Thursday 6/8/23
I went down to the harbor tonight to call my mother to see how she was and how the kids are doing. If I'm on the phone I'm apt to be down there, and sometimes I'll do the radio from there, too.
At the edge of one of the harborside lawns, there's some mulch, and two large stones upon the mulch which are good for sitting. I was heading over to one of them when I nearly stepped on a baby rabbit who had blended in with that mulch most successfully. Many rabbits live by the harbor, and the babies are out in some abundance of late.
This rabbit didn't move. It was all balled up, even for a baby rabbit. Rabbits, of course, do that thing where they're like, "Oh no! Danger draws near! I will be completely still and thus render myself invisible!" but they usually won't let you step on them.
I didn't sit down, because I figured the rabbit was doing something and would be on its way soon, so I paced the lawn as I talked, and came back some ten minutes later, and the rabbit was still there. Hadn't moved at all. I sat down on one of the stones, and it was practically touching my shoe.
I thought maybe something had befallen it or it was sick or hurt, and I don't know who you call, but I'd have to do something. Wasn't going to leave the rabbit there to die. It's one thing if a hawk picks off a rabbit. I view that as nature. But everyone and everything deserves at least a chance in life. An honest chance.
I reached down to see if that would stir it, and sure enough, and to my relief, the baby rabbit--who is not yet very good at the invisibility routine--scampered healthily away, and I felt better.
Started an op-ed. More work on a story that I came up with on Sunday. On Sunday morning it was already in manuscript at 3300 words long. I've been working on it since. 4300 words now.
There are eleven newly created stories--or stories I had that were radically transformed--which are about to be completed. Together these stories are the length of a book, but they are all for different books. I've known where they are going as I've done them. Completely different from each other.
Yesterday and today I walked three miles each day, did three circuits in the Monument, and did my push-ups.
What is coming in these pages will be both electric and like some kind of blade just going through all of the nonsense.
I know what is happening with everything. I know why everything happens. I am composing from the position of someone who has each of the answers.
The answer I don't have--this is the piece of knowledge I'm missing, and it's the only one at this point--is how to get out of this situation. It could very well be that precisely what I'm doing is the answer. But I don't know that right now.
Today was the anniversary of the day my house was taken from me. So what do you think I did? Tried to get through the day? Or fight?
I fight every day and of course I was going to fight even harder today. And because tomorrow is another day, I'll go into it looking to fight even harder still.
The background on my phone is of the church that's on the street of my house in Rockport. Old church. Beautiful structure. The image comes from a vintage postcard.
Every single time I turn on my phone I see that image from that street and the pain goes through me anew. The pain never stops. But it's another jolt.
And with that jolt comes the reminder that I do not give in and I will not let myself give in. That there is nothing that can make me give in. There is no one, there is no amount of suffering, there is no otherworldly being or force that can make me give in.
I'm never even just turning on the phone.
Today is also the tenth anniversary of my first book coming out. That book had no chance itself in the world with the place that put it out. I'll be doing it over and soon there will be updates in these pages about the progress on that score. If these books are going to be loved, and reach the amount of people they should reach, they're going to have to get real chances. And when that time comes, because it will, I want to be ready with each of those books exactly as I want each of them to be. Down to the last letter.
The granite--or some of it--that the Monument is made of came from a quarry in Rockport, and I run within those walls of stone. If there ever was the perfect symbolism befitting the name of the line that lent itself to the titles of this Many Moments More journal, it'd have to be that.
Though that I was married in that City Hall gives it a push, and there I am, running the very stairs in its shadow, but never within my own, for I carry light with and about me.
The Monument opens at ten now. New hours. This is better. The Monument is closed Monday and Tuesday, but I should now be able to have more Monument days than City Hall days, stair-wise. And build myself back up with these different stairs. For all stairs are different, as I've said before.
But all stairs have something in common, and it's a great thing about stairs. It's the best thing, really, about them. And it's a life-thing about stairs.
Every single set of stairs poses a challenge to you. Asks you a question which, if you understand it, addresses you at the deepest level of your being. If you're paying attention. If you care.
Do you want to go down or do you want to go up?
I go up.
Stairs are never just about going from floor to floor or even a workout.
Not if you understand stairs like I understand stairs.
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