those and these days

This photo was snapped by me on Reed College Way in Portland, OR sometime in the late spring of 2021, perhaps a couple of months after learning of my wife Susan’s clear desire for a divorce. By then I’d moved down into the basement, and was out walking the streets a lot.

It’s sort of funny. Back then I was out walking so much to not be there – there in Susan’s house with all the wonderful memories and all that right-then pain. Now I’m walking and hiking as much as I am to exactly be there. To be there in the landscape, there out in the day – slipping in and out of the moments of the day depending on my lack of thinking (a good thing.) and just being. Me and Fats Domino – “I’m Walking.” And Fats’ lovely existential question – “Whatcha gonna do when the well run dry?”

There’s no special reason for this picture and these words. I suppose it’s the fault of Windows 11, which since I made my best effort to download has played various bits of havoc with my computer, including running through all my photos drifting through the x and o technology and splashing them up on the screen as new-age screen-savers. There have been a bunch of pictorial reminders of those old days. The wife. The wife and me.

The walking thing is interesting to me – not enough room to riff about it here – and there’s a spooky sort of premonition wearing San Diego articles of clothing way before the fact.

It’s also interesting that the entirety of the time I was with Susan – autumn 2010 to spring 2021 – my hair was nearly as short on purpose as it is now accidentily. See:

(My art on the basement wall.)