I am indifferent to many monuments of our nation’s capital, in so much as it is possible to remain respectful, indifferent, and American simultaneously. Still, I’ve wanted to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The Vietnam War is an enigma. In grade school, history ended after WWII but Vietnam wasn’t mentioned until secondary school and then it was so biased and confusing as to muddy the water of understanding further rather than clarify it.

When I asked my father about it, his explanation was beyond my comprehension, with the exception of making certain that I understood Jane Fonda was evil. Vietnam left many Americans feeling raw and unable to explain the event to school children in a dispassionate manner.

I understood more about the controversy surrounding the design for the memorial by Maya Lin than I understand about the war.

From an artistic standpoint, the design is absolutely brilliant. It is understated in a way that many memorial are not. Grandiosity is replaced by sobriety. Names, so many names, make the loss more real than a symbolic arrangement of nameless bronze figures. Integrated within the environment, not elevated above it, the wall becomes one with the people.

Visiting the memorial didn’t improve my understanding, but seeing all those names etched in stone, helped me better understand why it was difficult to be objective.

Friday, we returned from our (mostly) annual pilgrimage to the Smokies. It was a nice week, aside from tornado warnings. The momentum shifted this year from the way past trips have gone, not necessarily in a bad way, but I’m still uncertain about the change.

The Better Half damaged his achilles tendon earlier this month. The discomfort is unpredictable and limited our hiking. Mentally it was a little draining for me; the lack of physical exertion to work off the ordinary tension that accumulates when two people, two people in a healthy relationship are confined to a small space. As I read the previous statement, it reflects an air of whininess I don’t wish to convey, but I can only select words so carefully and make a point without sounding acusatory…

SInce January, I’ve been more physically active. Aside from the obvious health benefits, the emotional benefits are a slightly calmer me that’s less claustrophobic about the oppressiveness of winter. The downside is when I’m separated from the elliptical machine or my yoga class I get twitchy like a junkie looking for the next fix. Maybe I’m just one of those people who doesn’t relax the same way the people around me relax.

He offered for me to go on a longer hike without him, but I suspected it was a trap, a test of my love for him. He said I could take a day and hike the Alum Cave Bluffs trail to Mt LeConte. I told him I didn’t like to hike that trail to LeConte and he seemed surprised. Sure, it’s near the park’s highest summit, but we’ve hiked the summit three times, twice using that trail. After the first time, he assumed we would continue to hike it year after year. LeConte is a crown jewel of the Smokies. It was the most strenuous hike, therefore the most prestigious. It’s also rather crowded. After talking more about a separate hike, he said I should I should take a day and hike the Alum Cave Bluff Trail, leaving me to wonder if he heard a word I said and making me more suspicious of the offer.

Which I declined.

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I understand it is impossible to be involved in a lengthy relationship without occasionally tuning out her or his partner’s voice, or being mildly dismissive, but it makes it harder to achieve emotional intimacy when you are unsure if your voice projects.

White Fringed Phacelia

Crested Dwarf Iris

Cataract Falls, near the Sugarland Visitor’s Center

The roads are icy messy and school has been canceled all week. The only places open Monday were the grocery store and the wine store. At least they understand what the community really need when there is seven inches of snow on the ground and limited childcare options.

Snow contributes to a gradual mental transformation. On the first day it’s magical and pristine, and there is sledding to be done. On the second day, you are sore from the sledding and your attitude begins to shift due to the unfortunate realization that is you don’t shovel the walkway soon, you will break a wrist when you slip on your way to the car. On the third day, the snow is dirty from all the traffic and you start checking the weather report to see when it will melt. On the fourth day you feel like you are living in a way zone, because you can’t get used to the sound of icicles crashing on the deck. On fifth day, you check the forecast again hoping for fresh powder to sled on soon.

I didn’t know cabin fever was contagious, but even the cats have it and they spend winter indoors.

Photo unrelated. This is the third downy woodpecker, I’ve witnessed fly into the kitchen window this year. I wouldn’t proclaim it an epidemic, but the cats are uh, watchful. She sat on the deck stunned for a few minutes and then flew away.

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There are limits to how much time I can spend engaging with people, even people I genuinely like. Strangers can be easier, because they lack the internal knowledge that makes family dangerous with expectations fueled by first-hand knowledge. Strangers are armed with conjecture, based their assessments of posture, body language and sex, but lack concrete knowledge and base prejudices on actuarial standards coupling probability with individual experience.

Having spent a long weekend tethered to three strong-willed adults and a small child with a rigid napping schedule (as a small child is and should be entitled to have) and unable to snap the lead, I am mentally and socially exhausted. I tried several times to separate from the group without success. When it appeared it would cause a larger conflict, I relented because it was easier than explaining the uneasily explained or spending the weekend arguing with the spouse. It is questionable as to whether withdrawn compliance really is better avoiding verbal disagreement.

I’m not so melodramatic as to pronounce the weekend an abject failure, but having my experience controlled by other people was exhausting. In this specific arrangement potential conflict looms like a a dark cloud on an otherwise beautiful day. As for the eight-hundred gorilla in the room, yes it was a trip to see family and I went of my own volition hoping to earn more influence over my itinerary.

Compared to being confined to the boundaries of someone else’s small world, being stuck in the airport alone for five hours was a welcome relief.

I’m sorting through the weekend’s events in my head. It’s a necessary process to put these slights behind me and move forward. The spouse brings up one incident or another, and I try not to engage because I can’t seem to comment yet without erupting. And whether I express myself thoughtfully or succinctly in a fit of rage, it does nothing to change the situation. He perceives my criticism of the situation as being critical of him wholly, and the actual message, the things I am trying to change, get lost in his righteous indignation, leading to no useable results unless the cold shoulder counts.

These gatherings are usually brief (3 days or less), so the least confrontational solution is to eat shit politely with a knife and fork since civil discussion has proved utterly useless (confrontation doesn’t work either). I’ve no interest in talking this out for the sake of talking it out, if I can’t alter the outcome.

It’s like that, only I’m the speaker.

Rather than subject anyone to the uncomfortableness of obligatory interaction, I’ve opted for claustrophobia, even thought it gets crowded in my head. At this point, I am seriously boring myself. There is nothing of importance here, just details, tedium and a laundry list of chores. Too inconsequential to mention, too heavy to forget, and too thankless to delegate successfully….and then there is the irony of remembering there was a time I looked foreword to being an adult. Breaking the boundaries of discipline, staying awake past midnight, doing things I wanted to do only I am mired in my own inertia.

H20
Enamel paint on old rusted sign
13″ X 22″

I left sunday morning for parts more humidly oppressive. A route I’ve traveled often these past six months. A perpetual journey to inevitability. This time was different. I was held captive by my own thoughts rather than the light hearted banter I typically share with my partner. Usually he drives. I pour myself into a newspaper so I’m not visually connected with the traffic subjected to his impatience and uncharacteristic profanity. I’d rather not know who passed us on the right or why he is engaged in passive aggressive tailgating. I’d prefer to send my last moments on the planet engrossed in a crossword puzzle, something I enjoy, rather than engaged in a white knuckle grip of the oh shit handle, something I hate.

Passing the carpet warehouses, I noticed I sheet of paper fluttering across the highway in the wake of passing cars. It passed left, then right, caught like a butterfly in a transparent vortex. Ordinary. White paper. Unworthy of memory. Until a gust slowly shifted it so that I might make out a single word, James.

Six hours is long time to be confined to your own thoughts. James, however was not my thought, but my distraction of all things self-centered. For the next hundred miles, I contemplated James. Who was he? Am I being sexist in my assumption, or is it possible James is female. That would be unusual, but certainly not impossible. Perhaps James is nickname? Jameson?Hmm, kind of pretentious sounding. I went to junior high with a guy who said he wanted to name his son, James. That’s unusual. Not the name, James, but that a thirteen year-old boy is contemplating his future children, and naming them. I wonder if he ever had a son, and named him, James?

I see signs like this at the airport, walking through arrivals. The signs usually have last names, not first names, and the people holding those signs tend to look business-like, almost solemn in their demeanor. I guess it’s possible someone was walking along the interstate looking for James. Highly unlikely. Most likely this was a sign taped to James’ crap packing in the bed of a truck, covered loosely by a blue tarp, frayed and flapping in the breeze. So, why was James leaving? Was he going to someone or leaving someone?

And so the mystery of James accompanied my through downtown Atlanta.

Eventually, I became distracted by other things, as to their importance, I cannot say since I don’t actually remember what those details were. When I arrived at my destination, I found the paper with James’ name clinging to my front bumper. Maybe on a subconscious level, that was the reason I became obsessed with James, or maybe Jamesjust needed someone to consider hims for a moment in time.