One of the things I actually enjoy most about doing various chores on my tractor, besides being able to run over anyone who gets in my face, is the alone time. My mind tends to wander to all sorts of subjects. Past, present, future, other dimensions....not stream of consciousness shit mind you, but just random thoughts. Politics, religion and arguments with self fall in there too.
Since I tend to want to hear what is going on with my equipment, I do not listen to music while I am operating it. It is pretty hard to hear a bearing squeaking or a belt squealing while you are listening to Tom Waits or Frank Zappa. Both of these activities; operating equipment and listening to music, take a certain amount of concentration, which as I get older, becomes more and more difficult for me to divide.
I find my mind is easily distracted. I am guessing it shows in this bullshit that I call writing. I will be riding on my tractor thinking deep and profound thoughts and a single moment of brilliance will pop up and I will make note of it. Something I should do, someone I should talk to, something I should look up on the interwebs once I am done with the current chore.
Once I am done with the current chore, poof! It is gone. Oh sure, eventually the thought or task returns to me (usually while taking a piss at 3AM), but damn! Frustration.
Since I was about 12 years old, and starting at my Dad's insistence, I have carried a small pocket notebook with me to remind myself of important things. I usually have it in my pocket even on the tractor, but the chores I do there are generally not conducive to stopping and writing myself a note or adding something to a list and hence the reason those important thoughts are sometimes lost. I guess it is a sign of age. I have said that if I ever come down with Alzheimers, that I will be damn good at it because I have been practicing every day for years.
I've got it pretty good all in all and other than a few family heartaches, have nothing really to complain about. When I am on the tractor, one of the recurring thoughts is always how things could have been different. Better or worse. I have worked my ass off for what I have and, contrary to a semi popular politician's comment, I did build what I have. The only things ever given to me were examples of discipline and drive and everything I have is a product of that. I have never spent a lot of time on the couch. There are plenty of people I know, both here and in real life that I am sure think I would be well served by some time on the couch....the psychiatrist's couch that is...and I am not sure I would disagree with them, but life is what it is, whether I remember it or not.
A week ago I wrote that....sort of coherent I guess....today as I wrote out the check for my mortgage payment (yes, I still do that...every month.) I was thinking about how things change. Thinking about my first job out of college (far from my first job). I have told the story before...9 days living in my truck before I got my first paycheck. January. Madison, Wisconsin. Fucking cold. But really, all in all, no worries except getting out of the truck at 4AM to take a leak in the plant parking lot and hoping no one saw me, much less the yellow snow.
Now, I have very little concern about where I am going to sleep, but somehow things are so much more complicated and difficult. Worries I never dreamed of having when I was sleeping in that truck in the cold. Stress I could never have understood in those days.
No, no...there is nothing wrong, nothing to worry about other than a bit of melancholy longing for the days when things were simpler.
And yes, I made myself a note in my little notebook to remember to write about this when it first occurred to me this morning...perhaps it would have been better to have forgotten it.
