Three weeks...

A new week begins. Slept in the car last night as incredibly powerful storms pummeled the area, complete with hail, torrential downpours, and a lightning strike directly across the street from where I was parked that served as a potent reminder of my relative position in the order of things. The air is cool and clean this morning as I sit at one of my favorite coffee house haunts typing this. Sunday is my day off of training, a day for reflection and recuperation. Perhaps I will go on a long bike ride before I head south to help a friend with his training.

As of tomorrow I’ll have two more solid weeks of hard training and another week of mental and spiritual training before the fight. Everything is starting to come together, that intense focus, the calm before the storm, is welling up inside of me. Last night I stood on the river bank before the storms rolled in, watching the water rush by. There was a family of ducks silhouetted on a log, bracing for the tumultuous night to come. I could feel the electricity in the air, permeating my body and making my hair stand up on end. A perfect metaphor for my mental state as my own storm approaches.

It’s only been a few weeks since I walked away from my job, not once looking back, to become a full time wandering bum. I cannot recall the last time I’ve had so much time with myself, disconnected from many of the stresses and distractions of the indentured servant’s existence. It’s a strangely foreign sensation, and a bit intimidating at times. So much time spent in solitude is forcing me to slow down and see the details around me once again. I am reflective much of the days, but when the velvet blanket of night begins to envelop my world, the demons often emerge like nocturnal vampires to launch their assault. Sensation and memory crash over me, like ocean waves pounding a cliff side. Upon waking sometimes I feel disoriented, like a man with amnesia waking after being washed up on the beach. All around him are the remains of ships, some of them older than others. He looks out into the distance and wonders about his own ship that he cannot recall. Are these fragments littering the beach a part of the vessel that brought him here?