"I have some places to go where I seem to need to carry the places I've been."

My internal alarm clock rouses me before the mechanical ones set for four am. I called The Muse out to the driveway last night to witness the moonrise, a fine, fat Flower Moon, the last full moon of Spring. By three thirty, the neighborhood lies bathed in deep velvet green, an almost glaringly subtle brightness subsuming what might otherwise have been merely dark of night. Night's darkness has already begun to recede, replaced with EarlyDark, a softer and gentler form of night. Morning hasn't quite yet shown her cards. The birds won't start twittering for another hour or so. Stillness reigns. Whatever outrage might rampage through the upcoming day still slumbers, catching up on her beauty sleep before inevitably turning ugly again after breakfast. The world seems gleefully solemn, satisfied with herself, and should be.

We leave the windows open all night, fumigating the whole house with flower freshness. The chokecherry scents the upstairs, bringing sweet, reassuring dreams. How could anyone not wake refreshed in this silent space? My pillows seemed precisely perfect for their purpose when sleep abandoned me. I rose quickly and easily, feeling drawn outside into a silhouette world seemingly cut out of silk and hung to provide context and contrast without any troubling details. EarlyDark seems drawn with fat kindergarten crayons from a narrow palette intended to make distinctions without complication. My senses seem equally humbled, any distance between me and my universe shrinks to within spitting distance of genuine insignificance. The world becomes a graciously simple place, easily understood and deeply appreciated by someone who's brain will begin obsessing as soon as the sun starts coming up.

My workday hovers just beyond the horizon, still shaving before carefully selecting one of two inevitable wardrobes: its grungy yardwork pants and shirt combo or its wrinkled writing ones. I slip outside in my slippers, bleach-stained Gramicci® pants, and sweatshirt, my hair borrowed from Mayor McCheese and wanting a haircut. That song I've been bouncing around since last Christmas revisits me to provide an uplifting soundtrack. I hum this latest unfinished symphony in near silence, satisfied with my progress, however inaudible it might be to everyone else. That unfinished tune seems the perfect accompaniment to EarlyDark, the rhythm and melody nearly complete, the lyrics and storyline still opaque, but holding a deep sense of great promise. I might never finish the thing. It almost seems perfect as it is, unfinished like this night, like this aging Spring season, perhaps forever suspended here in constituent pieces.

I will not find closure here. The dawn will properly bring even more questions in lieu of any answers. I might not be here to ache after not being here anymore, but to merely be here. This moment should properly slip away, leaving no door prize behind. This life, this season, wasn't supposed to be a cake walk with success determined by the size of the cake I bring home from the carnival. Such success insists upon carrying home a cake and much recounting of presumed skillful navigation through what I might more properly describe as randomness, luck. But then the walk back home seems three times longer than usual under the weight of the winning cake. I seriously consider leaving it along the roadway next to the creek for the nightbirds and slugs, no longer feeling smug or satisfied with my recent public success. EarlyDark brings no competition, no frantic pursuit of recognized excellence. No audience at all.

I eventually want no more of even this and retire to my writing chair where I will just complicate my life again. This isolated moment might have been no more than respite, a deep cleansing breath prefacing regular respiration again. As I live and breathe, I seem to see only snippets of any serenity. These visit me not in the night nor in the full light of day, but most often in this place not hardly even in-between the two. The EarlyDark might allegorically insist upon its own subtle significance. Am I revisiting some usually tacitly eternal part of myself or prefacing some inevitable future state? Either way, I seem simply suspended for an almost silent moment, no more than almost anything or anyone. I have some places to go where I seem to need to carry the places I've been.

©2018 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #AnotherSpring, #PureSchmaltz