The Monday after Winter Storm Fern. I have no interest in digging out or in finding my way into the world, except as a larger obligation and the realization that I will, at some point, have need. This is not to say I have turned my back on the world; rather, it picks up right where I leave it. That may be the most difficult lesson regarding time: when two friends part, the friendship begins to operate on a sort of half-life: the amount of time required for the friendship to metabolize itself in the absence of fresh interactions, whether in person or at a distance, depends entirely on the amount of toxins sticking to things. I have lost lives to my inability to understand the nature of half-life. Thus, I have learned that I must, at intervals, return to people and things I wish to nurture within myself.
I woke up this morning from dreams that left a trail like footprints disappearing in the snow. Hunkering down is good for my mind, but not necessarily for my body, since the body is meant to move. I will go out later and shovel off the porch and sidewalk, more out of the need to move than out of future necessity. In this instance, the two have a symbiotic relationship. As with all mechanical things, however, a certain amount of resistance must be overcome. I am thinking about the nature of steam and steam pumps. A steam pump operates because the resistance between steam pressure and water pressure is never equal. In order for a steam water pump to push water, the level of steam pressure must exceed the level of water pressure… the pounds per square inch that one pushes against the force of the other. There is a constant working for stasis, for balance, that, if the machinery operates correctly, is never really achieved. Because if the steam psi is balanced perfectly against liquid psi, the pump doesn’t move, energy is not produced, and work is not done. The machinery locks up.
Thus, it could be argued that it is only through resistance that we know we are alive.
These steam engine metaphors will not leave me. But maybe it’s only the broken heart that knows it’s alive.
