DAY IN THE LIFE OF BOOMERRANGER
by Robert Watkins

Saturday March 6, 1999
Day trip from Red Wing to Cannon Falls, Lake City and Wabasha Minnesota USA
 

There is no new snow today, it's sunny, cloudless, and a bit cool and I'm ready to chase eagles.

By 6:30 AM I'm at the gym and have started to warm up by walking around the indoor track. My leg is healing nicely after a fall from a cliff while skiing. A tree limb jabbed my calf, I had to pull it out, then walk 2 miles. That was 6 weeks ago, the wound is healing nicely and the scar matches the other scars on my leg, neat. I go to the weight room and focus on back, calf and triceps today. Twenty-five minutes later I move up one floor and do two sets of stomach crunches, then some pull ups, then down two floors to the hot tub whirl pool for a 5 minute yoga session and into the swimming pool some laps then back into the whirl pool where I'll relax until it gets too hot. Back home by 8:30 AM I make a smoothly of yogurt and banana and make a few phone calls.  I want to go to Cannon Falls (famous around here for once a year dog sled races) -to check out the library on a genealogical service they provide, and then chase eagles, which would be in the direction towards home in Red Wing then south. Like a small water craft on a calm sea, my green dart slides across the highway, making the 4000 lb.. plus weight transparent. The windows are down and a slight scent of spring shoots in.
 
 

The ride from Cannon Falls to Wabasha is mostly farmland. Cows, corn and various smaller crops. The hills and valleys roll, never too high or low. It is a land of plenty for sure, but with much restraint. Every once in while a beautiful farmhouse will catch my attention. The highway is un-crowded until we reach Red Wing, then we pass out of "farmers day in town" where every farmer and his wife and kids buy something in Red Wing. Some tourists today also, they like the old buildings and friendly people. About every local will acknowledge about everyone else on the street. A cheerful "morning" or nod can be generally expected. The women say "morning" with emphasis on ing. On the highway, which runs along The Mississippi River,  outside of Red Wing craggy bluffs align the river. The highest points around accept for a few smallish ski areas farther south. The view on the river is quieting and pleasant. Wildlife floating, swimming, crawling and flying everywhere.

On days like this I am full passion for the air. My imagination can take me anywhere. It's difficult driving while like this, and if I'm not careful, the intensity will become physical, overwhelming me, so I pull over and chase eagles on foot, focusing on the big winged birds hunting in the marsh, diving into the lake, scooping a fish in his talons. And I see the wings in slow motion at times, and recreate the picture making a quick sketch with notes and wander up to the lakes edge and finding great comfort in the air and where I stand, a nice crisp gust of wind takes my drawing and poem and rips it out of my hand, I let it go, but there is no choice, the wind is sending it up and over the lake, and quietly I ask if all my poems will have this fate and if I could join them and in the direction of the eagle I ask if he would come and pick me up and carry me into the sky. And the division from poem to eagle chaser diminishes. Of course I am not wanting the eagles to even notice me.
And like a phantom on cue, called up, ready to be written, a brief shape of a figure skates across the lake, really just a memory of day farther to the north and on an island, someone I knew, her focus as sharp as her skates edge, as she purposefully rammed into me from the behind and we both skidded over the ice holding onto to each other and never letting go until days and months past. It was how we met and how we parted, unplanned, haphazard and rather painful at both ends of the relationship, accept on the second crash we didn't hold on to each other, instead spinning out in separate directions.

Something in my bag needs to be eaten and by eating I am firmly on the ground. It's impossible to explain my euphoric moments alone, impossible without many pages explaining many moments until the familiarity is understood. It is like time before sleeping where dream and sleep meet, it's like the moment before creation, which every creator knows is the pure design instant and all that comes after is the attempt to reproduce the vision. It is a yearning to, a desire well honed, well known, an accomplished waiting, but most of all it is self nourishment. Yet it is not always fun to do it alone.

Back in Red Wing I check my email accounts and print short and long notes onto paper, to read later tonight. I begin to fiddle with my web site. It is conceptualized and roughed out but there is no heart in it nor in me to try to find its heart, so today I decide that the motif is desktop, whatever is on my desktop at the moment with go into the site. That settled I feel like I've accomplished something. It was eating at me to decide what theme my web-site should have. I disconnect and unplug and throw a towel over the system and walk away.

So I read for a half an hour and someone comes to the door with a gift of food. There is no time, day or night, anywhere when I do not like fruit pies, tarts or a reason to chat and eat small portions and my friend knows it. Why now, why pie? I ask. Because, she has to talk, which means she wants me to listen, which I do, although I know the story, know her upset, have indeed heard exactly the same problem from her four or five times, yet she believes its all different merely because it is a different point of contention between her and her boyfriend, who has also told me practically word for word everything she is telling me. I eat the pie and pretend to pretend to listen and she stops and complains I'm distracting her by not pretending better to listen to her. It's said in good humor, and it really wakes me up and I try with all my might to focus every fiber of myself on her and what she is saying but I'm seeing an eagle in slow motion so we eat the pie and the subject changes and her boyfriend comes to pick her up and I read a few pages, still distracted.

 My energy is way up on my personal scale and so I do my laundry, some food shopping and count how many times I chit chat with people. Five total on this outing and I can't remember for the life of me what was said, all meaningless banter with shop keepers, shoppers, something happy in a way that people can talk so much and say nothing but get the message delivered anyway.

I gather my gear and go to a pool and swim, really an excuse to get the stiffness out of my leg in the whirl pool. Swimming and  looking at the people swimming, looking at the life guard, stopping at pool's edge and saying something to the guard,  looking underwater, always looking. While adjusting my goggles some little person jumps on back, it is my friends daughter and she is 7 or 8 and is getting a swimming lesson. She is really a funny person and will laugh at almost anything I say, I pick her up and throw her up and into the deep end, she frantically slashes back and yells do it again do it again, and there a bunch of little sea monsters around me saying throw me next, no me, and I throw one more then race away underwater until out of reach and return to the slow, methodical laps and complete peacefulness of my swim.

By 8 PM I am starving.  I spend maybe a half an hour thinking about food with the ice box door open, sampling this and that until I'm no longer hungry, yet I decide on pop corn as an entree, apple juice and a movie. At 11:30 PM I crawl into bed and flip through a few magazines and books, then get out of bed and pray, stating how thankful I am to have such a good life today, then sleep comes and two exciting dreams, so real, my body remembers every detail.

The next morning I write this in my journal and publish it that afternoon on the web.