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2012-03-20 - 8:30 a.m.
act so that there is no use in a centre
things become useless or inimical to you, so you leave them behind. sometimes it takes a while for you to let them go - longer than it should, maybe, if you're stubborn like me. but then, when you don't expect it, they creep back up on you. in the buttery soft-focus glow of nostalgia, things have a different way of being true. that is how i feel about all sorts of things, here in my living room, fresh from a run in a rainstorm.
* * *
a mile in, and my hips open up and i find my stride. another mile, and i can feel my face flush. my breath settles into its rhythm, and then i can keep going for however long i like.any time i start to love something, i also start to think about losing it. i'm not pretty when i'm running, but neither am i pretty when i cry.
* * *
this past weekend, my brother made a boiled dinner and brought it over to my house. we invited my silent friend, who is a comfortable addition to family evenings because he is very like our dad. for one thing, they are both much better than most people at finding four-leafed clovers.when i was little, my dad showed me how look for things like that. you picture the thing you want to find, and then you roll the image around in your mind. looking across the landscape, everything that is not a four-leafed clover retreats into the background, leaving the clovers standing vivid like stars in the night sky. but instead of a four-leafed clover, i found a horrible mutant clover that was just a deformed ball of ill-shaped leaves. like the nightmare version of luck that manifests in fairy tales, where the thing you want turns evil and harms you, it made me feel bad and sad and scared. i've since used that technique to find fossils and animals, dropped needles and a lost wedding ring, but honestly, i don't need that many four-leaved clovers.
* * *
The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.
~ henry david thoreau, journal entry, 1852.
how do you do it? how do you want things hard enough to make them real?
* * *
reading: duellman and trueb.
listening to: falling rain, cars on the wet road, distant thunder and songbirds nearby.
working on: all non-fiction is creative non-fiction, even taxonomic reviews.
in the garden: the juno iris have popped into bloom, bright against the newly-spread layer of hardwood mulch.
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