November 16, 2017 (Thursday)

by Yule Heibel on November 15, 2018

Why did I just want to write “2015” instead of 2017? I think it’s because my brain hadn’t fully caught up with my decision that today is the 16th and not the 15th. It is the 16th, but somehow I’m having trouble seeing the calendar dates leap forward as they do. Soon enough, one part of my mind says, it will be November 15th again – except it will be 2018 then. Another part of my mind wants to insist that’s an eternity of “nows” away. Which is correct? These two observations are at war.

Right now I’m heavier by about three or four pounds than I’d like to be. Incredibly, at my age, this sort of thing still (pardon the terrible pun) weighs on me. It feels like it should be child’s play to lose three or four pounds, but instead the “extra” weight is like that eternity of “nows,” refusing to budge for something as artificial as a calendar.

Do people get heavier in relation to how they feel about time? It’s an odd question, but it just popped up. I mean, if I got fat and heavy, would I be “anchoring” myself in some way in this particular “now,” and keep time in place, versus having it leak and flow all over the place? Is time pooling in fat people? These are ridiculous thoughts.

But they might give rise to some interesting images…

If Cronus’s son were morbidly, hugely obese, would Cronus be able to swallow him? Perhaps not. I got an email from A. asking about the recipe for Tiger’s Milk. Apparently he has gotten so skinny it’s worrying him, and he needs to bulk up. Is my boy being swallowed up by time, the gap between having and not having him widening? He has so much weighing on his mind these days.

And I’m not sure I like the family we’ve become – so far apart (Vancouver, Berlin, Boston), physically scattered to the winds, the proverbial (weightless) winds.

Yesterday was not a great day; I was in a mental funk. I took a long, long walk to B.-Beach and beyond. When I got home, I was exhausted – and so hungry, I ate a bag of BBQ chips. All of them. And then I get an email from my son, asking how he can gain weight. Come home?

Come home and grow fat with me? No. That’s not an option (and, anyway, neither am I fat).

Stay away (but maybe not that far away?), stay hungry. Make your mark in the world.

I’ve almost given up again on writing (the novel, or even the “So Last Year” idea), and all my plans seem to mock me once more. The sky looks brighter right now than it did when I first sat down – is the sun behind all those clouds? Is a crack widening? The sky looks brighter, but I feel darker, muddier. Too filled and weighted with stuck time.

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