Completely Unplanned

Supposed to be severe thunder storms tonight, but I got home before they started and made it up the hill. The ridge is incredibly dense in leaves now, visibility down to forty or fifty feet; and the leaves are all so tender they undulate and bend in the wind. The young Sumac actually vibrate, something about that configuration of bilateral symmetry rides like a Viking lap-strake longboat on the breeze. Work was uneventful, every time I got started on something I got called off-task. Then, Julia, the board member, and her husband Ralph, arrived with two vehicles stuffed to the gills with art work for the next auction, which is, I think, next month. Ripped off my right thumb-nail, an incident with the vault door, and it hurt like hell. Then, in the late afternoon, everyone was gone, and I was the only staff member around; I retreated to my office and read Carter material until closing time, drove home the long way around. Thick stands of daffodil blades and beautiful blooming iris where houses used to be. Old rogue fruit trees. Morels like abandoned orchards. I stopped at one and found a few. Blowing off the sense of urgency, because I was close enough, then, to make a dash for home, I stopped at the First Ford, because the wild flowers were in such profusion. Noticing things. You have to slow down. Linda calls from St. Paul, and we talk about that, seeing things, talk about bad plays made from Russian novels, and end the conversation laughing about the vagaries of time. I'd score that as a plus. Talking with Linda or Glenn is always a treat, in that we cut to the heart of whatever the issue. I love the fact that Linda said she'd kill me in my sleep if I ever repeated something she'd said to me in private. It is a zen state, mediating between the inside and the outside. I have a map, "Land Forms And Drainage Of The United States" that seems to say it all. But I notice omissions, what about the blackberries?