Thursday, July 26, 2007

Does My Face Look Bigger to You?

The Highlights:

night jogging
blackberry stains on my fingers, and seeds stuck in my teeth (sunny day, on a walk to the fishing dock, literally first fruits of the season--can't resist)
new library card
Margaret Atwood
telephone calls
as always, oatmeal and peanut butter in the morning

Serious Lack Of: Extraordinary People

I need to start volunteering, or something. Why not serve some people, right?

And The Future:

I'm going to hippie town this weekend. I'll forever want to live in Port Townsend. I will probably die in Port Townsend... or at least have my funeral pyre lit there. That's right, it is written that my body shall be set on a floating pyre, the crowds shall send me out to sea and one shall send a fiery arrow towards my pyre and all shall look upon my burning pyre. And there will be music and feasting. Perhaps Trevor will play some sort of Celtic ballad on his mandolin (Trev-you're the only mandolin player I know) and maybe by then somebody I know will have learnt to play bagpipes. Not that such person will play the bagpipes at the burning of my funeral pyre, but such person will have such knowledge at the time of my death/burning. I have foreseen it.

An Impromptu Nocturne
There's something different about night in the summertime. More bugs. Warmer. Lighter. It never gets completely dark. As if, when winter comes, the cold sucks away some of the light. As if there's more space in summer, or more noise, more light, more warmth filling the space. Almost--friendly. A winter night can be suffocatingly empty. But perhaps, on a clear winter night, you step out onto the deck in your flannels and blanket wrapped tightly around your neck, the sharp air clapping around your ankles like fetters, and you lean against the rail, sucking in the scene of the valley and the mountains on a clear winter night: the chimney smoke wreaths and puffs against the temperature, the house lights glow, and the stars swing their fists, fighting to be brighter than cold space, while the moon smiles as broad as ever, remembering summer.

1 comment:

the blarney stone said...

'Manda-
I shall gladly send forth a slow, Celtic aire on the eight-string, the notes gently floating on the air and lightly propelling your pyre into the watery empyrean. Unless I'm already dead. Or somehow lose a hand or something before then.

But you'd better get a damn good archer. That could be embarassing (not for you, obviously, but for the rest of us) if he were to miss.

And I guarantee Brian will have learned the bagpipes by then. Unless he's dead.