I'm feeling very alone out here, and thinking about all of the people who have vanished from my life over the years. I tend to let friendships slide once geography becomes an issue. It's sad that "out of sight, out of mind" can apply to people. So here I am, isolated from my past and attempting to forge some sort of future. Sometimes I think that I bury myself in my work so that I have an excuse for not keeping friendships healthy. I'm living in the moment. The past sometimes seems like it happened to somebody else, and the future is a line of clouds on the horizon. Will it bring nourishing rain or a catastrophic storm? If I had my way, it would stay right where it is and grace me with a glorious sunset. ...but the evening breeze blows it incessantly shoreward.

There is one person who is gone from my life against my will. If the future holds a reunion, then let it come. Let the winds raise the waves from their beds and stir the golden leaves from under the trees.

Tomorrow I start the preliminary phase of my project. I still can't believe I managed to obtain a grant to do this! More soon...

I never did figure out what the cat brought - it's gone missing. Maybe he got upset at me when I didn't admire it loudly when he presented it to me. Maybe, being a touchy creature, he took it back. I can't think of a better explanation. Oh well, I'm sure he'll bring more...

I went for a walk yesterday evening up the road towards the summit, and saw five tarantulas, all heading in the same direction as I. They were all in the middle of the road, on the yellow dividing line, as if they knew it was relatively safe there. Maybe tarantulas walked this same path before there was a road here. I'm glad they're not letting a little asphalt and paint spoil their traditions.
The summit itself was beautifully desolate. The mountain was tamed years ago by a whip of asphalt, leaving behind the two-laned scar that I followed to the top. The scar culminates in a parking lot. On this particular evening it was deserted, except for a few wind driven leaves that scraped across its surface and a trio of wary skunks who melted into the underbrush as I approached. The air, having been recently scoured by wind, was clear enough to allow me to see all the way to the sea. Off in the distance dark clouds rose to meet the descending sun.

The cat came back! You may have noticed that I have never mentioned his name. Well, I don't know his name. I don't feel it's my place to assign names to other animals. I'm sure he has one for himself, but I can't understand his language. When he answers at all, he answers to "Cat". Anyway, as I was saying... He walked in all bedraggled and arrogant this morning, carrying something in his mouth I have yet to identify. He proudly dropped the thing at my feet before sauntering out onto the porch to sun himself. I just had time to scrape it up with a dust pan and plop it in a bucket when somebody started screaming out in the woods. I ran outside, but the screaming had stopped. Most of the rest of the day was taken up talking to the police, who I called to report what I'd heard. Several other people had called as well, and the cops came out and poked around. So far, nobody has found anything. I could do without this kind of excitement. Time to look at my "gift", I guess. More later...

When people ask me why I find beauty in the bleak and the barren, I ask them to describe the surface of the moon. what is more beautiful than a full moon? I was out looking for the cat again, but all I could see was the moon. It made me think of Isabel, who is far away, and in a way that is neither bleak nor barren, just as beautiful.

Where is that damn cat?

There's something about the unobtainable that also draws me - and I'm not talking about the cat here. The cat is just a pain in the ass.

It's a beautiful night out. The shadowy wisps of clouds have given way to darkness. Zbigniew Priesner's "Requiem for my Friend", a musical farewell to director Krzysztof Kieslowski, is on the stereo. The music hovers in the air like smoke and memories, adding new dimensions to the darkness outside my windows. Somewhere out in that darkness, perhaps hearing some hint of the same music, is my cat. I took a walk earlier in hopes of spotting the ungrateful little wretch, with no luck, of course. There are lots of thickly wooded areas around here for him to lose himself in.
Feeling a little lost myself, I've just started a fire in the old stone fireplace, and brewed up some tea. This usually relaxes me, but I'm feeling restless, like I have an itch that won't go away. Time for another walk?

A strange foreboding has taken hold of me. The plant on the windowsill has died, and the cat has disappeared again. Nothing new there, really. I know the cat will come back. He always does, with tales of his exploits that are lost on my ears. It's all just meowing to me.
I had the shark dream again last night. I was looking down on the harbour. The boats were gently tugging at their moorings, and the water was crystal. The shark swept by underneath, silent and unseen by everyone except me. It must have been forty feet long, and fishbelly white, like a ghost. A tingling chill leaked through me as I stood helplessly above the scene.
Why does this dream scare me so? What lies just underneath the surface? I can remember feeling this way only once before, and again it was because of a dream. I was reminded of this dream while listening to a spoken word piece on the radio a couple of nights ago. The performer - Bird? I think his name was Bird... was trying to describe something similar. He likened it to a dividing line between serenity and something indescribably ominous. All I remember from my dream was a calm, blank nothingness - like a perfect fog, suddenly being disrupted by stabbing shapes of blackness. This sudden chaos was accompanied by a vast intake of breath, almost as if the universe had noticed that I had done something monstrous, and was about to punish me in some way. The shark dream simultaneously embodies both of the feelings that accompanied this earlier dream. The clarity and serenity of the seaside is so real that I can smell the cool, salty air, and hear the creaking and clanking of the sailboats as they bob up and down on the gentle swells. The silent danger of the shark fills me with an archetypal fear that I find hard to verbalize. This is not an auspicious beginning to my research project. Maybe tomorrow will find me in a better frame of mind.