Talisker

1. I've added a new favorite to my ever-growing of favorite scotches. Talisker. It is the smoke that I love so much in Johnny Walker Black, Gold, and Blue. It's smoky, but not caustic. It's sweet, but not self-aggrandizingly sweet like Laphroaig Quarter Cask. I think this is why it's taken me three months to finish a 750 mL bottle of the Quarter Cask. It's bursting with flavor, but it's too sweet, overly youthful, fanatic in its smokiness. I drink one glass, about a shot's worth, and I think, that's interesting, but I get it, and I don't need any more. Talisker, however, I drink and say, I've almost got it. Tell me again. I think I'm getting it - just one more time. It's disappearing way to quickly from the bottle.
   
   
2. Don Peris's new album, Go When the Morning Shineth, is fantastic in the most subdued way. I listen to it again and again. It's mostly instrumental, so his voice does not characterize the album. His duet with his wife, Karen, is a great song, however, and my favorite vocally-accompanied song.
   
   
3. Today I failed to get a car loan from the credit union that financed my dearly departed Civic. I have appealed to the loan director for reconsideration. I know that God will get me a car sometime in the next 12 days because I need one.
   
   
4. This evening I went for a walk. It's amazing how purifying a walk can be if it is long enough, and if there is enough undeveloped space along the path. The mindless fervency of vegetation, the greediness of flying insects, small fields of tigerlillies, dirt and vegetation encroaching upon cement and asphalt, drooping rooves and rusting vehicles step after step give a sense of the permanence - the reliability - of change.
   
   And what better time for a walk than summer? When is the air closer? When are there more smells of living things? There's no other timefeeleel more a part of things, like I could plant myself and grow roots, like I could breathe out and out and become moist air. I left for my walk feeling defeated, afraid, ashamed, anxious, and worthless. I came back feeling hot and sweaty, slightly tired in my legs, unperturbed, and thoughtful. Almost peaceful. The other feelings were not gone, but they were made irrelevant, like a shin-high guardrail between me and a trail into the woods. Do I even think about stepping over it, or am I already beyond it before I've even lifted a foot?
   

now is slippery

I've been trying to find a construction of words that can capture and display now — what's going on, what's going to happen — but I can't. I don't really understand what's happening now. Trying to focus on it ends up with me in an anxious state of catatonia, staring here, staring there. It's living in that instant just after you wake up... that instant that seems to stretch out and separate from the previous instant, so that nothing has happened in that instant, but everything prior to that instant occurred a long time ago.

Then I fall back into doing — doing the things that must be done, and I know that the now is pushing me along. Like Peter on the waves, as long as I don't look to hard at things and try to figure out what's going on, I don't sink. There are constant things... my marriage, God. God doesn't change, but everything else changes so much that my perspective shifts and God often looks different at different times. And God has placed me where I am in every now, and it is good. God knows what I need, and he has given me the best for me.

I often wish that I could just break down and fall apart. Throw off responsibility. I want these things like a diabetic wants a Butterfinger, or an alcoholic wants a beer. It's the kind of want I'll be glad I never got.