Sir Peter Paul Rubens The Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau About 1625 - 1628
"I left only NowHeres behind."

Summer has been eroding since early July, wasting away in place. The Dog Days came and went, replaced by a succession of cat days, warm enough that the cats preferred to stay out unsupervised all night and started turning feral again. Max, The Maximum Cat, disappeared for two successive nights before suddenly appearing without an explanation, hungry. I, of apparently little faith, had already started imagining how I might cope with such a loss here in this ass end of a sweet season, with so many competing Impendings already scheduled. The end of summer enters with stealth exceeding even that of the littlest cat's feet. It leaves no footprints and manages to surprise me, no matter how closely I watch my clocks and calendars. Perhaps especially this year, where so much has managed to maintain so much sameness backdropped by so danged much simply staying home. The Muse and I have been aching for a road trip, but circumstances or entropy have successfully stymied every attempt. Big change is coming, though. I know this because I feel unusually blind to the Impendings.

The first day of fall has been scheduled to appear on a Tuesday this year, slipped into midweek as if to discourage any leading or trailing long weekend celebration. The Autumnal Equinox seems more wake than party, with summer's potential fully expended and all attending understanding where this shift is leading. Crisp, clear days once the damned wildfire smoke clears out, but the inevitable beiging of the surroundings, green being reserved for those conifers not already wounded by beetle kill. The petunias' pantaloons wilting with seed, I see more ending than fresh beginning from here. Still, The Maximum's back and purring on his perch, and that much seems right with the world. The unknowns do not disturb me, but the certainties certainly do. I clearly remember when NowHere was brand new and filled with nothing but promise. Now, my NowHere Stories, so hopeful and satisfying in creation, have almost achieved their maximum potential and seem to be settling into just what they'll always be, an ever-present used to be.

Seven months of sequestration have left me sleepless, restless, and deeply unsettled. The Muse insists that we'll live more than a thousand miles from here by this time next year. Absence might or might not make my heart grow fonder, but I sense this Impending fulfilling that responsibility. I never seem to love anyplace as much as I do the moment just before it disappears into its own compartmentalized container, a time capsule holding a former present forever separate and never to be reconciled with my future. The pantry's filled with jars containing this summer's small moments, to be revisited in smears and spoonfuls, tastes and smells left to retain what was once a much fuller sensory experience. I seem only to see all I have not achieved in this passing season. I hold only flimsy excuses in place of what once seemed overflowing with potential. The end of summer seems the sorriest ending. There's no pretending I'll ever get around to renting that scaffolding and repainting and repairing. There's no next year left here.

I feel grateful that I did not know at the beginning that the virus might smother mobility for two or three years. I felt disciplined accepting a two-week furlough, not knowing that I might one day measure this time as a succession of fortnights rather than just a few short, over-long days. Each new day has come to resemble another same-old, and I have been watching myself getting older in dog or cat days, six or seven per. I feel as though I've aged half a decade while sequestered here, piling up finished novels, napping through most afternoons, just another in a lengthening succession of  Impendings. Soon, though, other Impendings will break through this summer's screening. An election's coming with irrelevance running against common sense. While it seems from here that irrelevance holds no chance of winning, Impendings never disclose any outcome until it's too late to make up any alternative. I warmly anticipate a drastic reduction in the volume of fresh breaking irrelevancies to having an administration capable of administering something, anything. I will very likely spend the coming fall and winter preparing, The Muse stacking up last-minute remodeling projects so we can sell what we never really owned so that we might finally head back home after an exiled dozen dog or cat years. I wonder if I might discover my heart already impatiently living there.
____________________________________________________________________________
It being Friday again (it sneaked up on me again), I should offer a brief reprise of my prior week's Impendings, which have already started settling into the recent past.

I began my writing week with Revelations, a formal coming out reveal declaration which set nothing in the neighborhood on fire, wherein I announced what I'd become, which ended up being no surprise to anyone. This was the most popular posting this week.

I next reflected on how we measure magnitudes of catastrophes in TheRhodeIsland.

Then, I wrote a little soliloquy on sanity and it's crazy counterparts in MisFunction.

I took on the especially tenacious and troublesome patterns in Patruns.

I considered those small actions which produce more effect than apparent cause in PinchOfSalt.

I just had to, in recognition of this election season I suppose, offer an obligatory political screed in Stewing.

I ended my writing week, the first full week since I'd formally come out as a writer, by revealing the presence of The Atheist's God in -finity.

This was another remarkable week in retrospect, though it seemed almost ordinary when going through it, other than some subtly increasing Impendings. Inklings accumulate before producing change and though I always seem to sense their increasing proximity, I cannot ever say that I actually saw them coming. They always arrive from some different direction than I anticipate, sneaking up behind or swooping in from my blind side. There's never any place to hide. I sensed something coming this week, but left only NowHeres behind. Thank you for following along even though I'm obviously lost out here.

©2020 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #NowHere, #PureSchmaltz