2006-08-28
2006-08-27
Cookie sheets, bees and a bat
All the depth and heaviness of action and busy-ness and not-having-gotten-dones and false starts and freezing-ups. The tiredness after clearing out communication lines again. Clutter of misunderstandings cleared away through the work of talking it out, over and over. The exhaustion that effort has left me with, mixed with the relief and hope of fresh starts. Can I not criticize myself for a minute? Not start the list of excuses and whys? Can I ignore the apologies and the figuring out and the making of new promises for a second? Let go of the guilt and weight of unwritten everythings and undone work? Swipe it aside and have the strength to ignore all that clutter for a minute? Zoom in on one thing? Focus for half a second? Forgive myself everything for today?
It's quiet. Wonderfully quiet in a way that it hasn't been quiet in a long time. Per is sleeping. The cat is sleeping. The wind is softly blowing through the trees outside. No one else is here. I'm finally getting over my cold. Taking deep breaths for the first time in days.
I know there are a few things I meant to keep. When I was at Canadian Tire yesterday paying for some cookie sheets, the cashier pointed to the picture of perfect chocolate chip cookies on the label and asked "Do your cookies look like that?" "No", I answered. "But maybe they will now with these new pans." She smiled. I liked this for two reasons. One, I like it when strangers, especially within a conventional or business situation, talk to each other. I'm still having culture shock every time this happens. It's much more common here than in Stockholm (maybe not in all of Canada, but this is a smaller place). The first time we noticed it Per and I were standing in a hotel elevator and a man in there with us made a joke about us wanting to press the button for the basement, even though there was no basement. After he left: "That guy just like, talked to us for no reason." "Yeah, I know. Weird." "Yeah, weird. And nice."
The other reason was that just at that moment I was feeling stressed, having an argument, tired, out of it. Simply the fact that a stranger would ask me out of the blue if my cookies looked like that was funny and comforting.
Other things to keep:
The sound of the wind blowing through Linda and Dave’s empty house (where we'll soon move in). It was a sunny day. All of the windows were open. The floors were newly sanded and varnished, the walls freshly painted. The freshness of new beginning was blowing through. The wonderful new energy empty rooms create. The soul of an old house perceptible when emptied of things. The way old houses know how to hold their inhabitants. Their way of holding all the events of lives. This one wondering about us, waiting for us.
Cactus plants and their bright flowers and sideways, unbalanced postures. Succulent plants and the clarity of their shapes and points. I was looking at them at the grocery store. Coming across them and staring at their simple colours and shapes for a minute made me thrill with happiness.
There are bees in the bathroom. They are getting in somehow. There must be a bee hive outside the window. Every time I take one outside with a glass and piece of paper, another one appears. They want to go back outside. They get tired and slow down, crawling around the window or on the floor. I can't get the window to open. I'll just have to keep moving them outside, one by one. This is a cycle going on right now. The bees come in, we move them out.
A bat came into the house a few nights ago. It flew around and around trying to get out. mom, dad, Per and I were here, all hunched over, our heads down to avoid it, mom and I shrieking a bit when it came to close to us. We turned all the lights off and watched it circle around, land on the rafters, swoop down. It finally found the door and went out.
It's quiet. Wonderfully quiet in a way that it hasn't been quiet in a long time. Per is sleeping. The cat is sleeping. The wind is softly blowing through the trees outside. No one else is here. I'm finally getting over my cold. Taking deep breaths for the first time in days.
I know there are a few things I meant to keep. When I was at Canadian Tire yesterday paying for some cookie sheets, the cashier pointed to the picture of perfect chocolate chip cookies on the label and asked "Do your cookies look like that?" "No", I answered. "But maybe they will now with these new pans." She smiled. I liked this for two reasons. One, I like it when strangers, especially within a conventional or business situation, talk to each other. I'm still having culture shock every time this happens. It's much more common here than in Stockholm (maybe not in all of Canada, but this is a smaller place). The first time we noticed it Per and I were standing in a hotel elevator and a man in there with us made a joke about us wanting to press the button for the basement, even though there was no basement. After he left: "That guy just like, talked to us for no reason." "Yeah, I know. Weird." "Yeah, weird. And nice."
The other reason was that just at that moment I was feeling stressed, having an argument, tired, out of it. Simply the fact that a stranger would ask me out of the blue if my cookies looked like that was funny and comforting.
Other things to keep:
The sound of the wind blowing through Linda and Dave’s empty house (where we'll soon move in). It was a sunny day. All of the windows were open. The floors were newly sanded and varnished, the walls freshly painted. The freshness of new beginning was blowing through. The wonderful new energy empty rooms create. The soul of an old house perceptible when emptied of things. The way old houses know how to hold their inhabitants. Their way of holding all the events of lives. This one wondering about us, waiting for us.
Cactus plants and their bright flowers and sideways, unbalanced postures. Succulent plants and the clarity of their shapes and points. I was looking at them at the grocery store. Coming across them and staring at their simple colours and shapes for a minute made me thrill with happiness.
There are bees in the bathroom. They are getting in somehow. There must be a bee hive outside the window. Every time I take one outside with a glass and piece of paper, another one appears. They want to go back outside. They get tired and slow down, crawling around the window or on the floor. I can't get the window to open. I'll just have to keep moving them outside, one by one. This is a cycle going on right now. The bees come in, we move them out.
A bat came into the house a few nights ago. It flew around and around trying to get out. mom, dad, Per and I were here, all hunched over, our heads down to avoid it, mom and I shrieking a bit when it came to close to us. We turned all the lights off and watched it circle around, land on the rafters, swoop down. It finally found the door and went out.
2006-08-13
Squirrels
No, there's no way to put down this messy pocket of time. Just hope to leave traces. No need to map out all the corners of this here and now. For one thing, there's the squirrel or squirrels running around in the walls in our room at night. It's not practical in the long run, but so far their presence simply feels festive. They wake me up and I lie listening to them. They scramble around so earnestly and urgently. And what are they really doing, running back and forth in the dark like that?
There's a sort of quiet joy and thrill in things like using Canadian money again (which looked like a foreign currency to me at first), going to Tim Horton's and Canadian Tire, and talking in my Eastern Shore dialect again.
The first bike ride on the new bikes we passed through the starkness of scrubby growth and said something about the Canadian Shield and really being out in the wilderness. The usual discussion followed about the pronunciation of wilderness, which is so charming said as wild-erness. Then it started to rain in the quiet first few drops way, and we went faster and faster home as it started to pour. In the moment of racing down the hill of the Shore Road there were all the moments racing there as a kid. The wind rushing past your ears and whipping your hair around until you're going so fast nothing can stop you, and you might fall but you don't and you'll coast the last bit home and then you'll be home and home is still there having arms in that way it has arms.
There's a sort of quiet joy and thrill in things like using Canadian money again (which looked like a foreign currency to me at first), going to Tim Horton's and Canadian Tire, and talking in my Eastern Shore dialect again.
The first bike ride on the new bikes we passed through the starkness of scrubby growth and said something about the Canadian Shield and really being out in the wilderness. The usual discussion followed about the pronunciation of wilderness, which is so charming said as wild-erness. Then it started to rain in the quiet first few drops way, and we went faster and faster home as it started to pour. In the moment of racing down the hill of the Shore Road there were all the moments racing there as a kid. The wind rushing past your ears and whipping your hair around until you're going so fast nothing can stop you, and you might fall but you don't and you'll coast the last bit home and then you'll be home and home is still there having arms in that way it has arms.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)