I lacked direction. How tall I had grown. I knew so much. I lacked direction and how to stay in touch. Travel west young man.

I met a man with a plan on the train traveling west. He got off the train in what he referred to as a ‘work town.’ It seemed rough or dangerous to me. Alarm bells were going off. So I stayed on the train traveling west.

The Rocky Mountains came into view. I thought of who I’d left behind and grew emotional. I needed a drink and found my way to the bar car.

My money was fading fast. I didn’t care. I just needed the embarrassments to leave me.

I don’t remember leaving the train. The feelings were gone with all sense of past taken with it.

The sun was bright, the temperature was perfect. Cool crisp mountain air. The sense that anything was possible swept through me for the first time. I paid my tent fees on Tunnel Mountain for a week. I hadn’t eaten in days guided by a moral compass based solely in Christian ethics: I would starve before I would steal.

My head refilled with memories of all those high-school friends I had left behind and most of whom I would never see again. We were all out here, somewhere, bumping into whatever came our way. Directionless.

At some point I realized that they all possibly had a plan. That is what they were doing back there. I got it too late.

I revelled in the freshness of it all. The air was perfect indigo blue and the water that ran from the mountains shone a strange emerald green in the river valley below.

I was filling out a job application for a dish washing job at the ‘Arts Center’ when this young woman approached me smiling. She was wearing tight blue jeans and a pink T-shirt that read, Art Matters… She was a beautiful strawberry blonde with green eyes

I looked behind me to see that there was not someone else she might be looking at.

“Would you like a job as a model?” She asked.

“Sure.” I answered. “I need a job.”

“I’ll be right back.” She said.

I put the application down and looked at the bloke beside me.

“Sounds good.” I suggested, hoping for the best hopeful response.

The bloke smiled at me and leaned in. “You know that she means nude, right?”

I felt my face grow red. The bloke laughed and the beautiful strawberry blonde returned.

“Let’s go meet the Artist in residence, shall we? See if you have the job.”

I followed her down a hall.

“Don’t you think I’m too skinny to be a model I asked.”

“No. You will do fine.”

I don’t drink anymore.

Life no longer feels like the world has me by the throat, where the only momentary escape is found at the bar.

Drinking at New Year was the worst… Celebrating the passage of time.

Listening to those awful drunken resolutions.

Jesus wept and well he might!

I have begun Bukowski’s Factotum in earnest. I am 57 pages in with no end in sight.

Hank Chinaski seems without a plan and traveling all over the country from rooming house to rooming house, from bar to park bench.

It brings me back to my youth and a time faraway.

This is where I an now. In the lap of luxury, reading. I am tired of people generally however I don’t long for solitude the way Hank did.

If I weren’t a parent of a child who depends on me I am fairly certain I might have more in common with Chinaski than I dare to imagine…

Dennis Mantin

I unlocked the parental code on my daughters computer!

The world is still turning and gravity works!

The schools are returning to in classroom teaching!

Things could be worse.

All is very quiet here…

Anticipation says this will not last long.

The year is hours from being over and it has been a year to behold.

We survived which is more than can be said for some.

I have learned to stop making plans and accept what I am powerless to change.

I also recognize that we are far from powerless.

The water broke at midnight.

The cries were heard at one.

The child was in a hurry.

Her life had just begun.

The feeding frenzy started.

Her hunger true and fast.

I loved her from the get-go.

She seemed connected to the past.

I watch, I learn, I like, I see.

There is no greater time.

I’ve had some ups, and lived some downs.

And found some words that rhyme.

I’ve been thinking and keeping things low. Keepin it down here on the need to know. Me and my girl we are and we’re flying solo. Masks are off but our faces won’t show.

Sign says open however there be a crowd. I’ve been changing some and feeling proud. Liking it all quiet now and not too loud. Masks are off can you hand me my shroud.

Masks are off, yeah its OK.

Masks are off, come on let’s play.

Masks are off on the other side.

Masks are off, wow what a ride.

I’ve been thinking and keeping things low. Keepin it down here on the need to know. Me and my girl we are and we’re flying solo. Masks are off but our faces won’t show.

All these efforts keep it simple.

Somehow go astray.

The experience of being human.

Lives on another day.

I’m not married to these failures.

There’s a light in distance shone.

I’m not certain where we’re going.

Just enjoy until we’re gone.

I’ve been trying to change my nature.

It’s the way I start my day.

To be kinder and more silent.

I get on my knees I pray.

I’ve been trying to change my my nature.

For years to change my mind.

All my efforts I’ve concluded.

Have arrived at just be kind.