It’s been a long labor this morning, trying to find words for anything.

I am back to my old familiar condition of being empty-headed, any thoughts of value corked away somewhere in the vats in the back of my head.

It’s frustrating.

In this morning’s coffee shop, my mind wanders, and I try to agitate my thoughts to stir something up.

I am reminded my censor settings are probably on too too high since I start a line of writing and then I quickly throw it away, concerned I will expose too much of myself and my private positions to whoever (the one or two) who might read it. Ha- why do you avoid saying who you are and what you think or believe about anything? No one reads your stuff anyways!

A super slight blonde woman sits across and down from me on our community table who, when her head is bowed and her face is draped behind a curtain of her hair, looks like a teenager and talks rapidly to her friend/girlfriend (mixed signals)- a Latin American with black curly hair and a scattering of line drawing tattoos spaced out on both of her arms- about buying a car, dotting her thoughts with inclined Valley girl tones and the frequent “like” filler.

My head itches. A fly keeps landing on it and I flail at it, without effect.

I open and scan a page from the writing exercise book I brought with me. The exercise seems interesting- this guy writes well. I put it down and ignore the exercise.

I tuck my head down and rub the back of my neck.

I compulsively open a browser window and load Facebook and see his team won and she is on a trip and they bought a new car and so-and-so’s kids are now teens starting college. That guy was younger than me in high school! The Valley of Tears, it largely has become to me. A catalog of lost opportunities, missed moments, didn’t dreams. A litany of what-if’s that often suggest my life is insubstantial.

I close the window.

My right foot and lower leg burn, as they have off and on for a while.

My weight is up. My back is weak. The sun rises. The sun goes to bed.

“Write what you know.”

I start writing about my dad’s dad, but I know I’ve done that before. I muse on photos of him, and then I chuck it.

I start trying to write about Christianity, and how its greatest offense to modern culture is its insistence that one’s life is not merely meant to be lived for one’s self. But I then think that is self-evident. How do you develop that? You either know that, or you don’t.

I dig around in a folder on my hard drive that contains writing snippets, writing ideas. Those ideas are all there because at some time each of them seemed like a possible piece. And none of them have been developed since. As none of them will be today.

A beagle, tethered by its leash to a bike rack outside the cafe’s front door, barks occasionally. When it does, I look at it and smile, because it is a beagle and and it stands facing the door earnestly waiting for its owner, and it is cute.

Sports scores, board game releases, specters from the past, silent soundings rising deep from the conflicts that wrestle within me. Idiosyncratic interests that have little bearing and little relevance to the serious machinery of life and living.

The coffee tastes good, though. The caffeine lifts and levels my mind. The subtle chocolate flavor pleases my palate.

And the people come in and buy it and drink it and talk behind the banging and grinding and whirring of coffee making and under the fuzzy grind of alt music falling from the ceiling speakers, and then mostly they leave.

GMO, Monsanto, the UN, the Secretary of Agriculture, it’s turned into a circus, farmers paid to not raise crops, it’s frightening. And I tell you, it’s not gonna get any better.

He believes something.

Who did that portrait on your leg? My cousin. Yeah, I wanted to get something like that on my leg- that looks good. I got this portrait of my mom. Back in 2006. And it’s not even finished. That’s nice, man. Here’s one of my grandma wearing my grandpa’s military hat. Are you gonna stay black and gray? On this leg.

And he likes body art.

Important things. So many important things. How do you say important things? How do you think important things?

Everyone has 24 hours to use in a day.

The sun rises. The sun goes to bed.

I’m out of touch.

I guess I’ll go do some laundry.