Completely Still

The quiet is what you notice first. No wind. Then the birds resume. I suit up in there black Carhartt bibs, with a thick canvas shirt, long-sleeved, to ward off the briars and blackberry canes. Set about clipping the yard. The drive out from town, I think the water is higher, in the Ohio floodplain, than I've ever seen it. 54 feet, and the Great Flood of 1937 was 20 feet higher than that. Reading accounts of that, last week; it had rained for three weeks straight, and there was no where for the water to go. Lovely outside, cool enough to work without raising a sweat. Need a new pair of leather gloves, and saw some nice ones, fairly cheap, at Portsmouth Cement And Lime. Should have bought a pair when we were buying the concrete blocks. I use fairly tight fitting, thin gloves for this, so I have some hand-feel, but, of course that means they get pierced by bull-vine thorns. At least a pair a season, then thicker leather gloves Iuse for working firewood, then an insulated pair of gore-tex that I use mid-winter. Another pair than I only wear when I walking up and down the hill. I started a fire from a rick in the house, perfectly seasoned, having let go its last moisture in side the house, where I need it. Warm enough at 60 degrees to heat some water on the cookstove, strip down and take a sponge bath, wash my hair, shave. I make some rice, a wonderful aromatic Louisiana rice that tastes faintly of pecans. I make a rue of flour and butter, cook medallions of pork tenderloin in butter and walnut oil, add the rue and some mushrooms I'd cooked separately. Lousy presentation, because, really, everything looked the same, pale gravy on rice with pale meat. Tasted fantastic, and I wasn't cooking for presentation, I was cooking dinner. Did you ever wonder about how you had brokered a certain deal? Not trying to be mysterious, or anything, but when I'm clipping, or doing any other chore like that, my mind drifts by free-association. One thing reminds me of another. I have to stop, sometimes, in the middle of whatever I'm doing, think about point-loading or stress failure analysis. So I need a job that allows that. I can't really accept anything less. I've always found it, wherever I found myself, even at the worst, which in my case has been pretty bad. I've made a lot of mistakes, almost died several times, but still, here I am. Back in the middle again. Must be a line from a song. Keep one shoulder against the wall, you always need to find the door. I try to surprise myself, in what might take my interest. I could control it more, but I choose not to. Whatever happens is usually good enough for me. Go home, and go to sleep. I don't even make any phone calls. Why bother? Essentially, you're on your own, take the traces in your teeth. What is Modernism, exactly?