Drainage Pattern

The shape of the pattern is determined by the land. Simple enough, if you throw in dozens of variables. Branch Rickey said: "Luck is the residue of design." Architecture is frozen music. I forget who said that, so it's not really a quote, because I probably got it slightly wrong. Walking in the woods again, I find a couple of nice Boletus mushrooms, and gather a rucksack of kindling for the large trash can I keep for such small stuff. Some color in the leaves today, and it's still, the light is tangible, in shafts that define space. I have a little flask I picked up at Goodwill so I was carrying maybe a half-ounce of the peaty single-malt Glenn had left, a Talisker, found a stump off the logging road, stopping for a nip and a smoke. Scraped an ashtray with my foot, rolled a cig, took a small sip. I love the smell of rotting leaves, the fecund isness. It was very quiet, the occasional car or truck far away, but otherwise just the sound of birds, and leaves stirring where something scampered. I sat there I long time, maybe an hour, doing nothing, not moving, quieting even that internal voice. I do this as often as possible, because what happens, if you stop your flailing about, is that nature returns to fill the vacuum created by your intrusion. I learned, from watching the tadpoles, that if you didn't sit very still, you'd never see the salamanders. One of those observations where what you see might be a metaphor for something down the road. Finally walk back home, velcro the elastic back brace and hit a few licks with the sling-blade. I'm careful, I start slowly; I need to reestablish contact with my body, I've been dwelling in my mind through the hot months. Look at the cycle, take the long view. I'm less concerned with my personal comfort than installing this Circus Show which is a monster, fraught with complications. I'm sure I can do it, with James and Sara, it would be cake with D, but he is off the table; I'll use him just once, to install that pesky banner, fucking Monkey Aviators, because of my fear of heights. I have a thought that the posters shouldn't be hung perfectly, D agrees, but it's murky terrain. The argument is that the posters would have been applied in a rather haphazard manner, so we sh ould, you know, not hang them straight; BUT they're artifacts now, art maybe, we could talk about this, and therefore deserve to be handled and hung as such. It's an interesting question, I think, so I spend some time thinking about it. Get bogged down in Andy Warhol, and come out of it like that dream the other night, shaking and mildly upset, not knowing exactly where I am. Life throws these great sweeping curves and we're looking for a fastball. It's nice hard stop but I'm not done. Nothing prepares you for the real world, that's the problem, that extra year in graduate school, the dirt beneath the nails, nothing prepares you. Suddenly you're on your own. a monad, but wait a minute, what about anyone else not quite up to speed? I will not profile here. It's a trap, but there are those who can be engaged. I'm more interested in what actually happened. My drift is obvious.