Pack Up Your Troubles in an Old Kit Bag...

...and smile, smile smile.

For about 2 years I've done a pretty good job of staying close to home. Simple economics has played into this, certainly, for I find it more and more difficult to spend money I don't have. Lack of available time, too, carries weight as I try to add a cushion of vacation days to the corporate books. And, at least in part, I felt somewhat remiss in my familial role of... well, whatever that role has evolved into over the previous decades. I get the sense that I've made a lot of bad beds, some that I wasn't even aware of, and now I'm lying in them. But, as Vonnegut said, so it goes.

My last trip of any real duration was to, what, Yosemite Valley several months ago? That must be it--a couple of wonderful nights in Camp 4, cozy as a man can get in a 4-season tent with just enough beer and food to be comfortable. Before that, it must have been Yosemite 2 other times.

I can generally tell when I'm unconsciously preparing for a trip to somewhere--that gut feeling of restlessness and impatience starts gnawing. Maui is, perhaps, on the near horizon, and that will be nice since I've never been there, and I will have someone nice to travel with. It should be a grand adventure. I learned in the navy, though, that the horizon is relative, that it changes with a person's elevation. That was always the wonder of climbing trees when I was a kid, I suppose: seeing how the horizon shifted with each progressively higher limb. So, I'm looking beyond Maui, looking to England yet again, creature of habit that I am. "You've been there twice already," I've been told, and I've been told correctly. Some people like to see many places and get to know the surface of things, but I've always leaned toward seeing below the surface. I know, for instance, that after the visit to Maui, I'll want to go back.

My empty Moleskine is a reminder that I need to get out and gather, to paraphrase the writer Jim Harrison, some life-experiences. My friend Tom gave me my first Moleskine in 2004, and the first entry was written on the fourth day of March that year when I was at the small coastal cabin Tom and his wife have let me stay in several times. The final entry? In Yosemite March 12, 2011--almost exactly 7 years later. Last year I bought a new Moleskine at Powell's Books in Portland (a city I'll visit again in a bit over a month), but so far the pages are fallow. And lately, as I ponder how to pack my respective kit bags for Maui and England, and how to find a way back to Yosemite this autumn and winter, I know the Moleskine needs to get on the road as much as I do.

Things We Didn't Say Yesterday #5

You know how you feel when you've never felt anything quite like what you're feeling?

"You need to relax, Chris," Phil said.

"I don't need to do anything of the sort."

"You're gonna kill yourself, you keep up like this.

Chris thought about it. "We all die at some point."

"What's that, an epiphany?" He put just enough English on the cue ball to make it brush the cushion and slide the eight-ball into the corner pocket.

"Fuck you."

"You saying that because I won?"

"Nope. Rack them up."

"I'm done. You can stay here and lose to someone else, or you can sit down and finish the beer."

"Fine." He took his final quarter off the side of the table and sat next to Phil. He was glad to see that the bartender had saved their spots at the bar.

"So what did she say this time?" Phil asked.

"Nothing that she hasn't said before." That was a lie.

"Right. You need to let her stop getting under your goat."

"Skin."

"Skin?"

"Yeah. She gets under my skin, but she gets my goat."

"Whichever way it goes, you can't let her get to you. Maybe you should start trying to get to her."

"I've tried," Chris said. "She's gotten a lot meaner since the divorce became final."

"Why do you two even stay in touch? Seems like you're both missing the entire meaning of 'divorce'."

Chris shrugged. "Usually one of us finds something that belongs to the other one. We start out with email, move on to phone messages, then finally meet in person. That's when she gets mean."

"Whatever happened to being amicably divorced?" Phil gestured for refills.

"I think that happens only in the movies. You know was Cindy says?"

"Not a clue." He paid for the beers.

"That I'm evil. Not just a shit, which is how she started. But evil."

"That's a bit over the top, isn't it? Even for a divorcee."

"She says I ruined a good portion of her life."

"Did you?"

Chris considered the idea. "I didn't think I did, but who am I to say? Maybe she's right. I wasn't always pleasant."

"Maybe she never gave you a chance."

"She gave me plenty of chances. Last week she said she couldn't even describe how I make her feel, how the thought of me makes her feel. She says she's never felt anything like it, that it's beyond hate for me and misery for herself."

"She has always been fairly dramatic."

"Yeah. She has. But now every time I try to get angry with her, I end up feeling depressed, or angry with myself. She's brainwashed me."

Phil ran his fingertips down the side of the beer bottle and picked at the label with his thumb. "Christ."

"Christ, exactly. I never thought I could have an effect like that on anyone. I once thought I made her feel something she'd never felt because she loved me."

Phil didn't say anything, just picked at the label. Finally, when the label was removed, he stood up. "You're depressing the hell out of me, Chris. Maybe you should get some help."

"I'd rather play pool. I tried 'getting help' once before."

"Your choice."