Beautiful Days

Perfectly blue sky, temps running 78 - 48, lovely color. The slant light, coming through the yellows and oranges and reds is blinding. I need sunglasses. For forty years I wore photo-sensitive prescription glasses but I don't wear them anymore. The sun was so bright today though, and so slanted, that I had to stop several times because I couldn't see the road. Ran some errands, bought some things, underwear and groceries, then lunch with D, then hung around the museum. Listened to part of a long change-ringing piece. Change-ringing is a peculiarly British method of ringing nine bells, a full set (all tuned differently), in strict mathematical progressions. I like it, it's Bach-like. Found a sample of Double-Round-Bobs online, a piece featured famously in Dorothy Sayers great "The Nine Tailors". Realize I have a box of books from my stay in Winchester, Virginia, that I hadn't opened since then, and several missing books might well be in that box. I'll dig it out tomorrow, I know right where it is. Change-ringing would be a great setting for Emily, but I have to allow TR to discover that. The combined arts are a bitch in that regard, the interpersonal stuff; when I write, the only mediation is self-imposed. It's hard working with other people, they all have opinions. Like slogging through clay. I have to ask TR, if the hyphens can be just violin notes. I wish I knew more about music. B was over and we talked about books; we talked about Emily and music. When all is said and done, he and I think a similar language. He brings another book, a Saramago, "Cain", that I haven't read; passing books back and forth, is another language we understand, maybe half of it is sub-text, how we understand what is being said. After he leaves, the last thing we talked about, the way the natural world, if allowed, would completely consume your consciousness. Today, for example, I had no intention to walk on the bank of the Ohio, but I found myself there. Reflective, right? both the light off the water, and me, finding myself there. Not uncommon. Where I find myself is a loose assortment of various parts: at the scrap-metal yard, bickering for a piece of steel that I really don't need; poking through a pile of beached detritus, the river level is falling, can't help but notice; or making a perfect piece of toast, with butter, and peanut butter, and the last of the jalapeno jam. God Damn, it is a good piece of toast. Talk about muddle. I can't even make a list. The effect of fall, the affect, is such, with the slanting light, that I can't think straight.

Tom

Maybe it's just the added pollen. This time of year, everyone is clogged.