Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

I wake up in a jolt, disoriented, for a split second not knowing where I am, what part of the world, progressively feeling the heat of her body next to mine in the darkness of the room, her regular breathing, geography, space and time simultaneously coming back together.

2 of March 2015, 6:27 a.m. 52 years old then today, but what these notches in the belt of fleeing time have to say about anything? 

Not much. 

At one point, your life steps out of time, literally, the accumulated years ceasing to matter as they once did, back in the days of endless youth and foolish deeds. You just have these hawsers now, stringing out of you, out there in the world, reaching across time, space and geography, somewhat still connecting who you are to your daily whereabouts, somewhat. 

I kiss her and get up, making my way thru the dark of the kitchen, stopping in front of the sink to down a glass of water. The canal across the way is pitch black, the bottom of the swimming pool darker yet under the palm fronds blocking the very first light of dawn. 

The dogs are asleep downstairs, snoring. 

The cats hanging out in the front porch. 

My brother sends a text. My sister does too.

I wish my father could. 

I look at my face in the mirror of the living room, my wrinkles and white hair.

My scars. 

I suddenly think that my father died in 1980. I was 17. 

35 years ago then. Way before cell phones and texting anyhow. 

My grandfather years before. 

My stepfather five years ago. 

My grandmother last year. 

It's been 10 years now that Jane and I got divorced. 

3 that I bought my house. 

2 that I broke up with the Chilanga. 

16 that I walked away from a possible life with that other one, back in Paris

15 that I drifted down US 1. 

29 that I moved to the States. 

31 that I took the ferry-boat, then the night train to Victoria Station where I would ultimately find myself hunting down commuters for a fast quid to fuel my drug habit. 

32 that Martine and I split after having met in 1981 working the vineyards of Beaujolais. 

33 that I made my way around Denmark and Norway selling lithography door to door, amongst other things, often comforting lonely housewives twice my age, amongst other things. 

One could keep going and going, the mind hitching a ride onto the back of memory, freeloading its way at fever pitch: the endless travels, the girls, the dead and the ones who made it, the drugs, the books read and written, the doubts and rage of yesteryears, the money and the lack of it, the creaking bones of my wooden Wisconsin farmhouse under winter attack, whiteouts for days on end, one could go on, one could. 

Past hopes and illusions, numbers, dates, people and time easily rolling off the tongue to quantify what cannot.

Sic transit Gloria mundi, thus passes the glory of the world. Seems right.

Writing seems right too, what would I do without it?

What would I do without her?

Can’t even think of it.

I drink another glass of water, turn the lights off and get back into bed.

Happy birthday, baby, she says suddenly in her tiny morning voice, right hand clasping mine, half awake, gently rolling back to deep sleep almost immediately. 

Time is an illusion. 

Was it yesterday that I was fishing for tuna off the coast of Cuba 

Trout on opening day 1975, smoking my very first cigarette

Yesterday that I first met her

Fell in love

Kissed her

Surrendered to us. 

Knowing this was different.

Knowing.

And how different, and why, and… 

Go back to sleep, baby, she says suddenly waking up, try to. 

Stop thinking and just sleep.

March 2 and 10, 2015, Sugarloaf Key