Dime store Diogenes

I paid a visit to the Truck Guys. “The welding broke right off,” one of the Guys says from beneath my Nissan Frontier, that big, silver carriage that’s become my home. The dinged up horse of steel and glass, who’s voice has grown to thunder because of a slight mechanical problem. “Just run it home and weld it back in place.” 

So that’s what I pretend to do, but home tonight is just a little forest clearing up the road. “I don’t suppose one of you fine Standing People has a welder?” Asking the trees to share their wisdom is one thing, but I’m supposed to be above these worldly, material matters. The wind blows through their branches and they shrug and nod in sympathy.

I channel some wisdom from my inner Diogenes, the original cynic. Now there’s a school of philosophy that gets a bad wrap. Diogenes argued that nature provides all a person needs for a life worth living. Some thread of that belief runs through the elaborate quilt I’ve been weaving with my latest experiment in good living.

Deface the coinage, Diogenes whispers, so I dig around for some coins. In my pocket, a plastic lighter and a bit of dry soil. He has the most who is content with having the least.

Thanks for that. I’ll give Thoreau a call, see if he’s got some other ideas.

It’s been a hard week between worlds. I sleep under open skies, a bit wetter and colder than most people care to be. Before the sun, I rise from the soil, climb into the Frontier, and commute to a little office space I’ve rented to hold client calls at ungodly hours. I question my decisions and curse my need to prove whatever point that still needs proving. That I’m strong and independent I guess.

A basic auto repair manual kept in my glove box provides few clues on easy fixes. One last time, I get under the truck, jam the exhaust pipe back into the triangle flange, and secure it in place with an empty sardine can and a bungee cord. The Frontier’s wailing subsides, for now.

Inside, questions remain. The search continues.