Going for a walk.

There's this saying that i've been fumbling with in the past few years: When it goes wrong, it really goes right. And there's been variations on the wording but always the same idea. I've used it to brace myself against the fair travesties of events like Jackson, Wyoming ... a haven for cloned melo-emotions and me smack in the middle. Or the night i walked home drunk through a Maine blizzard and got pneumonia, but kept working my three jobs all the same. I remember holding a cough and running into the kitchen, donned in my serving tuxedo monkey-suit, and nearly falling over as i convulsed in the pantry. Then there was a morning on the ferry, i was sitting atop my backpack on deck looking through the rails; watching a side of wake and the town beyond i was leaving: best friend, home, and job.

We all could use a hand and who better than ourselves to give it. So i devised this saying to explain the true efficacy of otherwise sole negative haps. My brother tells me that a Libran Sun and Leo Moon proves caustic to my goal of stability. That's kind of a bummer if it's true, though it would put some discourse to the whole of my life. Astrologically-challenged may be a future term if a polite and liberal society like San Francisco wins the masses.

The essence of my personal adage is: despite a turn toward the less-desired, hence it goes wrong... at least an answer has been reached. And as human beings, we have such ruthless faculty for cataloguing events as they pass into our own history. It's nearly alarming how we can remove our sentiments and file away any occurrence resolved, if we see so fit. More misgiving is the unanswered thing in my life; i don't know what to do with it. Tricks to bring peace of mind, maybe that's what this is about.

I have this new friend. She's this engaging canuck with a sunny dispostion, who allays the usual histrionics of conversation, inviting ease. I went to pick her up the other day for a trip out of town. Backpack full of food and water, thermos of coffee strapped to the side. My car made five blocks and then stalled on the corner of 22nd and Folsom. All i could do was laugh as i pushed my car three blocks toward a vacant spot, drawing eyes of passerby with my push through a major intersection. Out-of-state plates. The early morning light still throwing shadows over much of the neighborhood grid and down on the streets. I left her there near a crumbling curb, beneath a tree scattering brittle leaves.

My friend came and picked me up and we drove across the bridge into Marin, through the rainbow tunnel. And the smooth ascension northward, not looking back except to laugh. Loosing any achievement for a day or two and feeling glad to be sharing this space with a friend. The stupid luck of knowing something went right.