Times are tough, but outlook is outstanding

This is what you signed up for.

You push the alarm clock until you have only ten minutes to pull on a pair of pants.
They're so caked with dirt you can see a cloud of dust in the darkness of your room.
There's no point in washing them til they can stand up on their own.
You'll be filthy within five minutes after 7:00.

Manual labor hardens nearly every aspect of your life.
Your hands, your eyelids, your knees and feet.
Your nostrils and muscles.
Your social life, your fashion sense.
Your creative outlets and overall energy.

You hardly recognize days of the week anymore.
Monday could be Thursday and Sunday could be Tuesday. It simply does not matter.
They all bleed together. 17 hours of work, 6 hours of sleep, 1 hour to eat two meals.
Your schedule remains the same regardless of what day it is.
You recognize only day and night. Rain or shine. Clouds or clear. Windy or calm.

You only remember the 1st and the 18th. Those days we're different.
The 1st brought you October. You celebrated the arrival of the best month and purchased a pumpkin. Then you lamented as you realized you would miss almost all of it.
The 18th brought you another year of life and a molotov cocktail as a birthday gift. It missed the road and made a small fire in the grass. You went to a graveyard and smoked pot alongside the deceased. That night seemed like the best night on earth.

You were standing amongst the dead when you realized how much you love life.
You realized you love life because of how often you don't get to experience it.

Manual labor makes nearly every aspect of life incredible.
Things you once took for granted are now the substance of your soul.
Every minute of sleep, every drink of beer.
A bowl of soup, a sip of wine, a sip of water.
An extra hour for free time, a gasoline bomb as a birthday gift.
A breath of fresh air.
The 1st and the 18th.

Today Is October.

October arrived just as it should.
The 10th month is arguably the best month on Planet Earth.

You Can't Dust A Grain Elevator

Don't even try it. The next day you'll realize, "Shit, I totally fucking wasted my time"


stereo



stairs

cobwebs

cans


irony

A Day Begins - A Day Ends

At 6:45pm the Sun hangs low in the western sky of Tolono.
I wear a layer of dirt and appear to have been powdered white from head to foot.
I smell of daylong sweat and thick dust has accumulated on my arm hairs, it looks like a thousand mini dreadlocks.
I stand outside of the North pit alongside, "Junk" as the last semi pulls up with the day’s final load of beans.

Harvest has officially begun - day 1 is in the books and I now know the definition of "a long days work."
There is something that resonates in the air during harvest, you can literally feel it. I've always been able to feel it. There is a sense of seasonal change and a sense of consummation and fruition. It's emotionally charging.
It feels like the saying, "one closed door opens another." That's the best I can explain it.

Junk and I sit together on a concrete stoop for the last ten minutes of our shift and enjoy a cigarette. Neither of us say a word to each other, we just sit facing the polychromatic horizon and experience a mutual respect of silence and reflection.
I think about my level of exhaustion and how it will only become more and more so.
I think about how life has brought me to this point.
I think about absolutely everything.

A revelation of sorts came over at that moment as the surreality of moving back home completely vanished. Memories and familiarities of my town became less distant and less foreign and once again I cherished them.
I could see myself again as a boy, racing my BMX bike through the crossing guards across the railroad tracks to beat an oncoming train.
I remember the path I used to walk home from grade school, today it's the same path I walk home from work.
As a child, the grain elevator served as the colossal structure of my observation, imagination and wonderment, and now I am employed there.
I feel as though a piece of my life has come full circle, as though I've reached some "right of passage".
I can now begin greater things.

While in college, I would make occasional visits home and leave shortly thereafter due to overwhelming depression and feelings of alienation. For a long time I believed those feelings occurred because of returning to such a small and lonely town,
because of people who had moved on or passed away,
because I wanted to be nothing like the people who had stayed.
I now realize those feelings stemmed from my abrupt desertion - the fact that I coldly abandoned the place that made me James Wilcox, all in pursuit of something better. For a long time I thought I was better than Tolono, thus, I set out to find that "something" better. But it's not about that at all. It's only about knowing yourself better, It doesn't matter where you go, you won't find it until you've found yourself. That is the way to empowerment, and that's one thing I sorely lacked for a long time.

I have no shame for where I grew up, in fact now I respect it. Tolono made me great (no arrogance intended)
Tolono gave me life, personality, heart, and most the things I am today.
To completely disregard it would be to disregard a large piece of myself.

One thing remains true at all times - The sun will come up and the sun will go down no matter how you live your life and no matter how long you live.
At the end of the day the next closest thing to "truth" is one's self.
It's very important for us all to understand our individual uniqueness - the idea that there will never be another person quite like ourselves. I believe everyday can be a remarkable one as long as you genuinely welcome it as that person; everything else is just filler, some good and some bad.

This is my home now and for as long or as short as I want it to be and I choose to embrace it whole-heartedly. It is who I am,
The Midwest Kid.

Corn & Beans Dammit!

Yep, that's my job. Technically it's called a grain elevator. I will call it my home for the next two months as I will literally spend more time there than my own house.

Here's a quick rundown:

• It is the largest structure in Tolono and the only one that defines any sort of a sky line.
• The view from the top is extraordinary. And if you didn't know, the midwest has the best sunsets
• It's extremely filthy, everyday I eat a dust sandwich (they're not very delicious)
  
• Rotten corn smells somewhere in the middle of you're worst BM, throw up (the grade school cafeteria kind) and that black stuff under your toenails after you've let them grow too long.
• Smoking will kill you (common knowledge) Never light a cigarette within 50 feet of the elevator. Actually don't even think about fire, if you do you'll cause a massive explosion and the people who are still alive will be pissed at you!
  
• Most areas of the elevator run on 480 volts. That electrical current is so strong it won't hold on to you, it will toss you and maybe stop your heart in the process.
• All the mobile equipment are like adult toys - big colorful knobs and joysticks, often luminescent. today I drove an End Loader - pretty rad.
  
• There is a saw that has a "munch bit". It chews away at metal little by little kinda like pac-man and scatters little nibble bits all over the floor. I want one.