Burning Out

Well into the better half of a Macanudo, I write.

The fact is, life couldn't be better. For all its faults (and all of my own, indeed) the fact remains: life itself is an invariable constant distributor of beauty and wonder.

Washington D.C. is a sweltering pit. Even now, nigh on midnight, the dark carries the wet warmth that day spent hours abusing me with. But unlike the sun's burden, I view the night's bane as a comfortable quilt to carry through dark hours. To be sure, as I sit on the balcony, suspended some seven floors above Oakwood, the air is thick with God's sweat and the breezes dulled by the water must move as a consequence of disturbing the night. It's a rough, hot, delightful summer night.

With the aid of a modicum of tobacco and a slightly greater element of Maker's Mark, the outside is not rendered bearable, but attractive. To the distant West, I can see my home, curving beyond the horizon. To all other directions, I can sense my dominion -- Washington D.C. and it's environs, the regions in which I presently roam as king and peasant, at once ruler and servant (depending on the time of day and to what degree I've partaken of the localilty's best Happy Hours).

One thing, though, is certain: life never fails to provide the beauty and attraction that has characterized my life since the commencement of this blog. Be it the wonders of Greece or the provincial beauty of Paris, Virginia, life, in all its aspects, has yet to deny me its best face.

And for that span of time, the months I have enjoyed since January of this year, I will remain forever indebted to life. Whatever trials are hitherto heaped upon my shoulders, lain in my path, I will bear them without complaint, indeed without dissatisfaction, for I have been given, in the course of half of a year, greater joy than is afforded to most men in their respective lifetimes.

With that note, I retreat to the comfortable bed awaiting my return and bid you all do the same.

The Navigator

P.S. Note that I have been reading Dickens and it has had a profound influence on my means of expressing myself.