I still eat my own words...

... but perhaps there are fewer of them.

Hardly haute cuisine, and certainly no emphasis on presentation. I don't even know who I'm serving anymore but maybe it was always only me at the table anyway.

So what's become of Glossophagia? I used to spill and fill these 'pages' with a nearly religious regularity. It was part of my morning ablutions. My morning pollutions. Mourning... There was always something to say. Some statement. Some proclamation. An irreverent quip. A tasteless joke at the very least.

I find myself, of late, with much less to say on any topic. It's not really a question that the world is less busy and it's definitely no less strange. It has been my observation, in fact, that our universe is more strange than ever. It is, after all an election year and it has shaped up to be one of the most unpleasant and divisive of our generation--rich fodder for commentary--and vitriol.

And perhaps that's just it. The vitriol...

Fueled by rage and frustration and a growing sense that any words I speak or actions I take are little more than pissing into the wind. It all blows back in my face and the subjects of my anger are laughing. Worse, they seem entirely unaware and unconcerned that any opposition at all exists.

And this is really just one example. It might boil down to this. I have fewer answers. The truth be told, I have come to doubt that I was ever possessed of any of the answers. There were ideas, to be sure. There were opinions.

Answers?

Not really.

My energies are focused in other areas now. My belt is drawn more tightly around my middle and my spiritual waistline is more fit and taut. It's taking work and every so often there is noticeable progress.

I've been engaged in reflection, and maybe some nostalgia. My older son is out of the house and hardly talks to me. We had conflicting ideas of what we both needed to be happy living together. The younger has been applying to colleges and it came as a surprise that he is thinking of going away to school. And why not? That's great!

Great... and I am trying not to get lonely in advance of the day I watch his skinny frame walking away.

I remember the song, You Are The Everything, when it was still relatively new. It opened with the mandolin in the beginning so many times while I looked down into Kyle's crib, watching him sleep... fearfully making sure his chest was still rising and falling... holding my hand in front of his mouth to feel his breath, because I couldn't believe that I had been entrusted with the care and responsibility for this amazing thing. Who really thought that was a good idea?

There is a sense that I have spent too much of my life talking... weaving a steel web of words around myself like a suit of chain mail. Now, more than anything, it just seems time to take it off. I no longer know what it was protecting me from. Is this venue closed? No, certainly not. There is still ego.

I guess this is just a placeholder.