Objects in Mirror are Smaller than you Think

Tempest Chronicles Day 22

Before I get to the beautiful but damp, uncomfortable and uneventful meandering return to the rusty rainbow I feel that I must clear up something that was brought to my attention last night after an evening of dealing with an employee shortage and a cornucopia of Father’s Day meals.

Note to gays….I’m ignoring of all you who comically referred to me as a daddy. I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed if I even remotely thought you were picturing me with a Tom of Finland riding crop and pleather chaps. Yet again I digress…….

So my sister informed me that our cousin, who later went on to greatness as the WINNER of the Reba McEntire look alike contest in Nashville Tennessee in the 80’s, who had a distinct advantage, in that she used to do hair in the garage of her house after she married and spent some time in North Carolina, am I still digressing?….

Anyway, I was told that my sister is ALMOST certain that my famous cousin had a pong set up on the family console TV which was in their living room that had sandy brown linoleum floors with rust colored polka dots and a giant knick knack room divider shelf that contained various adorable tchotchkes, like women with curlers in their hair and men on the toilet with whiskey bottles in hand…. last digression I swear.

Not only did they possess a console that enabled pong revelry , but I participated in the interaction…..

That is, she told me in no uncertain terms that I HAD PLAYED PONG!

This has me questioning the entire existence of everything I thought to be good and true.

Could I have been so far off in my memory that I would have actually forgotten the joys of following an electronic dot across a black screen? What were the bar boys playing on that table? Tom says it could have been Miss Pac Man but he also said that that would not have been a double tagger, so there would not have been 2 playing.

He also suggested that they may have been playing something called Tetris? Which I have only heard referenced to maybe 3 or 4 times in my 65.8333 years, so that only makes it soupier.

In an effort to take my mind off the illusion of coherence upon awakening, I turned to my brain warming exercise of the daily Wordle.

Every morning after I push the coffeemaker start button I reach for my cell phone…….wait…..maybe there’s a connection here, maybe I am whittling away my faculties of my usually flawless memory by going to my screen before letting the sun warm my irises?

Shut up remembrance, it’s time for the present.

After 4 tries, I only had 3 letters and one of those in the wrong place, I could literally feel the brain cells dribbling out my eyes, as I still stared at the glow of the cellphone while the coffeemaker was chiming its readiness and Ed was nudging me to get moving.

Putting the unfinished game in my pocket, we coffeed up and headed out the door. As we proceeded down the empty street, trying to notice the beauty of the day, I could not unlatch myself from the pong or the Wordle.

Was my future going to be unfinished word games and someone constantly reminding me that I’m a hypocrite?

Did I really pair those fuschia pants with that lime green belt? Maybe I didn’t beat Mimi Phelps in the 7th grade spelling bee? Was the homeless woman at the bus stop right when she said I had eyes like turkey shit in the early 90’s?

Where was this going to end if it ever was?

We proceeded over the bridge (no hands on the stairwell, so physically I’m as intact as a billy goat) and descend down into the calm. No river ships, the Mississippi looks almost still, only a couple of stray logs and possibly dead bodies float towards the mouth. When we turn to the left on our way down the path, only one hairy shirtless Grizzly Adams type with mismatched socks (is that right? was there even a Grizzly Adams?) meanders towards us but is distracted by something only he can see.

We head off in the direction of the lower gate and a few steps in, Ed pounces on a black formation to the left of the Egyptian lilies that turns out to be a plastic bag and not the cat he was expecting.

“What?” I ask. “It’s a bag, not a cat.”

He gives me a “Yeah I know” side eye and suddenly it dawns on me like an explosive jiffy pop on my mama’s stovetop. (Maybe that happened?)

Whether something happened or not is beside the point. In fact there really IS no point, there’s not a cat we need to catch, tongue drooping out of our mouths, as we slam our head on the ground in search of what was never there.

From the moment the placenta was wiped from our foreheads, we’re all just rearranging deck chairs on the planetary Titanic. It’s not pessimistic to say that our first breath is just taking us a little closer to our last, it’s freeing. Nobody is gonna stand in front of a crowd at our funeral and say something like; “ Everything was going along OK until he paired that white wine with a hamburger.” And If they did, we won’t be there to know!!!

As we headed out the park and into the neighborhood, I could definitely feel a peeling back of the last 65 and ten twelfths of a year. My posture straightened and I felt considerably lighter, kinda like I do after a high fiber breakfast.

“This must be what they mean when they say: The scales have been lifted from my eyes.” I announce to Ed reaching into my pocket for my uncompleted Wordle.

Three hours later, I still have the same 3 letters and feel no closer to victory……..

Vitals: 85 degrees with a 9MPH wind and a 78% humidity makes it feel like Satan has you in a headscissors with his cloven hoofs scratching the side of both ears.

21 days down

162 days to go…..