Saturday, October 30, 2004

Gray gray gray... I live on the unlit side of the mountains. But, as my friend Sally points out, "It's all just scenery." I'll drive to Alturas again today--a lot of squishy mud to navigate, this time--to the post office, to mail my absentee ballot and my In-Home Supportive Services time sheet. I'll run up to Davis Creek, as well, to check my own mail box at the post office there. I'm hoping for a package from Daedalusbooks.com, remainders I ordered some weeks back. I find getting a fat box of cheap books from Daedalus every few months like waking up on Christmas morning. My friend visited last night... but I have stepped back. I've asked that we keep this on a Friday-night-DVDs-and-popcorn basis. I'll split my own wood, he can wash his own shirts. I had tears in my throat all day but by evening I knew what to do. He left very upset. So maybe not even Fridays. I poke here and there among the Web pages. News and views. The election. American activities in other countries. Beheadings. Book reviews. Bombings. Film debuts. Everyone opining. I remember long-ago campaigns and protests and vigils and confrontations. Lately I just want to know whether we're still here, and whether there's water in the well, and whether we can drink it. Having no TV reception, I rely solely on NPR for broadcast updates about the World Out There, and then only the late-afternoon ones. I wake mornings with my head filled with rhythms and images and it's good to have a half-day of silence to arrange them in. Morning talk and music blast everything right out of the water. And I'm feeling more and more like a sailor, when it comes to that. There's an upwelling of energy, a great river that only awaited months of quiet and separation to reveal its presence, as if the internal fog could lift only over weeks and months of stillness. Every morning I launch my craft. I trim my little skiff and go. Soon I won't even need a boat. 11:25:31 AM    comment []