It’s not that these have been easy these last few weeks. They haven’t been. Not quite dread, but a feeling of folly surrounds me each time I sit down to write out this weekly ramble. And with that, the wonder of fruitlessness, of this, and so many efforts, while that so precious currency of time gets spent so seemingly reckless.

Squander is a word that comes to mind.

There isn’t much to waste this week though. Busy, busy, busy- getting ready for my third annual backyard music festival. Contrived from my own delusions of misconstrued grandeur- this now yearly event has already grown into a much larger symbol this go-around. An idea of newfound community, blending with various factions of older and otherwise out-of-state souls. Gathered to listen to and share music, in this home of mine, in a town I didn’t even know existed until a few months before I moved here. Wild how that goes, though, right? The unpredictability of futures not yet made to be present. Places, people, personal outlooks and stances, all existing in a way today that wasn’t even conceivable beforehand. Or the inverse, those thoughts would never be without, that would remain the way they once were- now lost, gone, changed. In forms of permanence or some irreparable shift from what was, to what is. All while playing the dangerous game of continued assumption.

   But this nonsensical musical circus I plan to host this coming weekend, arrives this year with meaning I wouldn’t have believed not much more than two months ago. Ideas of memorial will be floating in and out of the cerebral membranes of your humble narrator, along with many others. All alone. All in this together. You know how it goes.

There’s still a lot of lingering grief about the existence I call home, even as it becomes more and more part of the permanent scenery. Something, tragically, I will learn to live with. I already have, in so many ways.

Yet it seems to seep its way into every outward projection, in one way or another, and has been an active alert in the internal mental machinery that holds the operating system I call a mind and personality. Inescapable and unable to do anything about it, aside from acceptance. Which generally speaking, acceptance is what goes on the end of the list when it comes to what to do about impossible hopes and wishes. Can’t be done? A sense of fight and fury more naturally arises within me more than the stoic understanding of the sardonic state of things.

Always something you can do to improve your situation, right?

Unless it is all based upon the decisions and actions of the otherwise, those outside entities that litter this planet with me, all across the spectrum of acquaintance. What others do cannot be avoided, not really. Ignored, perhaps, but that only works for petty crimes and minimal deeds. Some folks choose things that change the lives of everyone around them in some paradigm shattering ways, be it positive or cataclysmic. Always seems to be the latter more often than the former, but that could just be another one of those flaws of human perspective. Those happen plenty.

There was line in a book I’m working my way through. A story that’s been around for decades, but is brand new to me. You know how those sorts of things happen. The line is, as follows:

‘I don’t trust anybody’s nostalgia but my own. Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It’s a settling of grievances between the present and past.’

Within the thought provocation upon reading that, I wondered whether even my own nostalgia can be trusted. Could all this recollection be some defense mechanism, that even the originator is blind to?

Still, there is some sort of honesty in memory. Even if only an emotional one. Sights and smells and sounds, bringing forth some veracious stance, even if incorrect. Nothing like a song to make you feel a younger man again, am I right?

Funny thing, memory and music. This or that tune you are no longer able to stand for its reminded relation to a moment, a person, or some other such cosmic idea. Sometimes dooming compositions to the back burners of consumption. Other times, holding them fast in the forefront, even if the reasonability is long since spent.

But even that can change, being that nothing is static among the living. A decade may pass and something unlistenable finds new prominence. Or something that was left on repeat, again and again and again, suddenly falls from the favor in which it was once held.

Just add time. It works, trust me. Old, suddenly renewed. Dead, alive again. Etc.

But the back and forth of importance connected to memory is not the part that gives me the greatest pause.

The scariest part of all that, is the void. You know the one. You probably wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. Certainly wouldn’t have made it this far in.

But when the memory, the feeling, can no longer be invoked. Play the tune in search of that reverie. Only to find it gone, perhaps not even replaced. Just a gap, where something else used to be.

I wonder, how many voids have I accumulated thus far. Probably more than I consciously realize.

But despite all that, the drive continues onward into the abyss of unknown futures. There are goals aplenty, and a whole mess of wants conspiring along with them. Before this day is done, I have ambitions and duties still left, even after this reoccurring word vomit.

But what happens when you cease to look forward to things? Or when even having forward momentum of desire doesn’t seem to be enough?

I don’t know it myself, not for any extended stretch of time. But I am not fool or ignorant enough to deny its existence. The greatest void of all. The lack of will to move forward. I know it exists. I know it so painfully that at times it has driven me close to the brink of madness.

Yet, the struggle with point and purpose continues onward. I don’t know that I’m any closer, nor can I say that I ever will be. But the desire still burns, even if only a damp ember at times, to be getting at something new. Something expanded upon from what was already there, or something entirely pristine from this here perspective.

But that’s about all I can wring out this evening. Here, at least. Might be other words and thinkings elsewhere, along with the numerous deeds that need meeting in varying degrees before me.

Too much time talking of what to make. Not enough time getting on with creating it. So, I’ll be getting on with it, then. ‘Til next week, dear reader.