Back Door Shuffle

Back Door Shuffle

 

Soft shoe song and dance, and people aren’t hanging around to see if it will be successful.  Can get entrance for pennies-on-a-dollar discount, making the experience cheap enough to book just now for New Year’s Eve entertainment.  Keeps the interest and conversation local, as you are asked:   

“Do you have plans for New Year and beyond?” 

Beyond what.  After Christmas.  Before the football games on New Year’s day.  Before and after and is a conversation worth having for some, and not-at-all for so many.  End of one year and the start of another.  Song and Dance and can be had for cheap, and yet there is no denying, it could be a good time.  Maybe we should try it.

 

Felt like I needed to write an end-of-year-blog.   Wasn’t sure how to make it a product of my creative mind and make it a signature-effort.  What is we expect?  Can he deliver?  Lucky for me the bar has been raised and we seek to go higher.  Higher than what, beyond the clouds and flying in blue sky.  Makes for good visibility and certainly has its merits.  Short flight and just a few hundred miles, or across country and border to border, or perhaps better said,  Coast to Coast.  Going north to south, or east to west, and we could get into a long discussion about flying during the holidays.  But he won’t take this blog in that direction.

Instead he is thinking about The Back Door Shuffle where he has a cleared path to the garage and then to the alley.  Not much visibility here.  But perhaps that is better.  End of year and he doesn’t want you to see what he is getting rid of.  Declutter.  Back Door Shuffle and it might mean he lost his lease and is being forced by circumstances to move on, but without a lot of publicity.

 

This approach hints at a possible departure.  Many years in place, and it looked like stability and a neighborhood we could raise our children in.   Then the laws change.  Not everywhere but where the backdoor happens to be, for the purpose of this blog-story or episode.  States Rights and where I am was once called a Sanctuary City.  Even now, as I prepare to leave, am not sure what that means.  Sanctuary City, new boss and authority commission.  Rule changes and new players, and its not what you think.  Marijuana-friendly place and is starting to influence how things are going.  Neighborhood Mom and Pop store.  Green Village.

 

For years we never talked about, the influence of drugs and smoke and alcohol on  the people.  On the People, and now we include, young people, but those not actually that young now.  Entering their 40’s and been around long enough to go from Possible-felon to UpStanding and still smoking.  What is legal and what is acceptable and how is that different now?  2016 and its taken a while to get use to the odor.  Pass a doorway in city central and is easy to express things as they are. 

“smells like weed.” 

 

And then comes the reply from a total stranger walking along side you.  “Probably is.  Is legal now.  Difficult to get the smell off your clothes.   So if you are going home, be prepared to hear the kids ask, “Where have you been?  What’s you smoking?”

 

Back Door Shuffle and the end of 2016.  Changing places with my better-half.  New arrangement.  Split-level existence and we cannot afford the place any longer.  Differences split and we flipped a coin.  Women and their expectations and some of these things are on hold now.  Flipped a coin and she won.  Which is good as 2016 was not a good year for many.  So split-level and I get the basement, and she gets to stay where she has always been.  On Top. 

 

He sinks to a new level, but is easy access to the alley.  So is not obvious to the neighbors across the street and down the street that they are living separate lives now.  Still together, but doing their own thing.  It happens.  They aren’t married, but have been together in a support-arrangement for 20-some years.  Niece and Uncle.  Living side by side.  But all that changed in 2016.  Sudden change of the way things are or were.  It is different now.

 

Niece and it pains him to tell this part.  In their 40’s and lived an interesting existence.  Niece and her peers.  Had it all.  Didn’t marry.  Smoked weed if they wanted to.  Their choice.  And as is often the case, be it tobacco or something else, there is a down-side to smoking.  So it happened.  Niece-person and is dealing with a progressive brain disease.  That’s what the doctors say, but since I wasn’t there, isn’t obvious to me.  I think this is what happens.  Healthy one moment, sick the next.  Human condition and it happens.

So this is my end of year blog.  Recognition and acceptance.  Not exactly as I saw it in my dreams, but even so.  Harder on her than it is on me.  She is sick.  I am, but heart-sick.  But have had a year to deal and accept that which is.  Coin Flip.  She wins.  And I am doing my end of year settlement routine.  Back Door Shuffle and a bit of relocation.  Not sure if I am just moving my stuff to the basement, and my body to somewhere else.  2017 and that will be determined as the year goes along.  New arrangement.  Big changes and America will see significant shifts of fortune.  New players.  Winner and Losers.  Not sure it is Lady’s Day.  Not sure who will suffer, and who will not.

As for me,  I am doing the Back Door Shuffle.  Loading stuff into the truck.  Leaving stuff in the basement.  Not looking back, nor across the street.  Song and Dance and is end of the year, and people will Party.  In my neighborhood things are changing.  New generation is taking over.  40 and 50 years old.  Still have jobs.  Of course I wonder, for how long?  But mostly we aren’t talking about that.   End of year.  Holidays and we must be jolly.  Laugh a lot.  Cry, not so much. 

And later in 2017 I will let you know if indeed I am having a good time.  Expect to manage much as I did in 2016.  Ignored the writing on the wall. Read the news, but didn’t believe what I was reading.  Now I know why.  Life is deceptive in modern times.  And we must do what is proper.  Hard to say what that is.  2016 was a strange year.  In America.  In Euro-land.  And now, new movement in a different direction.  All good.  That’s what I am thinking.

Looking at the Tiny House movement and learning best I can.  Think small.  Put the stuff in storage, or in my case:  in the basement.  Down-size and let the others do what works best for them.   Of course its taken me more than a year to come to terms with this.  She lost.  He won.  But she is still ON TOP.  He is moving and that’s that.  End of Year.  Back Door Shuffle.  Song and Dance, minus the mistletoe.  NO kissing.  NO hitting.  And no regret.  We move on.   But haven’t done it yet.  Work in Progress.  Coming and Going. 

World and Planet Spin.  2017 and he will be back in blog space.  Telling you bits and pieces of his real existence, but not necessarily will he tell it in a sensible way, as it might relate to you.  He waves. He smiles.  He puts the sunglasses on.  Heads for the basement and the alley and is on his way out.  Tis 2016.  Almost over now.  Almost gone.