Clawing through Ennui

Tour de France 2017

I have not been dormant. I have not wrapped myself into a fetal cocoon and drawn the shades. Nope. It is July. The Tour de France is underway, fantastic weather has returned, and Dubstoevsky has been slowly but surely clawing his way back into shape. It has taken a suitcase of commitment to do so but the effort seems to be paying off.

Ah, July. Birth month. Humidity. Sunshine. Thunderstorms. The 4th of July. Long days. Warm nights. The Tour. 

4th of July
Kimball's Ice Cream, Lancaster, MA

The New England weather has shifted over the last two months. Two thirds of the days have been sunny, pleasant, not that windy, and the other third have been overcast and some semblance of rainy. Hot and dry followed by cool and rainy. Perfect. The landscape is lush and green, the air pleasantly thick and moist. We've had an abundance of evening masterpieces when the rich descending sunlight slants across the neighborhood illuminating the giant verdant trees and the many old dignified buildings built by skilled hands.

These are introspective days. Team Shad has splintered into a thousand cosmic thoughts. Dubstoevsky is now a team unto himself. Wing Nut, Assassin for Hire, freelances out of the wilds of the greater Deerfield drainage. He's thrashing the competition in the Big Hills of Conway, Rowe, Colrain, Shelburne Falls, et fucking cetera. I Ward has disappeared in the forests of Montague. 

These developments are not unexpected. It was a rag tag shoestring trio to begin with, a trio of eclectic mirage and squawk. Like the U.S.A. itself in a way. The important thing now is to move forward.