported by Stephan Defot, who is Z Wine Gallery, even at 14.2%, is soft and beautiful.  Oh, and Bruno the chef has sent his white wine from Alentejo, Portugal (thought the wine maker didn't tell Bruno as much as he would have liked to know about the wine making process...)   The Beaujolais, imported by Ed and Barbara Addis, Wine Traditions, is my favorite still, but there's only a little bit left in the bottle, and when I go check down in the silent dark basement with the chairs stacked in the tight hallway, into the wine caver there is hardly any back-up for all the reds poured by the glass.  Which scares me.  But lots of Bruno's wine, just the white, not the red.

I go into the kitchen, and look sadly around.  There's a big pot half full of stock, the veal stock perhaps, with a baking sheet to protect it as it cools.  But there is not much in the cooler.

Overall, the place has taken a kind of nakedness, and for me, after having not set foot in the old place for five months now, its emptiness and lifeless vibrations reveal a tawdry side, almost a worn-out place of previous escapism, which must reflect my mood, because that wasn't all it was, and the food was really great, excellent quality for the price, and different from the tavern with burgers and steaks and more recognizable industry offerings...


I leave, to go across to the Safeway, for some quick modest grocery shopping, promising myself not to buy too much.  Good to see the old familiar faces, and it turns out I have an excellent conversation with the big old guy who looks like he could do Santa for Christmas time.  Fred is his name, and he grew up in Japan, the child of Southern Baptist Missionaries.  And the conversation started out, my looking for a job.  I go around the store, for trail mix, which I have a newfound adoration for, some meats, fresh mozzarella.  I pay homage to Sir Bruce, before he shuts the register down for the closing report sent off to corporate, but he's in a distant mood behind his mask.

I get back in to the old Dying Gaul, careful to keep an eye out for traffic, or if anyone's following me. Pack it up in my courier bag, lock up, and back I go, westward to the little apartment building, locking the sturdy heavy yellow bike up behind the building with the heavy u-lock.

I open the little tube of Braunschweiger liverwurst, put a dent in that, and heat up the cauliflower crust pepperoni pizza, the first non Korean market not Farmers Market fare I've had in a long time.


It gives me energy to write things down a bit.  The process helps me navigate, courage and comfort enough from words themselves and the record they leave behind and before and after and during to do the other things that fall upon a person to work over and deal with, a kind of psychological strength that helps one remain steady facing the evils of the day and the offenses that come to the world.


Our old family friend Joan K. calls to check in.  Mom left a message with her yesterday, and I explain how Mom might have come to think, poetically, that she was "in your area."  We had a nice conversation in the afternoon after she was looking through the Andrew Wyeth Christina's World art book, how our family friends know the caretaker of the Olson house up there in Cushing, Maine.   Thank you for taking care of your mom, she says.  But don't let it consume your own life, I've seen that happen before, so be careful.  Take care of yourself, our old friend who was the first to bring the Hospice concept to New England, and that's not nothing.

You have to know who you are to know where to go.  You have to know where you've been to find the way forward.  And I can look back of working in a humble common not always sophisticated establishments, to which humanity came and I waited on them.  The tawdry dismal aspect of the restaurant lying dormant, its basic equipment of stoves and refrigerators, plates, silverware, tables with table clothes, a simple stock of wine and harder stuff for cocktail hour and dessert, fallow stale air and the darkness of dust falling slowly upon it all and on every shelf, I brought kindness, if not love.  I brought an ear for people, whatever they might want to talk about, more than I spouted off at them.

Where to go now, now that all things are serious and life is drawing in.



Mom calls, bright and bushy-tailed around 9 AM.  Did I wake you?  Well...  She is not so happy that I don't have much to say now as far as "what's next for you?"

Later she calls, just as I'm about to call her, with my tea steeping, after I finally get up, having dreamed again.  She doesn't want Mary, her helper to come today.