INNER SPACE

02/08/2026

I have been down this rabbit hole for a while now. I always wondered what it would be like to anticipate my own impending loss of consciousness, more commonly called, "Death." I am impatient and need to find out now, not wait for my last-minute life to “flash before my eyes,” nope, I'm getting a head start and running through the table of contents early. I have no indication of anything imminent, no diseases or loss of important parts. It's just that 76 years old is OLD, and the news is full of people who die younger than I am.

It is like I can enter my mental warehouse full of closets, each with the frozen details of a memory precious to me. I explore there and sometimes find one open and full of something I did not know I had forgotten. I go in and turn things around, open boxes and envelopes, study titles, think of long-ago friends, and things we used to do. Erato wanders freely, there. Today’s has me at 13 years old with my dad in Destin, Florida. He bought me my first bowl of gumbo to tattoo a set of flavors on my tongue in permanent ink. Forty-five years later, a rich former student and her husband flew me there for a long weekend. I had that delicious ink refreshed with a view across the inlet from where Jaws II bit the cable.

It’s funny, I sit in solitude most every day, my social life reduced to Dr. visits and some occasional travel to places enshrined in my mental closets to see what has changed.

This door on the right has a crystal knob. Behind it and Twenty-five years ago, Kimberly and I rode The Dragon’s tail down to Cherokee, North Carolina. Life is not much different from that curvaceous road, so many twists and turns no one ever makes it without taking a slide here and there. When you do, pray for the time to heal before going upright again. Some closets, I wall off in a separate room, like the one for lovers. Barbara’s closet should have been the only one, and when we lost it, we went down in a fiery slide, so the road rash was almost terminal. Jaye and Kimberly had thirty-three years to fill their spaces with files full of good times and bad, their memories are a little over-exposed, so the details are hard to come by. Then there was Pat. The late-comer love-of-my-life who taught me how to win against the outrageous “Belle Dame Sans Merci.” But she died too soon, and being gone, fills the solitude more than the others, though I still love them all, and wish they were here.

In another age, I believe my poetry would gain its share of eyes and minds, but no one reads anymore and they certainly have no time for poetry. In this Philistine twenty-first century of earthquakes and fog, no one takes time for beauty, being satisfied with politics and sports. Such narrow minds, such shallow souls they have! Here in the end-times of me, I shake my head, and walk through the dim warehouse lights, and look for a door I’ve not opened lately.

Author's Note

My first great grandson was born a couple of days ago, one day he will be as old as I am now. I hope he too is puzzled by all that has gone on.

Reviews

[Curly Grace]

This is such a deeply felt reflection, Vol. The way you move through those inner rooms and open each memory with such care creates a quiet and powerful journey. Your honesty about aging, solitude, and the loves that shaped you gives this piece a rare tenderness. It stays with me long after reading. Congrats on the great-grandson!

[Vol]

Thank you, Curly, for this tender review...
It sometimes feels like my permanent home. Maybe it's because we moved so much when I was still at home, I went to thirteen school between Kindergarten and graduation. No real roots, so I just harvested what I could along the way. I had Seniors when I taught school guys and gals who took baths together when they were three and four years old, and going to the prom. I have no idea what that must be like. On the other hand, I have seen things...
Vol

[Vol]

Oh, and By the way,
"Day breathes low
Sky presses softly
Wind slips
Earth exhales upward,
Stars no longer hang
One last star
Rain rises
Distance softens
Time thins
Everywhere
Roots listen upward.
If you stand very still
The shared pulse
A world no longer asks ...

and you made it work.
Vol

[Curly Grace]

I ended up reworking the whole thing...it's posted. Title: The Pulse of Earth, thank you, Vol

hadn't thought about just the first lines from each stanza like this though... sometimes less is more

[Vol]

Curly,
Reminds me of a lesson plan I used ... I'd have the lights out, everyone with a blank sheet of paper and 20 minutes of "The Memory of Trees," by Enya. close your eyes and write what the music makes you see... one word or very short phrase. till you fill a column, I'd have them find what they liked in their list, maybe eight or ten things that belonged together, and flesh it out into a poem. Turns out, all of them were poets. Sometimes I pick someone and read their list as poems... it worked.
Vol

[Rosie E C…]

This is deep and insightful.

A lot to process, but in time it settles. This is a pleasant and thoughtful read.

I’m very intrigued by this. An unusual update, but glad to be informed.

[Vol]

Rosie,
Just a journal entry. I really do have other things to think about, and death does not scare or even worry me but when I stop to think, well, I realize I love my life and want to live a couple hundred years...
Vol

[Rosie E C…]

It does sound like you are at peace with yourself.

Nothing wrong with it. I’m tempted to do a journal entry as well.

[Vol]

I have been accused of that more than once... it's not hard, just mean what you say and say what you mean. And smile the whole time.

[GlendasNotAlwaysaBadwit..]

Vol, North Carolina, when you get to know it well, is full of hidden swamps, There are alligators here, I, myself have seen bears, deer, some wildlife you wouldn't believe can exist here.
But, my...friend, it is cursed with twisting roads some people disappear from.
Trains roar through cities as if we are not even here.
Life between modern and non existent life. Farther north and westward are the big cities like Raleigh.
They fare better.
PS Not even a mile away is a section of land right behind a major retail store where the homeless gather like tribes. Someone went missing and they found the dead body in the homeless camp. What happened? Anything is possible.

[Vol]

Eternity, almost all my family lives in NC. I did too back a quarter century ago. Wake Forest, Rocky Mount, Youngsville. I was over there months at a time over the two years my mom was in Hospice care.
Vol

[GlendasNotAlwaysaBadwitch]

Vol, have you been to see the USS Battleship North Carolina? The alligators swarm below it in the grassy marsh like armoured guards

[Vol]

Eternity,
I have not... Have you been to what was once the YMCA campground in Black Mountain?

[GlendasNotAlwaysaBadwitch]

I've never been to Black Mountain

[Vol]

Next town down from Asheville on I-40.

[GlendasNotAlwaysaBadwitch]

I've been to Asheville. Wow! You get around!

[Vol]

Eternity,
If you were really in North Carolina, I think, you might have said that differently...
I'm gonna start taking notes and keeping score, my sweet mystery...
Vol

[GlendasNotAlwaysaBadwitch]

and if I say I've been to Gouge Eye? Tell, me, Mr Vol, what exactly is proper? The way your tongue slides between the slices of sweet meat filled taco?

[Michael Sun Bear]

I read and I have time for poetry! Vol, you have written my life here. It gave me chills to read this, so accurately have you described my day to day existence. Excellent, moving writing my friend.

[Vol]

I guess it goes with the territory. I'm not worried, only one thing happens... you wake up in a different realm, or you don't, and till it happens, it's worse than Schrodinger's cat. Nobody will EVER know.
Vol

[Carrie]

So true. Love the way you express growing older.

[GlendasNotAlwaysaBadwit..]

Vol, In the chance that something could happen to make computers and digital signals obsolete, people grasp for the past and you are there in your graphic details of love and want and desire and beauty. I believe in what goes around, comes around. Damn the future, people love your works "now".

[Vol]

Eternity,
The danger is, I might move into that warehouse and stay there permanently. And I really do want folks to read my poems, but don't really care if they LIKE them or not, as long as it changes them a little bit.
Vol

[GlendasNotAlwaysaBadwit..]

That is so great! Another volcano!
Vol, I believe when our souls depart from these cages of flesh, we'll become one with God's CONSCIOUS. That will be amazing! Every bit of all information ever thought of will be ours!
Nothing bad will even exist anymore.
That has to be it.
"The sweet touch of love."
It's free.

[Lorry]

This made me think of the weirdest advice I have ever heard. If things are getting on top of you just lie down, close your eyes and try to remember something you didn't know you had forgotten!
Its never worked, but who says no to a mid day nap at our age! 😀
Just think Vol, in future generations they may come across your appointment diary and think to themselves "Jesus! What the hell was wrong with this guy with so many doctor appointments? Well, its not like you'll be around to add the autopsy report to it now, will you?
I have often wondered of my own demise and hope against hope it is sudden, pain free and hopefully in bed. Mainly for the reason that I don't want to die waiting for an ambulance that won't come, but id rather not spend my final hours writhing in pain because some bit inside me that I wasn't even aware of decides to stop working and turns the pain dial up to warp factor five.
No, id much rather not even be there when it happens, but if I am, cant it just be a pleasant way to go, like a drug fuelled see heart attack?
Knowing my luck it will involve a stroke that leaves me with a face like a melted wellie (gumboot) and a lightning bolt shooting through somewhere a lightning bolt should never touch.
I remember my dad saying that you know you're old because you take so many pills that you rattle when you walk. I remember thinking that wouldn't be me but now I have one of those display case sized daily beds pill boxes that most airlines wouldn't let you get on an airplane with as hand luggage.
I am an avid follower of doctors advice, right up until they tell you you cant eat this with those tablets and you cant drink on these tablets. I may even have a world's first for finding a cure for them all... I changed doctor! 😀
And here is one piece of advice for ya. Dont drink anything that you need to add Coke to flavour. Just get rid of the Coke, and the raisins you put in your weirdly spelled "whiskey" and have a Scotch instead. I hear it cures all that ails ya! 😀

[Vol]

Lorry,
I'm a follower of D.H. Lawrence and live sensually... I want all of the tastes and smells and tastes, and visions... the sweet touch of love, all of it... it's too late to worry about consequences... bring it on!
Vol

[Vol]

That is, if I can afford it...

[Lorry]

Well they are trying their best to stop that happening to all of us. Come to think of it, I'll probably die on thr first of the month when my heating bill is due. Then it will just be me hitting the floor as I look online at how many organs I need to sell to pay for it!
Scotland eh? The only country to discover oil and get poorer for it.

[John the Baptist]

At 80 I can identify with a lot you have written, Vol. When exactly was it that the days started racing like a stampede of cheetahs? And how did all those young people (less than 80) make it into the obituaries? As for the big sleep, I keep looking for an ad for near death experiences minus the trauma. I really would feel better about the whole thing if I could just have a test drive. Damn it, I had one with my latest Toyota!

[Vol]

JohTB,
I think for me it was 2011, when a very memorable student from 1993, posted a picture of her first grandchild. Matters not that rural Tennessee starts them young... I remember just staring at the announcement for a long time thinking about just this...