...more...

...It occurs to me today, as it does each morning when I get up, that I might die before I finish this book. And I want to know what happens, but just can't get the pages turning fast enough. The same thing happens at work. I want to say things, do things, get finished with things...all because of this inane fear that I'll one day walk past that cradling tree, step off the curb, where there's NEVER a bus, and there will be one.

And I wonder who will come to pay respects, and who won't. And I wonder who will do Marvin's job, and who will read my will, and who will care...

Maybe this is what reading a book about a life of loss and embalming gets you...

Instead of "The One She Knew as Cowboy", I'm going to recommend a different title. I think...it should be Awkward Pause. Because that's what we do...it's what Marvin does. It's what we ALL do...pause after pause after...you get the picture.

And we HOPE, goddamn we hope that somewhere between those pauses, there's some sort of connection, some sort of moment, that doesn't stop as quickly as it started, that plays like a song on repeat, with just that bare minimum pause as it restarts....that pause that let's you breathe, but then plunges you right back in to the moment.

Marvin spends the whole book...well I'm guessing, since I haven't finished it, searching for that moment. Which in turn makes me think about me, and how I stopped looking, instead relishing in the pauses...but that doesn't work, does it?

It's then that I realize that I've been staring out into the five o'clock darkness for close to thirty minutes. Michael's beeping me on my cell, reminding me that we're going out...five minutes ago, actually. And then I'm grabbing my jacket and hitting the door, walking under the cradling tree, stepping off the curb...