And everything has changed,. The lake house is gone, dissipated like the sulfur scent that surrounded it. Everything is gone, the ground appropriately salted. And I am airlifted out to safety.

It is here that I discover some important things about my life. Despite my best efforts…despite my desire to keep my most ugly and fearful parts inside, this life is hard when your truly alone.

During that October, no one knew what was happening, because I dint tell anyone. I kept it inside. It was embarrassing.to me. It was my fault.

When it was at it’s worst, when The Girl stopped responding to me completely, when the days of silence, self imposed and the result of alienating everyone in my life started to dig deep beneath the top soil and infects the roots…it was then a helicopter came.

In the form of a dear friend (a singer, I believe) who dropped by my job with a cup of coffee and the innate knowledge I was fucked up beyond repair and slipping away.

I don’t know if she realized the impact of that cup. The timing. How it saved me. How she did.

If she dint know then, she does now.

These were the Bus Days. My job one downtown transfer from my home. 2 hours day and 2 hours night. Despite the frigid conditions, the wavering faith in Metro Transit System, the constant new hiding places for cigarettes (as the last bastion of smokers rights is public transit), I flourished.

Life like this was uncomplicated. Heavily scheduled. My body moved to make the mark while my mind started knitting together this record.

And when the songs came, they wouldn’t stop. I realized what my responsibility was then. Capture it all, Use it. Remember and Remind. And re-imagine the author completely.

Because though much had changed, the hurt, the pain, the…squandered magic haunted me.

So it was out in the morning at 5:40 to the bus stop, freeze till it arrives, headphones on. And a daily tour of failures in the form of the City Of Hartford. Places we went and mattered. Alleys we slipped into for a lingering kiss. Borrowed residencies for secret visits. I marked each spot daily.

And the same trip back that evening at 6:45. Everyday.

I had to get past it. But I was determined not too. I was determined to feel every human feeling associated with loss. I was an explorer in the dark side of my heart. I found great expanses within but truly feared I would never make it home again. And these would be caught and captured in a cast off journal found in some snowy wasteland.

Cause that’s where I lived that February. With a GPS set to oblivion.