"Signs and wonders all along the road"

(quote: Mighty Mos, video: Bertrand Russell)


My brother leaves Boise in three days. He's packed up his belongings, prepped his dog, cleaned his house and found some young rabble to inhabit it, cast a line for job prospects, and is now counting the hours before he roars off into the mountains to be with the woman he loves. I came here because he was here, or at least that's why I tried to. He's my patron saint, the patience and even hand that laid the groundwork for me to be however rebellious and uncouth I have been. The wise and kind older brother that we should all have, and I cannot say I would have tolerated me as well as he has. He has never failed with an encouraging word, an incisive observation, a veteran bit of experience. And our relationship has grown more complicated in the City of Trees. We shared a dwelling for over two years, and relearned each other's idiosyncracies, talked until late at night in that complex of sentence-finishing and head-nodding that only siblings and spouses can conjure. We went to Africa together, to Amsterdam, to San Francisco. He watched me cry a hundred times for someone a million miles away and said exactly what I needed to hear always. He tried to understand my writing, and even when he didn't ruminated about how important it was that I kept going. And though we carry out our lives differently, and I was often selfish and closed off, I respect him as much as any man I know. He's struggling, like all of us, but he has never been afraid to do the hard thing when it was right. He's the man my father could have been, and one whose respect I will work my entire life to maintain. Thanks, bro. It's been good. I love you kid, and what's mine is yours. For life.

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Plans gradually into fruition. Like there is no action but waiting. And all these kilobytes committed to text have simply served to keep me distracted, to keep the nausea down about what may or may not happen six months hence. Anxiety evolves, and the things that made me tremble even two years ago now get swallowed like daily medicine. Money, loneliness, validation, insomnia, stagnation. . .gulp. The next half-decade sits in smoky still-images in my brain: surrounded by spectres, high as a kite, ox-like and obstinate, laughing in the dim morning in my cold bed. I tried my hand at this conventional thing: worked in my office, and put on brown leather shoes, and made the phone calls I had to, and contributed to my retirement fund, and clinked drinks with mid-life crisis casualties. And I didn't fail out, I wasn't asked to leave, and I have burned no bridges, try as I might. The televised 'merikuhn dream just isn't my gig. Even now I can feel the mercury setting in my bones, like concrete turning me into a statue here; groaning and medicating with the other statues in our still, still garden. But I've found a way out, and not a frantic leap from windows, but an almost sanctioned way to stave off my demons and wake up enthusiastic. Almost counting days now . . .

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The other night a friend of my brother's, this guy I've known for about a decade now but have never really connected with, asked me about the whole grad school thing. When I told him I was going so that I could write a novel, he asked: "what do you write? I mean, murder-mysteries, or science fiction, or something?" And I didn't know how to respond. What do I write? So I laid out the plans for my novel, the gist, the theme, the setting, one or two of the characters. The thing is, talking to people that don't read much, I have a hard time explaining what my overall project is. I feel like the follower of some unkempt religion, like some excuse needs to be made. But in the glow of my computer, it all makes absolute sense. Finish two more short-stories that are stewing in my skull and turn everything legible into a self-published collection. Draft the text of my graphic novel about time-traveling drug-dealers and immortality cults. Pound out my novel about loneliness and amnesia and Detroit and identity. Congeal my Antarctic dreams into some kind of bleak narrative. The thing is, I have never felt this in charge of my creative impulse. I know exactly what I'm doing, even if part of the plan requires me to give up all conscious control.