Shawls Appear

The first shawls appeared in Paris after the Egyptian Campaign. The year they shot the nose off. I'm a little punch-drunk, more rain, and in the last two days I must have read for twenty hours. Reading The Arcades Project, for the book geek, is better than catching a marlin. The fines of a fertile mind, all the dross washed away. End of the day I have piles of books, empty bowls and mugs, leaves tracked in with an armload of firewood, and I'm still wearing my bathrobe. A particularly successful day. I wasn't disturbed by anything. What I mean, after the fact, is that nothing, in 24 hours, had interrupted what I was reading or writing or thinking. I'm so not connected it's a marvel even to close friends. It started raining harder, two in the morning, and I thought about taking a bath tomorrow, so I consolidated wash water, cleaned a couple of buckets (rain-water buckets always accumulate crap) and set them out. Wet Dog Syndrome, I have to shake it off and dry by the fire. One reason it would be difficult for me to be in another relationship is that she'd have to deal with her own water. Her water, my water, maybe we'd go in together on the wash water, but if you don't have a tap, water is a critical issue. The laurel, not unlike holly, seals itself behind varnished leaves. It's all about water and anti-freeze. I have a shawl, it's a tattered thing, but I like draping it over my head when it's cold and I've washed my hair. You could be arrested. Shawl in public. How would it sit, in the Texas pan-handle, that you couldn't wear a feed cap? Relaying signs. The third base coach telling you to bunt. I don't pretend to make sense of this. Later, on reflection, I see how I might have thought something, but it's clearly nothing, a mote, a prismatic phenomena, maybe a spider web, or a drop of water on a leaf. Another full day of rain, another day reading. There's a photo of Baudelaire by Nadar from 1855. He looks like the stoner he was. Hashish was readily available from North Africa (it's been found in Egyptian tombs) and its use was prevalent. So much water I cycle through another bucket so I can clean it for winter. It's an odd bucket, black, with a black lid, and it holds six gallons. I keep it full on the back porch all summer as a passive solar heater for bucket-baths. Cashmere was a big thing in Paris, 1855. Cashmere shawls. You can't help but picture it. Hugo, Balzac, Proust, the coffee-house scene. Two miles outside of town, the rest of us are living on potatoes, and rough beer because the water is polluted; but in town they have carriages and use forks. It doesn't seem right.