Longing for Nothingness

^{Cows in the shade beneath an isle of trees}

Although I'd wish I could spend the whole summer doing nothing, that is nothing that the capitalistic money-driven society find to be nothing (reading, thinking, contemplating, laughing, smelling the forest fragrances, etc.) I will have to accept to work a bit more. August then may be the month when I do that nothing I wish for.

I have to finish up painting that garage I started out painting with a guy I know and whom disappeared lately, probably too busy drinking his head off. So I apparently have to finish the job myself.
Then I have another tin roof painting job awaiting me some 30 km away, a job I started last year finishing the front portion of that big house till the money ran out. I promised to finish up the job this year, except that this friend of mine had to sell the house in the meantime unable anymore to cope with her mounting debts. I feel really sorry for her. She seemed to be so happy in that big house, but as I kept telling her she needed to find some work out of the house or some contracts to survive. The B&B she created would never provide her with the needed money to run that place and eat as well. She did not want to, still suffering from a long depression. Thus, predictably, she had to sell the place.
Over the weekend, the new owners asked me if I would finish the job. I wasn't sure, mainly because I moved out again and now live in Scotstown, that is 30 km away. Since I only ride a bike, I was kinda rather hesitant in doing the double mountainous distance every damned day as I did last year for two months.

^{Improvised Rest Area in a field with a view. Maine to the left, New Hampshire to the right as seen from Quebec. The mountain tops is the watershed of the Atlantic/St.Lawrence River valley}

Incidentally, I estimate to 4000 km the distance I rode on three different bikes in the last year. Winter or summer, day or night. For someone who thought he could not live in the country without a car, I consider I am proving the contrary. Yet, riding from Scotstown to N D des Bois, Saturday I really wonder how the hell I could have done that last year every day, totalising 2400 km in 60 days of the summer. I am grateful to be in such good health, for I may not be that old but I ain't young anymore either, at 47.