The Confessions of Ira Short

In and of itself, not "fitting in" isn't a bad thing. But, even though I have been living with this my whole life, the feeling never really goes away. Sometimes I forget. In the excitement of a new thought or idea, the words come tumbling out in a rush. Then the moment comes, and I pause. Or, having reached the end, I finish. I look up, and once again, I realize my words have fallen on dead air. A blank look, an exchange of glances. Silence hangs like a shroud over the light I saw and tried to describe. On occasion I'll retrench, and try to find different words, in the hope that I can find the key to unlock the puzzle before me. But anymore I just pass on, and retire into the cover of the silence.

These days have taken on a surreal aspect. The outlines are familiar, but the edges are blurring, changing; details melting into the background. I'm standing outside of it, looking at a strange, yet familiar landscape. I've been here before. A half-dozen times when the world was cut out from under me, when everything that had been, no longer was. Updated: March 20, 2021 I started this post a year ago today. Wrote it, and never posted it. I looked at it, read it, re-wrote it, re-read it. I had a hundred reasons for not finishing it, for not posting it. In large part, it was because I was lucky enough to have been one of the fortunate ones. I haven't lost my job. On March 20, 2020, I was on my way back home from the office with my computer hardware in the front seat of the Miata, taking it home so I could set up my "office" in one of the spare bedrooms, where I have continued to work for the last year. I didn't post this because, after all, what di

Sometimes we forget how random life really is. We hide in the comfort of our routines, but life incessantly points out that, despite our best efforts, stuff just happens. Traffic started slowing as I came over the hill. Ahead I could see a spill of liquid - gasoline or coolant - and some debris in the lane ahead. It looked like shards of dark plastic. Cars maneuvered slowly around it, and I scanned the pavement for glass or metal that could cause damage. Just about that time I noticed there weren't any damaged cars pulled over on the shoulder. No CHP units, or people exchanging information. And the spilled liquid looked to be nothing more than water. Then some of the debris moved. I looked down and saw several fish, about 6 inches long, flopping on the pavement. There was a circle of wet pavement about 6 feet across, with a dozen fish scattered around it. I skirted around them and traffic began to clear.

At first glance, it looked like the coyote was taking a nap on the side of the road. He was slightly curled up, his head turned to look down the long straightaway. He looked healthy in his winter coat, with a ruff of heavy fur around his neck. Nearly all of my commute is on the outskirts of the towns I pass by, the borderlands between the islands of houses and stores and the open desert in between. The mountains, San Gorgonio on the north and San Jacinto on the south, act as impenetrable walls to the spread of the city. Even these open spaces are populated, with creatures you don't normally see from a car on the highway. Animals that live in the desert, or that have been lost there, or abandoned. But you do see them when their paths have intersected with ours on the highway. There are fresh kills every morning. As I pass the coyote, a puff of air ruffles the thick hair on the muscular neck. I follow the direction he was looking, where the granite bulk of San Jacinto fills t

As soon as traffic starts to back up on the freeway, there is always someone who will decide to drive down the shoulder as a shortcut to the next exit. The morning commute has slowed to a crawl. The freeway narrows to three lanes; we're moving, but slowly. I'm in the center lane, pacing the semi in front of me at a steady 20 miles an hour. To my right, coming up the paved shoulder, is a small flock of medium-sized birds. Uniformly white, there's about a dozen of them, flying in a loose formation no more than eight feet above the pavement. Steadily, they pass the slowly moving cars, keeping to their straight path along the empty shoulder. They got off at the next exit.

Every day, life gives us a little nudge, a peek, a whisper in the ear, "Here it is." And if you aren't paying attention, you'll miss it. I watch for them now, those brief seconds when an infinite variety of things suddenly align and you find yourself immersed in the sublime. If you are lucky, you will enjoy a moment of wonder, or awe, or epiphany before the sunlight changes or the cloud disappears. Personally, I don't believe in fate, or the idea that your life is set or predestined in any way. In 60-plus years, my experience of the world (external to me) is that it consists of seemingly random events that aren't random at all, but rather unpredictable. Their unpredictability lies in the fact that there is not a single bright line between cause and effect. Between cause (A) and effect (Z) lies an alphabet of mitigating factors, often unseen and unknown inputs that can dramatically change the outcome of events. In looking back at events in my life, I can