35 minutes
neighborhood
55 degrees
Another spring-like day! Sun and so many birds. Cardinals and black capped chickadees and an irritating sparrow sounding almost like a squirrel just above us on a branch. Only the smallest lumps of snow from last week’s storm remain. Will I get more this month? Most likely. For now: bare grass and clear sidewalks!
Scott pointed out an orange cat across the street, strutting on the sidewalk, which led to a discussion of a difference between cats and dogs in terms of how they interact with you — dogs need you, cats don’t (or pretend they don’t). I’m a dog person, but I understand the appeal of the cat, especially when they strut down the sidewalk like they own it. I like that cats are fine leaving you alone and being left alone. Here was Scott’s summary of the difference: a dog is like your kid, a cat is like your roommate.
10 Non-Cat Things
- bright, blue sky
- a breeze only felt when walking in one direction — which? I think east
- the trash can at Minnehaha Academy which had been almost covered in snow was clear today
- nearing edmund and the river, I admired the soft golden tree line of the east bank
- that irritating squirrel-like sparrow: a light — white? or light gray — body with a dark head. Scott said he could see its throat swelling as it sang (I couldn’t)
- the saddest bark from a dog: a whine into a holler
- accidentally snapping a twig with my foot and having a sharp part of it scratch my ankle — ouch!
- a garland with lights wrapped around steps leading up to a fancy house on edmund
- other christmas decorations — 2 fake fir trees with lights — on another house — this is the house that also has a round head stuck on a lamp post. During Halloween it’s a pumpkin, then at Christmas a snowman, after that Mickey Mouse
- a colorful door — seeing it on other walks, I’m pretty sure it’s bright YELLOW!, but in the light and with my cone cells, it only looked, yellow?
notes from my Plague Notebook, Vol. 24
a blind spot = a gap/gash/silence in my vision = the Nothingness of the gorge
Crumbling is not an Instant’s Act/ ED
slow steady abrupt sudden
the strangeness of deterioration
shifting slipping spreading closing in narrowing
(thinking about Ellis and the Stutter as vessel) what does this openness/gorge hold?
a gap, gash, crack, weathering
rod cells on either side (rock) holding in the nothingness
void absent center
generous/big enough to hold all
unseen unstable shifting
circle cycle loop orbit around circumference (ED)
repeats, soft edges, curves, round
A song on my “Doin’ Time” playlist: Circle Game/ Joni Mitchell:
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
orbiting
Right now, I thinking/writing about a lot of different reoccurring themes: color, time, vision, erosion, the gorge, rituals and ceremonies. It can be overwhelming and feel like I’m doing nothing even as I do too much. Instead of worrying about this, I’ve decided to understand it as orbiting around something that I can’t quite reach. Somewhere in all of my wandering and reflecting and writing is the way into a poem-as-ceremony-as-poem that celebrates (or praises or embraces) my vision. Can I find it? I’ll try!