A break in the rain, with the attendant pressure rise and clearing clouds, brings a little clarity. Things seen at distances look closer. Perspective turns deceptive. One swings a razor around and cuts oneself shaving. Maybe last night’s sleep wasn’t at issue; maybe it’ll be tonight or tomorrow’s.
Bodies moving through space and time, occupying public land not so much out of commerce or tourism or capital, but creativity and invention, coordinated effort in service to curiosity and joy and beauty, or just taking time to make noise and tell stories about surviving the past and being present.
Barely barreled through the pages this morning, then did the home things in earnest, carrying around for books to hold or turn back in early. Then we stopped by the spot for our usual on the way to our reading about the Great War (shout-out to Hochschild), crawled past the lake and made it home.
A little time today in the chair, mouth open and biting down on a guard, tools strewn across a clip-on bib across my chest, as the Great Work continues apace and is set to continue next month with a cleaning and a full set of X-rays, and likely stretch well into the new year’s spring.
More ripping and running and gunning, late as the White Rabbit and then annoyed as Alice in front of a Cheshire Cat. But even noticing things is no guarantee of freedom, ease or liberty. I was a little luckier today than before, surrounded by less luckier folk and keenly aware. Tomorrow? As always.
Make me a day where I’m full of requirements, pulled in several different directions, greeting folks familiar from prior scenes and digging through things, filling out forms and walking in circles without respite, and tell me the day’s been almost thirty years, and hand me a drink to toast it.
Two towns over from home, clear early skies gave way to tongues of mist, with a wall of the soupy stuff sticking to the interstate until clearing up at the bridge itself. Checking the forecast at the office yielded a dense fog advisory that let the skyline play peekaboo off and on into late morning.
It wasn’t a good walk spoiled, so much as complicated. I wasn’t setting any records, but I had to keep moving around if I wanted to pay the right kind of attention. Wandering isn’t always immediately productive, but it’s almost always the point; a lot distracts, but just enough gets things done.
Fog rolled deep, socking in the ride along the reservoir before easing up on our way inland, then murking up the plunge down from the tunnel, walling in the bridge into the city, then evaporating when I looked up at midday before slow dragging across the skyline as evening slid down like an eyelid.
Stayed in, out of trouble and off the street, all too aware of the odds I’ll be following some folk one way or another tomorrow or soon after. Just cloudy enough not to see much when the time was right, but a few signs that those who tried got something for their efforts. That’ll have to be enough.
