During stressful periods, it gets worse and many times the restlessness comes with joint aches and pains. I have talked to Doctors, done stretching exercises, meditation relaxing methods and plenty of differing sleep aides. Nothing seems to work and the medicine generally hangs on me the next day and I am like a walking zombie.
Now days, I find things to occupy myself if medication and other things aren't working. So it isn't uncommon for Donna to wake up at 4:00am and find me writing, or outside sitting on the deck looking at the stars or even in my garage cleaning my obsession...Lucy!
Since I quit drinking, the restlessness seems to have gotten worse as alcohol was good to get me to "pass out" but even that left me feeling terrible the next day and even that sometimes didn't work. It can be VERY frustrating.
Well lately, "stress" has been abounding. I generally don't care for the Holidays much anymore and get stressed during this time. Although I am sooooo very happy that Shanna is here and safe, I now have a 2 year old in the house and a new residents in our abode and that is "different" (and totally a blessing!), my book is at edit and I am not writing as much, I am not "working" and although I know its a ridiculous assessment...I seem to find self worth when I am "working" and suffer a loss of that when I am not.
Our fridge has been giving us problems and we have been living out of an ice chest for the last week trying to figure out what is wrong with it, I have a good friend that is having some life problems right now that makes me hurt for him and think of him often...Its just been kinda hectic... Ho, Ho, frickin HO!!
Anyway, on Monday night I had the issues with sleep and decided to take the time to clean up my bike so I could ride her Tuesday. I am generally very particular when I clean her up and can spend hours waxing, shining, polishing....Its soothing and gives me things to do while I listen to music and contemplate my life at that particular time. It might seem neurotic but it really is an aide to ease when I have soooo much on my mind.
So, Monday night turns into Tuesday Morning and apparently, I am not the only one awake. I text my Daughter Brandi a picture of the bike as I am getting it all spiffed up and trying out my new motorcycle lift
I had forgotten about the eclipse!!
Donna just happened to be up and on the comp. at that time and I walked in and told her to check the time the eclipse was going to start... She did and said...
"Right now!"
It was about 1:00am....
We went outside, looked up at the moon and could see the shadow of the earth starting to move over the moons surface. We tried to get pictures but a recent vehicle theft has left us without our tripod and the new and exciting task of replacing the one stolen. HAPPY HOLIDAYS! ;)
I remember many nights with many old friends sitting under the stars, looking at the sky and talking about "possibilities." Seems that most of the people who have been in my life for a long time seem to have the same appreciation for the universe as I do. Meteor showers,
different seasons of Mars, the moon in all its phases, just the vastness of the universe and the idea of just how big IT is and how small WE ARE in the scope of it all is to me, really mind blowing.
So, as I watched the moon, my old neck started to get stiff and hurt so I went back to polishing and would come outside the garage every few minutes to check the progression. Each time I looked up, a little more shadow was taking over the surface of the BIG CHEESE and I was texting old friends trying to get them out of bed to see it happen.
At one point, because of all the bending and squatting that goes with cleaning my bike, my back was really starting to ache. The moon was about 3/4 covered now and I crawled on the hood of my truck and laid across it, hands intertwined on my chest, and just watched the moon.
Through the shadow, I could still see the craters of the moon and had a vision in my head of how majestic this scene must have been on the surface of that big cold rock... Watching the Blue planet as it moved in front of the sun...Man, again, I am just in awe of the vastness and size of "space."
As I laid on the hood, I reflected back to a time when Brett and I were much younger…probably 20 years old. Brett and I were at my apartment in Colorado Springs. He was struggling through a rough time and a break up from the girl he was with at that time and was staying with me as he got through it. We spent a lot of time on this hill behind my old apartment just gazing at the sky, talking about life and things, and on this night, we were laying on our backs, tops of our heads touching, and looking at the sky. I was explaining to Brett the circular motion of the Universe and how not too long ago, in this very spot, I actually could SEE IT!.
Brett was convinced that we could not see it from where we were and as we laid there, our conversation went from all that "crap" that goes with break ups, to me showing him different points in the sky and then having him follow my finger as it progressed in a circular motion to the center of the universe from where we were laying.
He GOT IT and when he did, it overwhelmed him and he had to sit up because it made him dizzy!
I remember my nights on patrol on the beach with Marty and watching the waves roll in and looking at the stars as we sat on our hoods smoking cigarettes and listing to the radio of the different agencies on the mainland who were darting from call to call and filling the radio with static and codes, looking for case numbers and checking "27's" through dispatch. Running license plates and drivers license numbers...And as we would sit and look at the stars listening to the waves roll in, Marty would always look at me with his cigarette in his hand and say...
"I wonder what the real police are doing right now Junior?!"
With a sarcastic tone and a reminder of how blessed we were to be sitting in that spot, at that time and doing ... NOTHING... A reflection of "good times" in those days! The beach was always a wonderful place to look at the stars. It was away from the lights of Galveston and was pretty dark on that beach... A great place to BE!
I remember times with me and Kenneth, sitting on a roadblock on some major accident directing traffic at 3:00am. Out in the middle of some desolate part of the county and the only job we had for an hour or so was to sit on that road, stop anyone from getting through, direct them to the detour and many times, the "work" was sporadic and maybe one car would come by for us to direct.
Again, sitting and looking at the stars, talking about the vastness of space and time, reflecting on what it must be like to be in the Space Shuttle as it moves at super sonic speeds across the atmosphere and TRYING to imagine what that experience must be like, and realizing it is something that probably cannot be explained with words.
I reflected back to 2001 on a night where I was in Oklahoma on Stephanie's Birthday. We made a pact to go outside at 10:00pm and look at the moon...EXACTLY 10:00pm so that she would know that I might not be with her on her birthday, but at that time, at that VERY moment, the distance between us was merely a perception as we stood and looked at the same moon, at the same time and knew that we were with each other in that moment.
It wasn't so long ago that Stephanie and I were talking on the phone, I was on my deck in Kerrville, She was on her back porch in Austin, the situations of our porches are similar in how they face East and I noticed a light going across the sky...
I asked Stephanie if she saw this light too and she did... It couldn't be a plane; it was far too big for a satellite, so since we were seeing it in the same area of the sky, at the same time, regardless of our locations, what else could it be??
The Space Station...THAT'S what it was!! We just happened to be chatting on the phone, outside as the space station flew over our heads...Maybe a time frame of 5 minutes, but how very cool to have that happen at that time.
I reflected on the MANY times Donna and I have been out and watching the stars... In Crystal beach, On the West end of Galveston fishing, on our front porch of the beach house, of our house in Medina when we changed our life, and even weekly now on our deck in Kerrville. In Colorado in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, in the middle of the Caribbean on a ship, HUNDREDS of miles from any shore line, In Monterey California with the Pacific Coast waves crashing on the shore. In Tennessee, On lake Catherine in Arkansas, Sitting on the deck of the beach house which is now nothing but a memory, in New Braunfels, Dallas, Concan, Vegas (which doesn’t show you many stars), Cozumel, and not too long ago in the Davis Mountains at the observatory in Fort Davis...
It is in this place that the sky looks like a canvas... The stars are so bold, so bright and so thick that it looks like someone took a paintbrush with sparkled paint on it and SWOOPED it across the sky...AMAZING!
We saw Saturn and her rings that night, (this is actually how it looked as we viewed it)
I reflected on the many shooting stars we have wished on throughout the years and how those wishes don’t really get granted...I still haven’t hit the lotto!
The times at our Burning Man adventures where the sky was a "relief" to look at because all of the activity at the festival was just too much to try and take in at one time.
Time and space are something Donna and I have shared much of and I am blessed to have shared it with such an amazing person!
The moon was now almost completely covered and was taking on a different look. It was turning red! As the shadow of the earth consumed the cratered surface, the red turned to a dark brown...Almost like a dark shade of blood color... If you have ever seen blood at night, its black but when you flash your flashlight on the pools of blood, it has a very distinct dark brown hue on the edges of the pool...Blood is easily recognizable at night to the experienced eye... I even reflected on that a bit!
The moon was now completely covered and it was such a dark colored red, it took on a very creepy feel...
I went back in to work on Lucy a little more and I am not sure how much time had gone by, but something drew me out of the garage again... Something was "different." As I walked out, I noticed that the fog had rolled into our neighborhood. I, like space, think the fog is very cool. It makes a place of common a place of new and it always amazes me how the "haze" of the fog changes the world around you, AND your experience of it.
Now, as I was standing in this for bank, I was reminded of a time when I was about 23years old, I was at the beach, it was a full moon, and I was with my dog Sidney. Me and sid were good late night partners...he was always up with me on those struggling nights and many times me and sid would go out and walk the streets of Manitou Springs or Old Colorado City at three in the morning and just take in the silence and electric feel of the night time in those wee hours...Sidney was always such a great companion!
It was a Fall night, not long after my 23rd birthday, Crystal Beach Texas... I was at the beach house alone with Sidney...it was not very cold yet, it was late, maybe 2-3am, the fog had rolled in so thick that standing on the shoreline you could not hardly see the waves break. There was a bright full moon so the whole place was illuminated but you could not see more than about 15 feet around you... I decided to take sid and walk out into the surf...
As I walked out, sidney by my side swimming, I got out about chest deep and then looked around me and could no longer see the shore line, the waves breaking and was in all respects, in the middle of the ocean. Sid swam off to where I couldn’t see him and the creepiness of being alone in the middle of the ocean was suddenly very real to me. If the waves would not have been moving in, I could have easily not known which way was "in" and which way was "out" other than the depth of the water, which on the Texas gulf coast, doesn’t drop off quickly. A little panicked, I made my way back to the beach calling for Sidney. I can still see that night so clearly in my head. A VERY surreal experience.
As I stood in my driveway and looked at the fog, I noticed it had the hue of the moon all around me... The blood red/brown color was everywhere...I could still see the moon but the fog was growing thicker. The moon was fading out but the color was getting...uhhhmm...."heavier" is the best way to explain it.
I looked at my watch and it was about 3:30am...Where had the time gone!? I was still not tired but knew I had to make myself go to bed or I would be up until sun up... I hate when that happens!!
So I stood for a moment more, taking a few more drags off my cigar, embracing the experience, and reflecting on things that were brought to the front of my mind and smiled.... This was what I needed... Like a warm blanket on a cool night, I was soothed... I went into the house, slowly put on my PJ's and slid into bed. I was still reflecting as I went off to sleep and that night; I can honestly say that I was carried off to sleep with warm memories of good times with good people.... Sometimes, it seems that even in the darkest places, memories are what carries you into peacefulness.
A very cool night indeed!
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