Tonight while smoking the last of the days cigarettes George and I stood out in the yard contemplating the rotation of the universe, the solar system, and our humble planet. The conversation moved to the constant expansion of the universe...old stars dieing, new stars coming into existence...entropy seeming to exist only in the short term constantly birthing beginnings...i said "...so we breathe in the eternal...if only temporarily..." and we both sighed for the briefest of moments losing our anthropocentric egotism, our geocentric heresy caught in the sublime movements of the eternal...

at the moment when I felt i could be lifted from the perception of the finite here and now the sprinklers lifted from the ground plunging me back to the tension between my numbered days and the infinite...

My time in Silvertown is drawing to a close. Along with the completion of the wall. I placed the last stone in place yesterday morning before the fog had been chased from the hills. The wall was not merely a job it was the object into which I could pour all of my restlessness it was the object of creation something to be formed with care. Now it stands. No longer in need of care. Saturday morning I leave what has become "home" to spend a week or so with my grandparents and then to where? Africa still has the solidity of a dream.

Allowing myself one evening of self loathing, self pity, and self destruction I bought a bottle of the cheapest whiskey I could find. It didn't last a great length of time. Ten thirty found me curled up in the back yard in nothing but my undergarments, weeping, and ridding my body of the vileness recently consumed.

Early in the evening my dad inquired about a relationship and I spoke about responsibilities not ready to take on, lifestyle changes for which i'm not ready for...truth be told...that is all bullshit.

Truth is it's fear...she's what I want and I'm a damn fearful, prideful fool...

Oregon is in full bloom. Meaning the fog has descended, rain is pelting the leaves, wool socks paired with Birkenstock are in full force, and insignificant to some the average simple black birds are no longer on the wire. My fascination with migration and migratory patterns of birds is a new interest. Perhaps only from an emotional empathy concerning movement. Only a few days ago a group of some six black birds perched on the wire above the hedges and would chirp, whirl, chatter, caw, and all sorts of other avian acrobatics. Telling either of dreams or travel strategies. I prefer the former. The life expectancy of the average black bird is 20 years, a number expected to be far less. of course it's expected to be less because we as humans usually equate value and life expectancy with size. Perhaps all of this exposition on the life span of birds is pointless, mental drivel...perhaps not.

My thoughts are many....perhaps the contemplation of birds is a noble endeavor...it at least is of nature although not void of abstraction.

Tim stopped by my fathers work to have a message passed on concerning Africa...essentially "soon" was the message but still without definition. He also revealed the nature of the contract and the financial compensation will be significantly more substantial than previously thought which was already considerable for a minimalist such as myself...

yet...

perhaps in the pursuit of this dream, this life, this goal i have just made a fatal mistake. One in which I may never know the extent of the loss. Does the realization of one goal prohibit the realization of another...is it not a human gift to unify the thesis and the antithesis, to junxtapose the life of the family man and that of the wanderer...is it possible to place them so close side by side that they become entangled, intertwined in a brackish haze?