Thrusting into the previously unrevealed.
What was really becoming unknown to us was each other. What I felt was a turning point towards each other, the Planet viewed as the beginning of the spinning away. What I saw as my new found freedom of diminished pain, the Planet saw as the emergence of an new illness.
It was 1997 and the beginning of the economic times that the Federal reserve Chairman would describe as irrational exuberance. For me it truly was. Irrational with a capital I. But I could walk some distances now. Something I had done with glee for hours on end as a young man was now returned to me. Something that had become a looming dread with every other step for the last 17 years. Perhaps the pain had giving me a singular focus on my career. Now I saw the possibilities of living a life. I thought the Planet was included. Perhaps the Planet thought different. But the Planet stood mute, and only told me what she thought I wanted to hear. Seven years of marriage had not cracked the Planets conflict avoidance crust. I know not if the Planet had heard conflict avoidance until the end of or orbital time. Nor was I one to dive to the Planet to test the existence of gravity either. We all have our reasons. If the Planet would have shared more would things be different. If I had shared differently would things have changed. Things are never different. They just are. Until they are not.
So I spent the next year walking, quitting smoking, and thinking. The increased flow of oxygen to my brain was staggering. What had my life been up to that point? Why had I been blessed with so many things? I had attained more than I had ever dreamed. I was grateful. Yet something was lacking.
The singular pursuit of shilling for corporate America seemed less important. I was back to plunging into the bright lights of the big city by day. A big city I had been unable to enjoy was again open to me on foot. I was free to walk, explore, take long solo lunches outside. But those do not aide commerce, nor keep or increase billing numbers. Math is everything in the score keeping of the invisible hand. The self help mantra's the Planet oft repeated would ring in my ears.
What would you want to look back on and say you wished you had done more of when ringing the reapers doorbell? Would it be put more hours in at work? Editing of more feminine hygiene, beer, fast food, pharmaceutical television spots. Each night as I plunged down the South Shore into the depths of Indiana The Planet was apparently plunging into depths of her own.
Judith Janet Planet was not happy when I was there. Judith Janet Planet was not happy when I was not there. Judith Janet Planet was not happy. An unhappy Planet is never never a healthy Planet to inhabit. As entering the Planet became more infrequent, our orbits fell into decay. The Planet never denied entry, but it was clear the Planet was not seeking to be entered. At least not by me. Is timing everything? If I was staying up late, the Planet would retire early. If I retired early, the Planet might stay up all night. On those mornings when we woke together, rare since my Journey to the city called for early rising. The Planet did not rise early or easily ever. Only when the satellites rose did the Planet rise, and even then not necessarily so. The satellites, I had noticed in my stump health hiatus, had their morning down to an unusual and sometimes distressing self sufficiency for ones of seven and five. With a stay at home mother, perhaps too much so.
So it was in these climates of a seven year marriage, children of seven years and five years, career in it's seventeenth, when my alter ego Old Hatched Head appeared. Thick at the back, with a razor sharp leading edge, began to cleave into my new feeling of empowerment, health, and self confidence. The Head began to come to the fore. Slicing into my life; interpersonal, business, and spiritual relationships with the intention of making things better. Eek.
Can a hatchet ever make anything better?
