novembre

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

down home

I wonder if people have come to think of reading blogs as they would news. I am not exactly newsworthy.

Snippets, snapshots. Documentation. But is it ignored because there is so much information every day, just to keep current? Does everything have to be overtly informative? There's a certain fabric to interaction here. It feels frayed, but professional.

Right now it is four in the afternoon, and I'm sitting in my backyard. I've just hiked through Claremont canyon listening to music
lizards and moths circling around me, lazy hawks circling overhead. I did a few circles when The Staple Singers came on, myself. I hear: the neighbor one yard across from me watering his lawn, the wind chimes harmonizing (wooden chimes and the rock chime I got Ang from Colorado). Mike making sounds with his new keyboard thing. Gabe is singing softly to himself because he thinks no one can hear him. He has a beautiful voice, but I feel as if he'd never want anyone to hear it. Donovan is eating spagetti that Angela brought us home from work, and he is the quietest of us all. The most mellow.

I was walking through my neighborhood a few weeks or months ago, it all blends together for me, and I saw a smiling woman dressed in yoga clothes and running shoes sprawled on her back on her front walk, face and hands turned up towards the sun. Her keys were lying on the ground next to her right hand. I checked to make sure she was breathing, yes, but what struck me was that she looked so gentle, and so suddenly, overwhelmingly peaceful.

She had on brown stretchy yoga capris, her running shoes white nike boots hiding her ankles. I went on my way, but that woman so vulnerably happy stayed with me. There are little slices that you randomly witness and they just stick to your ribs; I write them down so I'll never forget them. For when there are no cameras on hand.

I remember that, and I remember this: a child playing with a giant pink bunny in an SUV in front of me on the 580 freeway. I was a few cars back, driving my little white Honda that has since been totaled by the British geologist. We were in the slow lane. I was just starting grad school, feeling wide and open and possible. I remember being amazed that giant pink bunnies were still in common enough use to wind up in the car in front of me -- and making a note of the bunny so I could tell my friend about it later. It was a huge fucking stuffed animal. Bright pink. The boy, he looked about five, shoved the bunny out of his window and held on to his neck as if it were a game. Both arms wrapped around the bunny's neck, but the SUV swerved - Mom must be mad - and he lost his grip.

The bunny landed on the side of the freeway, suddenly still, but still so big and pink.

4:14 pm - 07.17.08

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next