20 at 24 hours, awake.

the hazed sky was vast through the canyon as it opened lateral like antique scrolls. swept ragweed brush ran along my car in waves of brindle ready for fire season. that season starts soon. the canyon was vacant at six a.m. our caravan was just her and i but she was curled up in her car seat with my cashmere sweater pulled up to her chest like a cloak. corralled horses and bovine ran in silence along their splintered fences as we passed. absent to the landscape were the clusters of wild burro. they hid among the loping hills that gripped the single lanes. their footprints litter the dusty shoulders like hieroglyphics. loose cartilage shook in my nose like hot dice tossed on a tile floor when i sucked in the smell of horse leavings and morning dew. i could feel the dirt underneath my finger nails.

we descended into the quietude of flatlands that spread their innards before us. her soft breathes melodic with the car wheels wrung on raw asphalt were my choir. we passed a grand and empty house that sprawled ranch style with bare windows. construction tape adorning the exterior walls like roped tattoos. this homestead grew in a weedy plot of land adjacent to a giant crucifix. a marker at the threshold of an aged road leading up to the orthodox church. she stirred in my rearview mirror as though wake had come upon her. a plastic bag of sesame crackers was strewn on her makeshift blanket. she stirred but still slept.

radiance in my side mirror hinted to cars behind us. when i checked the reflection there was only a small cloud break to expose the laborious sun on it's upward climb. at the deep exodus of this canyon the coarse body of feral mule slumped in the unpaved shoulder. the swollen carcass abandoned by it's companions.

On Luck

I consider the past year of my life, the stark change that came about. I moved to Redlands from San Bernardino in June 2009, after 3 years or so of complete inebriation. I thought the move and the studio alone might help me take a reign on my life, which I felt was bottoming out. It did to some extent, yet the farther I moved from some things the closer I moved to others. An island of bars, in a loose row up boulevard less than a mile away.

Yet, after so many trips to the bars, so many late, late nights watching the sun drift into full view with a half opened eye I became disenfranchised. The question why hung around every morning. As I started to dig into my program at school, to push myself in deep and thrive as a writer I lost interest in drinking. I lost interested in my 4 hour friends. The ones I would see at a specific place for a specific drink and leave it at that. When boredom ensued I found that I excelled at school. Education was my interest.

But this is about luck, not the past. I learned to leave the past where it is and not dwell. On luck, I've been luckily this past year. It could have made a stark turn in another direction, like all things but the gods or whoever sits above me smiled. I am happy. This might be the only time the word happy has been used on this blog. The past entries in this blog are filled with misery and distrust. However, I must say I am lucky. I imagine two people might read this, both of which I love. They have impacted my life for the better. This is an entry not filled with prose or wit or sarcasm. It is simple, honest. This is me writing an entry that is not masked in wit and snideness. This is how I imagine most blogs look like, unassuming journal entries.

Mostly, this is for her. For you. I am, we are lucky. The past months have been miraculous. I guess this is a response to her post about me. Are we that corny? If so, oh well, c'est la vie. My North Star in the vast and empty night.