(Mt. Kilimanjaro, an accommodating item in a vista seen from an old rail car from someone else’s empire on an endless plain. Seen while headed for Nairobi, a city not yet known, from the bounds of a vast and seemingly endless pale blue sea).

This year of artificial endings has been fascinating. I think we all knew just how interesting this was all going to be, though it still had surprises and tales (and endings) that have yet to be told. I have an unfamiliar confidence that I will not be around to hear them all, though our world still has a sack of surprises from which some emerge in joy and sometimes tinged in sepia-toned sadness. There was that marvelous piece that came over the transom from Socotra stalwart Marlow late yesterday. I abandoned my little makeshift office in the great room and established my presence under the eiderdown as the darkness deepened over the back pasture and the brilliant stars (and the lights of that strange UAV) emerged from the infinity of nothingness.

Marlow has had one of those lives with thousands of miles traveled under his wheels and keels. In that, we share the wonder of this wide, wonderful and sometimes bewildering world. It has been an adventure for those of us who went down to the sea in ships, or hurtled above it, hurled from floating steel to the deepness of the heavens above. In Marlow’s case there was all of that, plus the wild commitment to rocket around the corners of our accidental and courageous nation with the thunder of a stout engine driving the two wheels of his conveyance. He sent another tale of insights gained from a relocation from the pleasant madness of Key West to the ancient and primal depths of Savannah.

It is a good and powerful account. I found myself gazing at his words, comfortable under the eiderdown, marveling at his description of the people who dwell on a small section of inhabitable highland above the eternal swamp. That vista is cut by ribbons of flowing water cutting through the detritus of green growth and bottomless decay. You are going to like it when he is done fiddling with the sequence of his words. The pace and impact of that encounter with an old, old culture is one you will find familiar. It connects the honkey-tonk life with the moist soil and darkness from which we come, and to which we return.

For me, one of the accidental features of this life was writing the death notices of people like us. In most cases, the notices are for the survivors of the arcs through our remarkable heavens. They address careers played out against the mosaic of family and sacrifice, triumph and ultimate defeat against the darkness. Some do not. There are those who pass without fanfare or note. There are others who lived with gusto and passed with a hint of the same. But some fought their battles on their own terms and took their departure the same way. Alone.

One such notice occurred last week. It was that of a man a few years behind in the annual tally, but strong and smart. Tough and brave when it came to it, and then gone. Crafting something to remember him, absent his desire (he was a private fellow) or that of family, meant a journey. With Marlow’s piece, it described the inexorable pace of American life in what was, in a shining time, an American century. His characterization of this segment of the long train ride to the long sleep includes what he termed “the soft armchairs” in the waiting room which we craft.

It was powerful reading, as I settled in my own soft mattress below the eiderdown and knitted comforter. This waypoint on the road is a good one. You will see more from Marlow, presently. This is a hell of a journey and filled with interesting vistas that will, in good order, accommodate us all.

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
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