without these anchors buoying

I guess things are OK down here.

I have food (these mushrooms are edible and I get a fish or two a week); I have water (I didn’t think freshwaters had tides but the stream in the crevasse comes and goes).  I’ve always fancied a firm place to sleep, and so far it’s stayed warm.  I wish I had a better solution for my waste, but I’m too scared to venture far from this spot so I keep all things close (I’m going to have to do something about it soon).  I pass the time singing old Dylan songs and reciting the snatches of Psalms I committed to memory and things really aren’t that bad at all.  You probably don’t envy me, in your LeBaron with your wingtips, but it’s not so bad a life to live.

Once, when I thought I knew the way out, I tried to leave.  It was a mistake, obviously; it’s not hard now to see that.  Maybe this is why I was digging the hole to begin with, some subconscious knowledge that I’d one day be sustained by this darkness.  The thing that worries me most is my sanity.  I fear losing it because of the isolation, CO2 saturation, and low-contrast environs.  I guess even if it was brighter it’d only be all grays and browns and maybe some stray flecking of white; stone is low-contrast by definition down here.  But it’s a worry, that’s for certain.  The fear is ever-present, but always around some corner so for the most part abstracted.

To keep sharp, I try and test myself often.  Challenge my own logic and mental faculties.  I prove I’m sane by acknowledging the manna I’m granted daily (you can hear it form!), by realizing that having extra fingers would actually be a curse, and in my confidence that there’s no way I’m really losing my bones.  I can hold to these things, like the rocks around me, to prove that I’m still here and I’m still me and no one is watching me or judging me or hearing me cry.  Without these anchors buoying (the phase works, despite it’s oxymoronic nature) my reality I’d be lost.  But I’m not lost, I’m right here in the cleft of this rock at the bottom of this hole I dug.

I think it’s time to sleep (hard to tell these days).  Goodnight.

Also written on this day...

• dusted - 2009
• that footworn path - 2008
• breaking ground - 2005
• dave's top 10, 2004 edition - 2004
• dudes flirt with dudes - 2003