Once I realized that it's April 1st today, I began trying to recall what was happening one year ago, but my journal doesn't even have any entries for the entire month of April last year, and journals from earlier years are not available to me. So, that leaves today as the first foolish day that I can remember. Hopefully, I'll move through this day as less a fool than whatever I'd been in the past. Since there's incredible solitude where I sit right now, there's been time to really focus on the once important pieces of life that strike me now as only the blind follies of an idiot who was in search of a village.

Possessions. I have so few now but still too many. By this fall, I'd like everything I own on this planet to fit in a pickup truck. That way, there's not much to have to take care of and nobody can have the leverage over me of being able to make me do one thing or another just so I won't lose inanimate objects. It's difficult to enjoy life when you spend every moment afraid of losing things, then awakening one day to see that none of the things really mattered. They just have to be moved and stored and guarded and protected. Yes, of course I miss a lot of the past items but I'm still here without them. I once had a giant library of books, each storing knowledge that I could reread as I chose. I have a few dozen books now but mostly just read the Bible. It seems to be enough.

Stability was another part of the past. Life was pretty stable on the outside but so mentally unstable on the inside that the external did not really matter since I rarely saw it. At present, I never know how long I can stay in one place, whether some relatively minor illness will become one that stops my life (as there's no money for any kind of medical care nor do I have much trust in the medical profession) or if some other external calamity will do away with what little remains of my physical universe. But, since my mental stability has finally returned to at least some degree, however debatable, it's now only a matter of adapting to whatever happens instead of living in fear that something will happen. At least if something occurs that I cannot survive, there won't be a giant pile of stuff for somebody else to have to deal with, either. Maybe it's foolish to have no plan at all for life, but with years of plans and ideas and goals in the past all gone away, I wonder why I expended so much effort on them. The big mountain right behind me at this moment is the same as it has been for many years, it's not scurrying around planning. Maybe it's just patient and whole and at peace.

The present is usually filled with events that a fool can enjoy, like the bighorn sheep and the deer running past the windows, the birds landing on the eaves to peer in here, chipmunks racing past the dogs (who always seem to be just at the very end of their leashes). Someone recently asked me about cell phone coverage over on this side of the big mountain, I said I had no idea since I didn't have a cell phone. I sure received the look of one who must be a fool at that moment. Or an email asking if I would be at a certain place next fall and I could not even reply as to what state within these United States I would be in by then. With my foolish thinking, I do have moments of strange clarity, like when I realized that there is a bizarre similarity between some things and maybe I'm a true fool to even ponder these. For example, I have read a lot about the Lakota people who once lived in these Black Hills of South Dakota. Their life was one of seasons, they'd do something in the summer or fall. When I now hear from different people, only those in the motorcycle culture, the "bikers" respond with 'I'll be over there this summer' or 'see you on the gulf coast this fall.' There are no real dates or months. Life lived in the present, only vague ideas about the future. Perhaps that's why I have still tried to keep my motorcycle, one of the very oldest ties to my past. Or, maybe a lot of fools ride Harleys. If so, I am part of that club.

Today is the day for us fools. Go do something foolish, like enjoying this very moment. Life is short.