211: bigsby (the old man in the cabin)

in love, every day, like two gooey piles of love mush. that’s what we were. until she died. cancer, in her ovaries. it’s fine, i’m fine, it happens. now i’m just this old guy in a cabin. just like the prophecies foretold, right? you’d crest a hill and there, in front of the giant waterfall, an old cabin, and inside … me. the fucking tom bombadil of hood river county. well i’m just an old man who ran away from the world after his wife died. that’s it. no big prophecies, no words of wisdom. hell, my pantry is full of ramen and baked beans. you’d think in twenty years i’da figured out how to cook more than that, but you’d be wrong. now, whoever sent you here probably said you were the first to make it. wrong. i’m slightly less touristy than multnomah falls, but still, i get some young star-crossed lovers once every couple of weeks. just come knocking on my door like i’m a four star hotel. since i got nothing better to do i let ’em in, show ’em around. show them this photo. because you’re all looking for love from a guy who hasn’t been in love for twenty years. you think, “well what about his wife?” yeah, what about her? she’s dead. she’s worm feed in the ground. yeah i loved her, i still do, very much, but that feeling is permanent in a world of impermanence. doesn’t matter much anymore, is my point. you’re welcome to stay for a bit, have a ramen, take a shit, whatever you need to do, but if you’re looking for enlightenment, you’ve come to the wrong place.