Gotta Feelin'

Oh, Yeah.

The first Friday in June, there had been two days of sun and cool weather, the like of which had not been seen in years.

I found myself jogging at Franklin Park along shady lanes in the cool green-tinged light of late afternoon, and my mind cleared somewhat of the anger I felt about posted comments that did not reflect who I thought my daughter had been.

Underfoot, the mulberries were carelessly shedding berries some of which had been trod underfoot by previous joggers. Far down the trail, a deer bolted, startled, back into the underbrush.

The trail was wide and had been mowed shortly before, for equestrians.

Loudoun had such lovely public facilities and the park was deserted sat commute hour on Friday.

The rhythm from step to step began to take hold, and winded breathing put me on an elevated psychological plane that substituted for a writing desk.

I began to compose what would next be jotted down if and when there was a spare moment.

The conversations came back slowly.

I knew from the experience of writing systematically, habitually, over the preceding eight months that there were features common among sessions that were most productive.

For years there was the aphorism running in the back of the mind that writers drink, and the less secure illusion, that drinkers write. It seemed to arise from a focus on Scott Fitzgerald, Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway, all of whom fed into the post collegiate literary menu of my early twenties.

Their smaller works about the craft, the technical notes, were of more use than the commercial productions by which the world came to regard them as great writers.

Mailer died without the Nobel Prize: no one reads Mailer these days. And there is an annual parody of Hemingway, and any faint resemblance to either evokes the ridicule and derision if any such surfaces as a published piece.

The point however, is to know the path by which one’s own style develops.

It was the green, well-groomed path of Franklin Park that reminded me of these things.

First, no drinking. It is as dangerous to drink and write, as to attempt any potentially powerful and demanding activity. Writing was an early morning practice that seemed to contraindicate any stimulant beyond hot, unadulterated coffee, and that in quantity.

It was important to feel rested and unstressed when sitting down each morning.

There emerged a lag time of latency that showed consistency over an eight month period: of events that occurred, it was often a temptation to write immediately at the soonest break that allowed it.

This turned out to be wrong, and ill-advised.

It took two or three days of subconscious maturation before a session would organize itself, and at that point in the early morning, it came almost as a bodily relief to let it flow.

For example, now, early Saturday, it is time to synthesize and transmit the experience of the week.

It may be Thursday’s meeting and the erotic dreams that followed, are of greatest interest, although the impressions of other events, the over-the-trellis conversations of economics and the grand theft at Bitcoin, are nearly as fresh.

But no: to the immediate. This was stirring deep in mind as I jogged, feeling the upwelling of unrecognized strength and vitality after a very physical day. Perhaps it was the blood pounding at my temples, the slow relaxation of taut sinews in the afternoon sunlight so bright, it blinded me to the verdant path ahead and uphill.

It was almost as if steady exercise re-wound something significant for immediate replay.

So never mind the sweat, the heaving lungs, the realization that I was not, after all, badly out of shape; ignore the back lighted figure of a woman up trail, a woman who stopped as I approached, to re-leash her dog and as I summoned strength for a brief wave of the hand without breaking stride and her verbal greeting, and my immediate assessment from peripheral vision as I passed not turning my head to acknowledge that, despite her being late middle age, she maintained the sort of figure that turns heads. Or should without willful intervention to the contrary.

As the hill slowed my pace, words came to mind.

Although heavy farm and vineyard work had kept muscle tone up, I had not done more cardiopulmonary or aerobic work beyond the occasional indoor jog every other week. It was early in the season, the time when cherries and mulberries are ripe enough to pick, past the time of the iris, and the arrival of the first daylilies when one or two fireflies made their initial spark visible in the evenings.

Four weeks and the blackberries and raspberries would be ready.

The season when grapevines come to flower and hope returns for a sunny day when each prior year, a week of rain usually compromises the seasonal crop of wine grapes. This year, late May and early June were different. Between rainstorms were interspersed dry days, and that boded well for October’s picking.

What was it, a slow jog, or perhaps a fast shuffle?

The latter words seemed too geriatric, and I have seen elderly joggers whose dire motivation is seen in their faces, but not in their pace. Later in the season as conditioning became routine, I would lengthen my stride and come to the point where a fast sprint ended the five kilometer session.

Along the way in the interval of forty-five minutes, there were few to interrupt my train of thought.

There was a girl’s volleyball team toward the deserted baseball fields, not far from the pond deep enough to warrant a dock, where the cattails lined its edge. There were strollers, perhaps three, I had passed during the run.

Obesity drew a strong gut reaction, despite the fact, as I well knew, some could not avoid putting on excessive weight with age. As this thought crossed my mind, a mental survey of close friends and family revealed that there were in fact few of my age that had remained lean.

The weight was revolting, despite the countercurrent sympathy for age and infirmity.

It was as if my body had an opinion of its own dissociated from my mind. I would see others and feel empathy, but the spirit and physical sense within seemed haughtier than my soul.

Call it racial or cultural: there is a reason some political movements emphasize physical conditioning.

Once winded, I had a pleasant sensation that was recollected from Thursday’s meeting.

It was the fourth gathering since March or April, an effort to catalyze interest among the two dozen farmers and brewers in the county in collating experience growing hops for the local craft brew industry.

The first had been at the hop yard of a well spoken, reflective man of late middle age I now knew as Rene. Their farm was out Edward’s Ferry Road along that narrow strip of coastal flood plain between the city and the Potomac River. In this area are many roads, perhaps a dozen, named for the historic ferry sites between Virginia and Maryland.

That presentation had been a memorable competition between the tall, distinguished and amused owner and his short pugnacious farm manager Ralph, whose every remark seemed to invite a fistfight. Ralph would be a stout ally or a feared adversary for any of his new acquaintances who could look beyond the pugnacity of his aggressive salesman’s mentality.

Short man’s syndrome, perhaps: often as adults, short men compensate for their stature and self image, unless they come across a rare woman who favors the somatotype, and aggression.

Barishnikov is not tall.

A second meeting had featured Marilla’s farm in the upscale developments south of Purcellville called Dragon Hops. She, of the dark, almost Amerind coloration, who had been served in the Army. A glance at her place implied unlimited resources and her background extended far back into her girlhood in Belguim and France. She knew the organic farming business better than anyone local, and she would be opening a brewpub in downtown Purcellville, if a single side street with less than a dozen store fronts can be considered a downtown.

The third and fourth were less well attended but the attendees had been winnowed to those with serious interest and commitment.

To the west of tiny Purcellville is a side street that winds by a condo development, the coming plague of the community, a Tai Kwon Do gymnasium that seems to do a thriving business putting all the children of the housing development to useful activities.

A Southern States Cooperative, the local agricultural and gardening outlet, is found on the same side of the street as a large warehouse, too large to contain what it seems to be, Monk’s Brew and Barbecue.

It turns out that the owner of Monk’s Brewpub , Brian, a beefy large man of thirty-something with a trim beard, is friends with one of the hops group.

That friend and his wife, have slowly kept the group together with Marilla’s support, and with comments from Rene, myself and others, have been forewarned of the predicted effort of a noisome, short, fat and aggressively effusive winemaker named Fabbioli, to wrest control of the emerging hops association as he did with the local wine owners.

The first meeting in a private event room of Monk’s Brewpub of, what as of this week is now called the Loudoun Hops Association, was attended by several craft brewers of striking and fearsome appearance I learned was typical and very distinct from the winemakers.

Month ago, I had driven a long way to collect potted hops plants of a half dozen varieties from a fellow winemaking trainee, an ex-military flight instructor. At that time, he spoke of Solomon in tones that suggested more than they described as one of the notables of Northern Virginia brewing.

Solomon had apparently given a keynote address at a national hops symposium in North Carolina, and my friend implied he was professionally large and a force to be reckoned with.

The first Monk’s meeting, I came to be sitting across one of the rough cut brewpub tables, from a tall fit young man with full beard and tattoos up both arms that seemed to be part of the motif of his tee shirt, which read “Soldier Fit”.

His demeanor suggested the intelligence of a gang leader: the type that wears a head rag in a way that stifles ridicule.

This was the apparently famous Solomon Rose, owner of Organarchy Hops farm near Luckett’s, a cross roads with a junk and antique shop in a converted general store and barn, and a nondenominational indie gas station at the intersection.

At the fourth Monk’s session at which the newly organized organization voted in a name and a board of directors, Solomon was absent, but around the table sat Jim and Denise, Fabbioli, Paul who was new and introduced himself as having forty crowns, Ben Sedlin who was vineyard manager and hops handler for Fabbioli, Bruce Zurschmied whom I knew from the vineyard and wine community, Dylan from Organarchy Hops Farm, myself, Susan something, Dragon Hops owner Marilla, and my friend Beth Sastre-Flores, an attractive and lively Virginia Tech extension agent who had become a very good friend.

I had not noticed previously, but Denise sported a very low cut tank top that supported her personality and added another facet of appeal.

During the meeting, several references were made to my prior life as chemist. The middle aged and humorous woman sitting next to me whom I had not met, had a certain twinkle of her eye and slight smile as she leaned back and eyed me when I responded. Amusement, perhaps?

As the meeting broke up, we chatted and I offered to buy her a drink. It had been a while since I had done that and it surprised me a little how smoothly and innocently I offered and she accepted, as if we both knew we would hit it off.

Susan and her husband who had not attended were technical types from the aerospace sector. While sitting at the bar chatting afterwards about beer and wine, the bartender overhead our comments about engineering and suggested we talk with her colleague working the taps, a newly graduated aerospace engineer looking for work.

We found we had many friends and interests in common and I pumped her for hops cultivation tips. There seemed to be this interest in what, exactly, had been my scientific career. Although it is in part unintentional, I later realized my appearance had morphed from bureaucrat to wild-haired, mad scientist at some point.

A happy, hoppy, hippie seemed one potential but childish alliterative, and I knew another similar in many regards: Fletcher, Beth (the extension agent) and I had had a few very funny afternoons of wine at professional meetings, being silly about life, but dead serious about viticulture and tractors. She liked the two of us and she brought out Fletcher’s most charming off-color stories about sexual innuendo between some Hell’s Angels he knew and Jenni McCloud, the transsexual who owned Chrysalis.

Later, I would suddenly realize Beth’s Hispanic inflection, sexy good looks and slapstick sense of humor would remind me of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz at the same moment. Fact was, she liked to be seen in the company of Fletcher and me (I sensed that) at the winery where Fletch was winemaker, and there was something unique and wonderful about the chemistry of three.

As I glanced at my watch to see how far beyond the eight o’clock meeting conclusion the socialization hour was taking, it seemed to be about fifteen minutes. At that point, Denise suddenly appeared at our elbows, and both Susan and I half turned the bar stools to include her.

She was enthusiastic to show me the pattern from which she would have a tee shirt made. It was clear from the cut of her current tank top, that a logo could not attract more comment than the simple dark top she was already wearing.

She dialed up the image on her smart phone as I leaned closer to see and she held the screen against her breast to hide it.

Then, with a flourish, she displayed the phone, I took a split second look and said, oh, that is lupulin.

It was a complete, unmitigated, ill-informed guess at the identity of the large multi-ringed planar organic compound that might, if it were smaller, intercalate into DNA and cause mutations.

Both Susan’s and Denise’s jaws dropped: I looked closely at the image and, in fact, the word was not on the screen. I pulled it completely out of the hat and was dead-on accurate.

Of course.

Lupulin A.

It was obvious and likely to be either lupulin or humulin, the organic acids on whose levels the value of market hops is estimated. I had wholly guessed and knew instantaneously, if there are only two probables, the likelihood of the guess being correct was one in two, or fifty percent.

It was stunning to them and I hid the fact, that it was also a stunningly good guess to me.

Later, much later, came the dreams. Those two interested women, and me.

It had been sometime earlier in the week that I had been listening to the DC Classic Rock station and the Beatles tune, “I Got a Feeling” (Lennon/McCartney) was on. I paid close attention while driving by the old Arthur Godfrey estate on Hurley Road, with its close hedgerows and cathedral ceiling of mature hardwoods shadowing the road and wrought iron fences.

Of course, the road could be better kept among the many mansions and estates.

It was a lyric.

McCartney intoned, “I gotta feeling, a feeling inside…, oh yeah…oh yeah.”

Later in the song as I rounded the corner onto Waterford Road, the verse changed to Lennon’s voice.

“Everybody had a wet dream…”.

Seriously: everybody?

I meant to ask.

I knew about men. But did women have wet dreams? Oh, yeah. How could I possible not know the answer to that question of basic biology?

It was a question that I meant to send to a friend I had resumed writing after all these years. But how to break the ice?

I thought I might start with a short text, something like “As a former lover, I have some questions about sex I’d like to pose…”

“No, it’s nothing personal,” the rejoinder turning in mind, went on. “Do women…?”

We had both reached what came out as the Age of Harmlessness, or almost, when such things, the forbidden territory of youth and sexual exploration so many years past.

Could I pose such a question to a woman I had not seen in two or three decades?

Well, it was interesting.

One of the books that acquired from my late father-in-law’s Oxford book collection about mythology and sexual imagery in antiquity, had covered the topic of religion and taboo, subheaded “…From Heresy to Witchcraft…”.

Mention was made of the ancient handbook for prosecution of witches, Malleus maleficarum, or The Hammer of Witches (1486). In that was covered the topic of incubi and succubi, the former an evil spirit that had congress with women while they slept, the latter with men.

My parallel reading on the bedside table, of Freud (On Interpretation of Dreams), suggested an obvious answer raised by John Lennon’s lyrics.

Would I email to ask her? Were there others closer at hand I could count on for a candid answer?

It had been a good week. Although I had labored mightily against the depression of having too many farm equipment items needing multiple repairs, even as the grass seemed to creep up another inch or two each day, by Friday afternoon my long neglected welding skills had done the trick.

The pesky mower deck wheel brackets that had bent under the strain of wet mud and failure to caster around as the tractor tuned, were off, heated to red hot, hammered, smoking and radiating heat, back into alignment, and reinstalled.

It was heavy work to horse the three hundred pound mower deck back into it belly position under the tractor. By the end of the afternoon my hands and shirt were spotted with grease, and my wife wanted to go to the pool.

I was in no mood to divert concentration: the mower had been tested and the repairs held. The meadows cried out for attention, in some places growing knew high.

Instead of opting time wasted for a long, hard scrub in the shower that would be needed if I were to shed my clothes for the pool, a superficial job did and although my shoulders ached from the strain of hammering and lifting I needed to begin regular jogging.

So it was: a jog and sweat more, a chance to subconsciously integrate the events and their dream shadows of the week, on speculation that some time down the road, I would have a few minutes of peace and intellectual clarity to put it down.

This is my universe: the feel of the earth beneath my feet and the sense of solitude too profound for loneliness. A sense of connection with other times and other souls, whether in direct contact by social media, or in dreams. Or memory. The realization that life is finite, and the impressions of the sun and earth will not go with us when it is over.

There were, of course, many things left to say, and time was at hand to say them before all had evaporated and blown into the breeze, or dissipated like foam on the water...

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