Life goes on

Life goes on even though we ran out of money somewhere back along the road. A reasonably informative visit with the physical therapist. Recommended I work at a desk top, since the laptop involves looking down in a way with which the damaged nerves are not happy. One unclaimed desktop still resides in the studio, but the studio is in a serious state of disarray brought about by the housekeeper and his floor-cleaning adventures. So I prop my laptop on a stack of books at a crazy angle on my little table in the breakfast nook and pretend I have a monitor. Tapping through the General Land Office records looking for sections in the Jackson Belt. For the past two days I have been stuck in the swamps and pine forests along the Louisiana state line. I follow along with my Mississippi Atlas and Gazeteer, watching the lonely surveyors and their chain carriers hack their way through the snakey creeks, wondering if they were gonna head home when the War of 1812 breaks out, which is just a few months away, or will they stay on the job. Deputy Surveyor Elijah Pope finds himself in a bad storm and writes “It is extremely remarkable that this reigning torrent of air seems to have lost much of its rapidity in passing from the pine hills on the W. to the east side of the Magachitto. Tho it appears here to be gathering much of its former violence.” A few pages later he mentions “the distance of 65 chains being laid west by the fury of the aerial element…” and he ends the survey with:
“Immortal hope is made a squatter
I wade knee deep in mud +water”
But I don't have time for such romantic distractions. I must move on.

Outside gardenias and magnolias pump out a rich fragrance that makes me feel like a king in the castle. As I walk the kids to extended day along the broken sidewalks and chainlink fences, the mockingbirds and weedeaters chirping in the distance, I sense a Bessemer City kind of vibe, more Bessemer City than Hillsborough or Marion, two other towns of comparable size I can pivot on as referents in the arc of my narrative, and I can't really say what it is that makes it seem this way, other than slight aromas noticed at random through the day. If you didn't notice the huge university just across the highway, you might imagine you were in Bessemer City. At least for now it kind of smells that way.