Monday, December 15, 2008

Motion

I have a condition of wanderlust that follows a strange pattern. Whenever I'm in movement, going about in vagabond shoes, I feel free. My life is mine alone, steady in ever changing balance. But should I stay too long in one spot I become stricken with a woeful variant of motion sickness. My head wobbles, my mind is unclear, my legs and feet feel unstable. I have this urge, as does Ishmail in Moby Dick, to knock hats off the heads of men.

Although as rare as it is, I am happy with this reverse condition. It keeps my legs strong, my heart beating at a healthy pace.

But there are downsides. Take, for instance, work. Should I sit at my desk too long-- day after day, weeks on end--I become agitated, slipping into a state of animated delirium. Recently, while working as a clerk at a trademark office, I rose from my swivel chair and gave a primal yelp: "Yeeee,heeee." I then cried out: "My name is Tortelli."

With my unsteady legs I moved to my boss's office. I said, "Forgive me, Mr. Beam." I then proceeded to knock the toupee off his round head.

There was no work for me the next day, so I moved to other employment in an actuary's office. But soon the variant of motion sickness overwhelmed me. "Yeeee, heeee," I cried again. "Miss. Baxter, forgive me, but your a$$ is fat." I then knocked a box of boardwalk fudge off my supervisor's desk and left the office, never to return.

But a cure has come to me in size 91/2 re-soled leather boots. Not to forget a long smooth bindle stick I hold with my barest of belongings tied up in a cloth at the stick's end.

Today I began my hobo's journey. My feet are steady, my life once more in balance as I move from place to place.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I had an English professor who never wore a watch and he said it was because "time is always now."
Time is now and the past and future are just concepts we create in our mind. When we live in the "flow" of the present moment, it enables us to let go of things. It is too easy to get stuck in a moment and try to hang on to things that are no longer.
The bluesman John Lee Hooker once sung:
"Serves you right to suffer, serves you right to be alone, you can't go on livin' in the past,
them days...is gone."


The 'Dox