Chiropractor, Heal Thyself!

 

It was the kind of pain that turns your stomach, that beads your brow with sweat. I'd jumped out of bed without realizing anything was wrong; now I was hobbling around the living room saying, "Oh shit" over and over. "Oh shit, this sucks, I don't think I can make it to work today. Oh shit." I called my chiropractor but his office was closed till Wednesday. "Oh shit, fuck!"

I'd been experiencing some lower back pain since Saturday, after I'd cut up some downed trees in the back yard and hauled the wood up to be split. The pain was low level and I'd hoped it would simply work itself out. Then Sunday my buddy brought his splitter over. He ran the machine while I fed it. I could tell it wasn't the best for my back, but it didn't feel like I was doing any more damage, nor was I in any more pain after than before. I even went to work that evening.

Monday morning was when I got slammed. I recognized this pain. I'd had it before, after cutting wood once years ago; duh. I forced myself to eat a little dry toast, swallowed massive amounts of ibuprofen, did stretches and hobbled around for about half an hour. "Oh shit, oh shit." I started to feel better and headed for Indianapolis thinking maybe my boss would know of a chiropractor close by so that I could get cracked and then keep cracking. I can't afford to lose work.

By the time that I got there the pain was manageable and I figured I'd wait till Friday to seek help, my day off. It was a busy day. I was climbing in and out of the tractor continually, dropping trailers, hooking to trailers. Lo and behold come evening time I was feeling good; not just better, really fucking good, like that ambrosial peace that descends on one after an intense migraine has departed.

"The morning will be the test," I figured, "after a night of inactivity." When morning came I was still good. I'm healed, thank the Goddess!

 

Hot Damn

 

Hot again. I was going to remove the air conditioner from my bedroom window this weekend. It's Labor Day, summer's over, right? I've already missed some beautiful sleeping weather where I had to have the AC on low, or the fan going just to give the air a semblance of freshness because I couldn't open the window. But it's hot again. Exactly why I left the job undone.

It has been lovely lately. I've been enjoying the mornings especially, when I wake up and the temps are cool (I've pulled out a long sleeve shirt) and the humidity low. Autumn is definitely on it's way; I've even seen some early color in the leaves, and the flocking of birds. I miss the geese back at Electrolux, but I'm sure they're doing fine.

There's no such thing as a pond at the warehouse that I work out of now. A mudhole yes, even after the scant rain that we've had. I never knew that I had it so good. I used to hook to one trailer and drag that around to several stops. Now I have to hook to a new trailer at every stop I visit. It's a lot of work. I don't have to move the appliances around anymore, but once I'd learned the technique that wasn't really so hard. I counted it as exercise and I suppose I should do the same about climbing in and out of the tractor and dollying the landing gear up and down all the time.

The people are OK; no, they're good. I like my new Fleet Manager better than my last, by far. I always thought that he was slimy, but harmless; just dong the best he could with less than a full deck. Now that he's screwed up my vacation pay so badly I have to wonder if he's really that dumb, or is he actually malicious? I'm going to enlist his help to try and at least salvage what I'm due. We'll see if he steps up.

All in all the new job seems a loss. The first paycheck, sans erroneous vacation inflation seems good so it may even out. It'll certainly improve once I learn the peculiarities of the different customers and can get in and out more quickly. It's already getting better in that respect.

Overall, though, it's more work. It's only seven miles further than my last job but the quality of those miles (traffic) increases both the travel time and the fuel mileage. That will ease too, once the construction at the junction of IN 37 and I 465 is completed. I think it's do-able.

I had a fairly early day once, where I didn't have to rush home so that I could arrive at bedtime if I wanted eight hours sleep and still needed to both relax and eat (and they admonish us not to eat just before bed!). I stopped at the liquor store on the way and bought a six pack (shh, don't tell anyone) and jumped off the four lane onto Old 37 through the forest so that I could begin my relaxation earlier.

Can you believe it, the road was closed for some more of that drainage work they were doing awhile ago, only this time they didn't even bother to put up a sign!? I thought about taking Brummets Creek back over to 37 but Farr Road was before that. I couldn't recall the way, but I did remember that if you made a wrong turn it was a fur piece so I brandished my smart phone and looked at the map. It was a way awesome drive but I still ended up making a wrong turn and had to backtrack to Old 37. I'd been hoping that I could go out on the bicycle, something I used to do after work in the old days, but these "mountain" roads are dangerous in the twilight.

Still, it seemed to me that if I got the route down it really wouldn't be much longer to cut across country than to go up the highway. It would certainly be much more beautiful. But I dismissed the idea; I didn't think I'd ever get the chance to explore the back route in the daytime again, let alone ride my bike after work.

See how wrong you can be? I not only got to explore the cross country route again (oops, I missed Miller road and had to go up Shiloh) but got home in time to take a bike ride before the twilight, but after rush hour. I'm pretty sure that is a rare occurrence.

I get the feeling that my new boss is testing me, trying to decide where I fit in on the work spectrum. I'll have some intensely hard days, and then a really easy one. Like a true Taoist I embrace them all equally. I don't know what to tell the dude. I'm a hard worker, and will only call in the Calvary in desperation, and desperately need to make money. On the other hand I need time to release the pressure valves, so I'll take either.

 

Sun Rise, Sun Set

I've been looking for the upside, the silver lining. Morning light is surely a part of that. It's light when my alarm goes off now. Indeed, most people are already at work at 0800. But then, as I clatter around with the coffee things and feed the cat the sun breaches the top of the trees and paints the western wall of the kitchen yellow. I know that will change as we sink into winter, but for now it's nice.

Hey, and at least it's dark when I go to bed! I still have to keep a blanket over the window though, or I'd probably wake up too early. I need my rest, what I can get of it.

Let's see...The flat, pebble strewn roofs of a warehouse complex make a nice pattern of foreshortened parallelograms as I climb the ramp onto I-70 westbound into the city, if I'm going that way.

I'm learning new parts of Indiana, and of Indianapolis. Perhaps for the first time ever I realize that Indianapolis is truly an American city, in the 21st century. It always sort of seemed like a really big small town before. I'm exaggerating, but there's some truth in it.

I got my first paycheck this morning and said, "Hot damn! I'm liking this!" but it turned out to be a mistake. I had two vacation days coming that I was going to lose. I only got to take one as a day off but was supposed to be paid for both. Somehow or other it seems they paid me for two weeks out of my new roster instead of two days out of the old. I'd like to keep it but I think I'd rather get the vacation time. Plus I got taxed at a much higher rate, I can't afford to lessen the deficit all by myself. No, the verdict is still out on the pay.

I don't get to watch the sun rise every morning anymore, but I do get to see it set at night. That's not an upside , it's not the same. I will say this though: when I get home at night I can appreciate the stars for real. I used to always look up as I left the house, and again at certain points along the road, but I was in a hurry, on my way to work. Now I'm coming home from work, in relaxation mode, and to top it off the sky is clearer at night, without the mists of morning. The Milky Way is awesome!

Oh, didn't I tell you? My very first day back from vacation we had a meeting at work. They wanted to tell us that Electrolux was moving its operation up to Chicago Land before we heard it though rumor. Still I was the only one who didn't already know, since I'd been gone. My job would end by October. Welcome back!

They said I could always go back out over the road, or regional but I refused. "I want to go home every night!" They promised that if something opened up we'd get first pick. I was stressed. I knew that I'd be able to get another driving job, but would I like it? And as much I detest Company I really do like those three weeks of vacation. I couldn't imagine starting over with nothing again.

Well, a position opened up delivering pallets to customers in the area and I took it. I won't go into the downsides right now, they're manifold. I'll fill you in on that later perhaps. Is this move a good thing or a bad thing? Right now the downsides far outnumber this paltry list of pluses so I'll have to fill you in on that later too. I'm not sure; and not sure that I'll ever be sure that driving a truck is better than abject poverty.

Fear and Loving

 

The memory of my river crossing (Washing the Undercarriage April 22, 2011) is still very present; visceral. I can feel the terror of it in my gut. The beauty of it haunts me like a dream.

There is often a mist in the predawn bottoms; the water of the Beanblossom ascendent. The other morning I looked down Wylie Road, the site of my adventure, in passing to my normal route up Sample. The waxing gibbous moon was setting there, red and shrouded in that moisture. “How beautiful!” I exclaimed. “I should have gone that way. I will tomorrow.”

So yesterday morning it was my intention to do so, but when I came down off of the ridge there was no mist to greet me. Then crossing the flats I saw a layer of fog out in the field with a large curl of mist rising off the end of it like the neck of a brontosaurus. “Oh cool, there is mist, good.” It spread to cover the entire valley, but close to the ground so that the raised grade of the old highway was clear.

As I climbed the small rise before the cutoff to Wylie the fog among the trees looked for a moment like standing water and I was given a start, a little trill of fear. Then I turned and descended into it. My headlights panned across the road signs and the HIGH WATER sign was open, a warning diamond rather than the usual blank silver triangle. Now I was afraid. It was silly I know, we're in the middle of a minor drought. I wasn't afraid of high water though, now I was afraid of the mist, the supernatural.

Ooooou.

I wasn't disappointed, it was beautiful. The Moon, just one morning later was higher, not red but bright, ringed by double almost rainbows in the fog. The fear? It was there, irrational but real. I actually thought of turning around, momentarily. But why run? She let me pass before, what cause to harm me now?

*              *              *

But I neglect you, dear reader. I only told you a fraction of what happened in New York, and that wasn't even the whole of the vacation, just the beginning. Shosh and I took the Metro North to our friends' home in Connecticut, on Long Island Sound. From there Tom drove us to Boston where we stayed with his son in Somerville, next door to Cambridge and Haavaad Squaa. Then we took the Amtrak back to CT for a little relaxation before flying west again

So for me the vacation went like this: Indianapolis to Chicago; Chicago to New York; New York to Madison (CT); Madison to Boston; Boston back to Madison; Madison to the airport in Providence RI; Providence to Chicago; Chicago to Bloomington. Whew, city hopping indeed. I have three public transportation passes in my wallet with money on them still: CTA (Chicago); Metro Card (NY); and a Charlie Card (Boston).

What to tell you about it all? I can only hit the highlights, and then only briefly. Shoshana booked the flights and she did a smash up job. We left so early in the morning from Chicago that we got to NY while it was still morning, then left late enough out of Providence that there was time for brunch on the beach before we had to leave. Relaxing that last Sunday morning with coffee, reading the NY Times the Arts section had asked its reviewers to contribute to a bucket list of summer must dos in the City. Shosh and I had hit two of them. What were they? Suffice it to say that while in the Met I saw the entrance to another and was tempted to enter, but there wasn't time. Why, one day in NY, while Jonah was at work Shosh and I went from Brooklyn to Manhattan; Manhattan back to Brooklyn; Brooklyn back to Manhattan; Manhattan to Queens; Queens back to Manhattan; Manhattan home to Brooklyn, with all kinds of interesting stops along the way. City hopping indeed.

I should probably point out here that this was before the heat wave hit. The weather was mostly gorgeous. It did rain once, in Boston, but we were well prepared with umbrellas and actually enjoyed it.

The trip to Queens was to smoke the hooka with my brother-in-law in Little Egypt. We sat outside so that Shoshana wouldn't be bothered by the smoke (it was a nice night, we probably would have sat outside anyway) yet she ended up being downwind from Essam, brave girl. I had actually hoped to discuss the Arab Spring, having smoked with him before, inside with Al Jazeera on the big screen TV. There wasn't an opportunity for such seriousness. Essam was introducing us to his new wife Asmaa, with pictures on the laptop from the double wedding cum honeymoon starting in Morocco, then back home in Egypt; Alexandria, Cairo and The Valley of Kings. I would occasionally lean in to look at something and absentmindedly blow smoke in my daughter's face. That was the worst.

It was a little awkward since Asmaa spoke only French and Arabic, yet she seemed content to listen, then smile and laugh when Essam filled her in. He was inside paying the bill and Shosh was using the facilities. Asmaa and I stumbled around a little on our language legs but she knew enough that (I think) she said “No, not difficult not knowing English.” They live near but far north of the City, yet it's still those overlapping neighborhoods on steroids, seems to me. City of Immigrants (Steve Earle).

We could have easily found our way back the way we'd come but Essam insisted he drive us back to Manhattan. I knew why when I saw the glow like an artificial sunrise shinning around the skyscrapers ahead. Times Square; chock full of people even at this hour. It's true; Shosh and I wouldn't have gone there on our own, but it was awesome. Tokyo may be brighter (if it is), but NY is the prototype.

I'm sure that I'd get tired of it, having grown up in the hardwoods, but I always wish that I lived there when I have to leave NYC. We would have stayed longer but Shosh, who is staff at Shedd, in Chicago had an invitation to go behind the scenes at the New England Aquarium in Boston. As much as I'd like to grow old in the city who could pass up the opportunity? The trip to Madison was a given anyway.

So I didn't get to spend as much time in Madison as I wanted to either. We were off to Boston. I didn't go to the Aquarium. Tom's son Pat and his fiancee Shayna got the tour. I hung with my old friend, walking the Freedom Trail, then visiting some of his old haunts from when he lived there. There were even some who [vaguely] remembered me, from back when I was an over the road driver. It was awesome. Down to the Crossroads.

Shosh and I made it back to Boston in time to take a later train. It turns out we should have taken an even later one but the clerk behind the counter wasn't interested in saving us money. We walked down to the Dirty Water, turned left and followed the Freedom Trail ourselves for awhile, then went home to Madison.

I'm not sure that I deserve both the success and the friends that I have, not to mention my children that I'm always bragging on, but there you have it; here I am.

 

Authentic Brooklyn

 

Now that I have access to a keyboard I can be more expansive in my descriptions. I wanted to tell you about an incident that happened while on the way up to Shoshana's, at the very start of the vacation. I was almost to her apartment, in fact I could see the building when this car stopped in the middle of the street in front of me. There was room along the curb but it stopped plumb in the middle of the one lane of traffic. A woman got out of the passenger side, closed the door and stood there. The car remained stopped. It began to rock back and forth, quieted, then rocked again. The rear passenger door opened and a flip flop was thrown onto the pavement. Another flip flop followed. The car rocked again and a huge black woman emerged, one leg at a time from the back seat. She fitted her fat feet into the waiting flip flops then hoisted herself upright. The cars behind me were honking but the woman paid no mind and sauntered over to join her friend on the curb.

I dunno, I kind of enjoyed the show. It was like, classic ghetto [ironic disdain] or something. Not that the kids live in the ghetto. Au contraire. They live in Renaissance Lofts, an old beauty college converted to condominiums, though Shoshana and Amir are only renting. It's an up and coming part of the city but bad neighborhoods are close by. Although still within walking distance of the Big Lake it's not advisable to do so, like we used to when they lived in Wrigleyville.

It's interesting; one couldn't really say that there's a neighborhood there, where they live now. That's Shoshana's biggest complaint about the move. Every necessity is close to hand, but it's all insulated and characterless. Where Jonah lives in Brooklyn, by contrast, is neighborhoods (plural) on steroids, all overlapping. Williamsburg is a trendy part of the city now. What makes it trendy is that it's still affordable, relatively speaking. I never saw his East Village apartment that he was so proud of.

“So why move?” I asked.

“Half the rent,” was the answer.

Looking out his kitchen window my first question was, “What's up with all the Ohio flags?”

“That's Puerto Rico [duh].”

On the weekend the men set their chairs on the sidewalk (there are no stoops to speak of in this part of town). The women have their own gatherings but seemed much busier, what with children in tow. There was one elderly matron who had a wingback armchair against the curb, her subordinates distributed around her, either standing or seated on lesser thrones. We passed that way again, after dark. The people were gone but the armchair remained, with no rain in the forecast. Jonah paused to admire its upholstery.

Young children playing on the street, running up and down laughing, or riding their bikes (New York sidewalks are wide enough to accommodate life). That was mostly in the early evening, before or during the “blue dark.” All but the youngest children seemed to be occupied somewhere during the days. I know that summer school was in session. Jonah and his roommate both get their coffee from the office so it was up to me to find my own. I passed the junior high school in doing so and saw the kids waiting to enter. There were crossing guards on the corners, as if a New York kid didn't know how to cross a street, bless their hearts.

So yeah, the age groups congregated together. Only once did I see a bunch of restless adolescents that looked like they might be trouble. Then again, they didn't look that tough. I'd wager there was respect there. From Jonah's fire escape you can see the projects. I'm sure there's respect there too, but I wouldn't visit unless I had to (or had a guide?).

My first morning out in search of coffee I went the wrong way. If I'd been more perceptive the day before I'd have turned right on Bedford Ave. but I continued on down toward the East River and turned left, under the bridge. New York is always in transition. There's still industry along the river in Williamsburg, both functioning and defunct, as well as vacant lots that Jonah calls “rural Brooklyn.” I found the Bridge Deli and poured two coffees and a hot chocolate from the machine. There didn't seem to be any creamer so I turned to the guy who'd been standing at the counter playing with the store kitten and asked for milk?

“Sukar?” he looked confused.

“Leche.”

“Ah...” he pointed to the cooler next to the coffee station where I found an open gallon.

“Gracias.”

“OK”

I thought it was cool. I'd actually had a chance to use my very limited Spanish. Alright, I've had other opportunities which may or may not be recorded in The Reluctant Trucker but I always get a kick out of it.

Eh, the coffee was good and Shoshana said the hot chocolate was some of the best she'd ever had. I didn't want to tell her it came from a machine. So on Monday I went back to the Bridge Deli despite that I'd since realized my logistical mistake. I'm glad that I did. I'd already seen several Hassidic Jews with their ringlets, including a couple guys in their fur hats on the Sabbath, despite the heat, but it was cool to see a school bus with Hebrew on the side, no English, and the little boys with their little ringlets inside. They're kind of like Jewish Amish, in a way.

There had been an attractive young Latina sitting on the step (not stoop) when I'd set out that morning. She was still there when I returned. I thought I'd use my Spanish again and said, “Pardon.” She came back with a Brooklyn, “Hi, how ah ya?” I saw her again the next morning, our last in New York. On my way back into the building she asked, “Did you just move in or something?”

“I wish,” I thought, but said aloud, “No, I'm visiting my son.” We chatted briefly, wished each other well, then parted.

 

City Hopping

Vacation time! I drove to Chicago after work on Friday. The fastest way to the kid's apartment is up Lake Shore Drive, which is fine by me as I'm all about the views of the city. It was a beautiful day, the temperature along the water mild. People were out in droves exercising and enjoying the day. I thought, "I wish I were coming to spend the weekend here!" But it was OK, Shoshana and I were scheduled to fly out in the morning to NYC to visit my son Jonah who neither of us had seen in over a year.

Saturday dawned bright and fair. Flying out of Midway we got an excellent view of the city. The big buildings looked to me like a crystalline encrustation growing along the shore of the big lake. The fields of Michigan reminded me of a circuit board schematic, interrupted by the organic element of drainage. Later, over Appalachia the organic ruled and you could see how it all flows. Then, in our descent to Laguardia the schematic principle returned with the industrial warehouses as microprocessors and the semi trailers backed up to their doors the connections to the grid.

Every time that I've flown into or out of NY I've been on the wrong side of the plane to see the city (I had a window seat if you haven't already guessed), but not this time. I was just beginning to see what I thought might be the tip of lower Manhattan when the plane took a turn to the west and my heart sank. Then it turned back east and the Statue Of Liberty came into view. It was awesome. Another crystalline encrustation along the mouth of a river this time; an estuary full of ships and boats.

I'm pecking this out with my thumbs so I'll leave it at that. I wanted to post a couple pictures of the view from Jonah's fire escape, authentic Brooklyn, but there's no search dialouge box on this android, at least that I've found. I'll have to get back to you.

Hallucinatory Gambit

 

There's a sodium security light on Dolan Ridge that casts a wan orange glow onto the pavement through the trees that line the road. It looks as though there's of a group of deer ahead, the color their russet flanks. I fall prey to this illusion every single morning! I get annoyed and complain, “You'd think I'd have learned by now!” But today I realized that it's actually right to be continually fooled. What if there actually were deer standing there one morning? If I became complacent I might easily run straight into them. Still I find it kind of amazing that I am able to remain so unconditioned and open to the moment to be tricked time and again. Is that like Zen, or maybe old age?

That put me in mind of the trucker's legend about the driver who saw an elephant in the road. “That can't be real, it must be a hallucination,” he surmised and kept on driving only to run smack into an elephant standing in the road. It seems the pachyderm had recently escaped from a circus train.

Do I detect a note of incredulity concerning such a gargantuan hallucination? There are many stories of trucker's delusions, most notably the infamous Black Dog that has wrecked more than a few rigs. I myself have only experienced such phenomena once: I was crossing western Utah at night, perfectly legal but nevertheless exhausted, my circadian rhythms way out of whack. Plain as day I saw a log laying across the highway ahead of me. It never occurred to me that I was in the Great Salt Desert where there are no trees, I just wondered, “Am I going to be able to move that thing to keep going?” As I pulled to a stop before it the entire exquisitely detailed log sort of fizzled and disappeared. “Whoa,” I thought, “I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something!” I pulled over at the very next rest area and shut down, though my schedule would only allow a short nap.

The clouds were awesome today. I have sat and stared at clouds before, watching them grow oh so slowly. They were growing so fast today that I could see it happening in stolen glances from the highway!