Creative: Maine Notes, 2025

Up at 4:47 AM. Not by choice. The dream ends, and there I am, staring at a smoldering light through the blinds. Dress, make coffee, grab kit, fire up the van, and head toward the water. The only vehicle. The only person. Low tide at 5:14 AM. Stand, close my eyes, breathe deep, and take it all in. Appreciate. Relax and begin to run. To the north, then back south. Rinse and repeat. Mile after mile. The sweat forms and finds a path through my layers. The zone. Locked and loaded. Firmly entrenched in rhythmic breathing and headspace. Monkey mind be gone. The brain tries to escape. It wants to feed on empty calories, but the run brings it back, centers it, and pushes back the noise.

Slowly, they arrive. Lights flashing in the distance.

A super yacht just offshore. Fast boats running with the fury of quad Mercs. Ants from the hole. Houses on hydraulic lifts, asking for a lifeline to the new world order. And then there is the suffering. The Garmin pings with my time for the last mile. I tell myself to keep to Zone 2, but my body says no. My body says Zone 4 is better for the last mile. My Rolodex of personalities clash in a desperate fight for oxygen. Night comes, and then it gets to be day.

My mind flutters from Morocco to Japan to Patagonia, the faces of friends and family. Soaked through, glasses fogged, the sun rips down the dawn and spreads its wings. I sprint to the van to grab the fancy two-gun rig. Short and long. Sweat drips onto the black bodies. Men jockey for meaningless parking spots. A Trump flag flies from a bumper. Explosions of salt and sand and fur and ferocity. Sniping from the edges of the surf. The water too warm for its own good.

Color and contrast punchy like transparency. Held to the light, backlit, fickle. Clouds and haze and smoke and miscalculation. The world shifts under our feet. Private equity, never-before-seen numbers, and questioning of foundation truths. My job, watch and learn. Frame it up. Save it. See what happens. The notebook is soggy from sweat. The tip of the pen slowed by the moisture and quaginess of the paper at its limit. The coffee is bitter, the windshield cracked.

The assumption is vacation, and the timeline makes this difficult to dispute. A mobile life, wheels for feet, perpetual, moderate to high levels of chronic instability, followed by bouts of creative insatiability. The forecast calls for pain. Suffering. Pain and suffering, but self-induced, to unlock the tunnel of truth. Funny how this happens. Batteries on the charger, to-do list growing. Outside, the greens and blues wait for further engagement. Fireballs and cold, dark shadows beneath the surface.