“Fall comes and goes,” we sighed, “and it feels like it is only here for a moment.”

Autumn. We busied ourselves in minutiae, and there weren’t enough hours in the day for the physical actions, along with the mental real estate required for most transactions. 

Mid-season, I prayed for snow, fully realizing the futility of such an action, knowing that we would wait and see what happened, just like everything else. 

Really, though, there was always a plan. How it unfolded is where it all began.

Most of us are looking for the “What is it going to take” moment in order to do what we have to do to move on, and there’s the rub:

It takes nothing.

We do it, or we don’t. 

We can rack up ten or twenty years marking trivialities, or we can get busy. I’m moving toward Year Ten in my current career track, and it is ludicrous–and by it, I mean everything in it. There will not be a Year Twelve. Unfortunately, it takes a while at my age (and my current EXP level) to actually learn things, so an extra year isn’t that big of a deal. 

There are fewer than a hundred days left to this year. 

This may be the first time a New Year meant something permanent. I’m looking forward to it.

We agreed there were too many leaves on the ground for August. At night, the temperature was definitively autumnal. 

The days passed quickly, and we found ourselves plotting ahead–not wishing away the days, but preparedness makes us powerful. 

The dog perched on the back of the love seat, and we dozed on the couch, oblivious to the ups and downs of anything outside.

This is how It should be, I decided, while you fell asleep on my shoulder most nights. 

At night 

You start to see

Where you fell short

And when it’s late

Sometimes you’ll remember 

The reasons why you let it sink; 

When it only took one more stretch,

One more reach into the void

And you would have seen 

All of it.

One hundred miles of stop-and-go gave me time

to think about the difference between this city

and the same one I visited different lives ago.

I can see the over-illuminated tip of some downtown

monstrosity leering over the adjacent building

outside my floor-to-ceilings;

this Manhattan says I should have asked for a higher floor.

With lights out, only this screen and the amber lights of the tower

frame the slim skyline view. It will do.

Time inconsistencies seem to be products of continuum shifts,

but my mastery of all of the above is sketchy, at best.

Tomorrow creeps, and I would feel the wheels break around well-worn

corners: once again, it is time to push and see the beyond.

Hi, all. Please check out thelonelywar.wordpress.com. So very excited for this site and what she’ll be doing.

I don’t remember when I started needing wake-up calls all the time.

I used to be calibrated. Aware. Dreams were things to be pursued, and not negotiated. Suddenly it’s midlife, and interest rates matter. Retirement investments. In-career supplemental opportunities. 

No adventure.

The Great Settling.

We’re all following the same script, without knowing who wrote it. It’s not a bad story, either, but younger You wouldn’t have spent more than an hour watching or reading it. That should tell us something.

I guess I’m lucky that it only takes an alarm on the lowest setting to jar me out of slumber. One weekend in the woods, surrounded by people from all avenues of life, trudging up and down hills. By mile seventeen, I remembered what I did not want to do, and that is where I was headed. Not anymore.

J was working on Wall Street when the implosion hit, and suddenly, no job. Back to the city where his wife was from, and K is now his boss–a spritely, overwhelmingly kind dynamo of a woman who knows the names of everyone in her company. Their chitchat made me think of how nice it would be to work for a company where even when the work is tough, co-workers have your back in unexpected ways. I wish I could be a part of their team.

L went to Iraq twice, and is now studying information technology. He towers over me, but his eyes lit up when he talked about the amazing implications of applied big data. He spoke warmly of his kids and stopped often on the trail to take photos with a seven-pound camera. 

D had a bad case of bronchitis he couldn’t shake in time to tackle the full trail, so he moved to a support position and with C, L, and C, ran the logistics of checkpoints and made sure everyone got what they needed. While I nursed my undertrained ankles during my Day Two time-out, he told me about the $60,000 it costs to climb Everest, and how two Sherpas carry everything for the Adventurer, setting up camp and cooking as well. These Sherpas are paid a percentage of that overall amount, and they live like kings in one of the poorer regions of that area of the world. “These guides are essential to the survival of anyone who wants to climb that mountain, and they end up living to carry things up to the top for Westerners.”

L is hardcore. She has twenty years on me, outpaced me two-to-one, and her kilowatt smile is mud-proof. Her energy is infectious, and she laughed most sincerely when her feet looked their worst. After the bus shuttled us back to the starting point to return us to our cars, she waved like a kid at a parade as she drove by, tapping the happy Honda horn of her Civic.

C and D talked about Selection when we caught our breath at a checkpoint. One had gone to Ranger school–the other went for Special Forces. We talked about nicknames, and D said he has a few things to explore when he finishes up at the university in December. C played soccer with his kids at the finish line. I could barely stand up straight.

J put the whole thing together, and raised over $120,000 for his company. I think this is only the beginning. What he builds will undoubtedly eclipse expectations.
There were dozens more than them, and every one of them was a radiant cosmic fire burning in human form. From Thursday night to Sunday afternoon, I met more than fifty people I ordinarily probably wouldn’t have the opportunity to cross paths with, and even though I didn’t have the physicality to complete the full seventy miles, I am happy with a painful 42. 

Happy Trails to all of us. There is much more out there.

(appy-polly-logies to Mr. Charles)
I woke up with a sour stomach. It was raining again, and it was the middle of the night. That’s how I knew when I overdid it–I woke up in the middle of the night. It was that back of the throat burn, some sort of habañero salsa chaser taste with it. I stretched out my legs and shifted position, but that wasn’t going to do it. I brushed my teeth, let the dog out one last time, and moved my things from the couch to the bedroom. I read a little bit, but the beeps and boops coming from my phone were too much and I decided to see what videos the kids were posting these days. While I was flipping through with slow flicks of my finger, I saw a few videos of idiots running through a city. They were very clever and very acrobatic, but they were really only running. The flips and such were lucky. I started thinking about the times we should’ve been filming our runs through cities, through towns, through neighborhoods. How many six-second clips could we have stacked up in those years? How many wall-walks and yard surfs? How many near crashes and real crashes? Our videos would’ve gotten a lot of likes, I told myself. We could’ve maybe gotten some gas money out of the deal. Real-life Jackass, but captured for all to see, instead of just for us to endure. We had good war stories, but no war. It was just us, running through life like those idiots running through cities. I chewed two antacids, drank half a glass of water, and then opened the window a crack to hear the pitter-patter from multiple downspouts. The videos would have to wait.

(Everything accelerating now)
Feel that rush come over you
When you realize you can have anything you ever wanted
Inescapable sunrise, the way you burn
and let me bask in it
Intoxicating radiance
“Wait until you meet her” is my chorus
(and how I love to sing it!)
You’ll find what you want when you’re not looking for it
(Every time)
Let’s balance the gasps and deep sighs as this year ends

Two cats from St. Petersburg talking to two cats from New Yahk in my favorite pub in the United States. Street drummer slathered in silver rapping away around the corner looks like a Greek goddess of drum n’ bass. Couple of buskers playing multiple instruments in front of a giant iron. Ah, Asheville. Smiles all around on two cask IPAs, and thoughts of her, eyes the color of Green Man’s beard. We’ll walk the walk, soon. Anticipation is part of the sweetness.