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Tuesday, January 01, 2008
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Upslope/Downslope(downslope) A strong-legged woman running under the star-studded sky, the wind in her mane, breathing deep of the night air
(upslope) A middle-aged female, unwashed locks sweat-soaked, her spare tires thudding fore and aft, gasping loud enough to drown the owls
Living on a winding, unpaved, dead-end country road leaves no excuse when other requirements overtake gym time. I shut the door firmly on the heat and trot into the breezy dark. Despite the encroaching cloudbank, moonrise seeps onto the black road, and overhead there's a glittering arch: Orion, rising full-on to the southeast; Venus bright and golden almost overhead; the Pleiades, shimmering at the apex of the westward dive.
The road runs downslope. Into icy wind I pace full-stride, bottoming out where the night-grazing steer gazes round-eyed, chewing his cud. It's cold. A goose shrieks on one high, shrill note. Then comes the steep incline. When my 10-year-old and I do this together, at this point she's laughing, chatting, stopping and gawking -- and still keeping pace. Personally, I maintain (in the face of ridicule) that as long as the fat's jiggling up and down, there's some positive effect.
Finally: a downward slope, past towering pines on the right. The scent of loamy earth and sharp sap bite into the lungs with every gasp. Wind whistles through the dried meadow on the left. There's a snort, a flash of white. Some buck, having survived hunting season, is still wary.
Ripping off the hat, breezes finger the scalp. The neighboring farmhouse glistens in the night: colored lights around the houseplants on the glass-encased porch, a yellow glow from the second story.
A gradual incline past the dark towering barn on the left, where the chickens sleep and the rusted stanchions and junk-strewn loft whisper into the dust of times past. Around the curve, upslope: meadows on either side and the gleaming heavens bright and luminescent and close overhead. The houses at road's-end twinkle. I swing the elbows and do a snazzy little u-turn, giggling to myself. Then the return. Downslope. Upslope. Back into warmth and hot tea and family.
~ ~ Happy New Year! ~ ~
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Monday, December 24, 2007
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Sugar Stomach(this is the perfect moment, isn't it? Everything's prepared, and wrapped, and the lights are on and the music playing and the anticipation building. No opportunity for disappointment .... yet)
Ms. Ten: Okay, Mom. Can I have a chocolate truffle now?
Me: Honey, I told you to finish your squash.
Ten: I had two bites.
Me: Please finish your squash.
Ten: I'm full! Can I have...
Me: If you were really full of good healthy...blah blah blah....eat some more veget...blah blah ....can't possibly fit ...blah.
Ten: Mom. My healthy-stomach's full. It's my sugar-stomach that's hungry!
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007
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Sound of Thunder
Six hours, non-stop office to D.C., gloaming turning swiftly
black in these longest nights of the year, fog on the heights where the
menacing semis loom and fade; inclines indicated by the rental’s groan into
high gear.
Lonely, tired, missing the kids. Too much caffeine, too much empty time in a
lifestyle otherwise bereft of a free moment.
Peopling the passenger seat with an array of fantasy figures, real or
imagined: what conversations could occur in this LED intimacy surrounded by blackness
and fog; what unspoken connections, what lasting bonds? Sans such companionship, the mind creates its
own: spins stories out of dreams and ghosts and bits and pieces of reality.
The reception, nearing a city, suddenly clear and evocative:
Workin’ on our night
moves……
And oh the wonder
We felt the lightning
And we waited on the
thunder
’76, Seger sweeping to fame on Night Moves, crossed the teen trajectory of me and how many others
on the road tonight: drivers grainy-eyed, line-faced, middle-aged behind a
wheel: in trucking and sales and
management and the corner office. How
many tuned in to the fog, the dark, the memory?
We were just young and
restless and bored
Livin’ by the sword
Tryin’ to lose the awkward
teenage blues
Workin’ on our night
moves
And it was summertime
Soul's summertime: back seats, bra
straps, fog on the windows: groping, seeking, panting energy, endless passion
for this and all else.
I used her, she used
me
But neither one cared
Echoes of sixteen, when hear the song touched our
inexperience. At 46, instead nostalgia flowers:
I woke last night to
the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and
wondered
Started hummin’ a song
from 1962
Ain’t it funny how the
night moves
When you just don’t
seem to have as much to lose
The speed and the obscurity and the tune:
Strange how the night
moves
With autumn closing in
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007
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GraveMy aunt and uncle's grave is walking distance from the hotel.
The large sign at the side gate says NO JOGGING. Descending past fields of stones into the main complex, I join the river of tourists. At the visitor's center, the computer monitor (the interface glows somber in faux marble) asks for the last name. A map prints smoothly. The lady at the information booth asks twice if it is okay to write on my map, before tracing a bright hi-lighter line from Here to There. Even so, I wander confused in several parking lots before finding the path.
My uncle's stone bears the only Unitarian Universalist symbol in a sea of crosses, barring his neighbor two down on the left (deceased 11 days prior) who has a Star of David. My aunt, named on my uncle's reverse, is called "Louisa B, His Wife."
Rush hour susurrates over the wall. The obelisk across the river, outlined by a westering sun, is visible from the grave. Squirrels cavort on stones and birds freewheel above. Over the next hill rises an unfamiliar monument: three arching pinnacles, contrails in stone.
I call my father on my Blackberry to say that I am sitting on his sister's grave and that it is peaceful and beautiful. He talks for a long time about a family matter. We rehash ground that we have gone over before. He predicts a grim future. I say I believe in a bright tomorrow.
The sun twinkles, slips, disappears. A vast white moon sails up, casting the obelisk into blue relief.
We end our call. I rise, and pause (not jogging), six feet over.
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Monday, September 17, 2007
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FittingMs. 7: You know, one good thing about being short and small is that you can fit through cracks.
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