Tuesday, October 19, 2010

LIKE A SAILOR IN A DEAD CALM SEA

September meant peaches, plums, and pears falling off trees all over the neighborhood and slicking up the sidewalks. I picked these a few blocks from my house, off the littlest peach tree. I went back for more, but these people had responsibly harvested the entire tree. Anyway, they were delicious.

September also meant junk collection month. In my determination to glean something good, I found a mirror, which was actually meant to reside on my mantle, although Andy thought maybe it wanted to be discarded, that it might be tired of reflecting us in all our narcissism. It is a hard to be a mirror, he said.

Oh tired mirror, bounce the light around for me and I'll put nice things in your view. I'll wash you once in awhile.

The library got a new website and I couldn't find the button to have my book delivered to the Marriott Library instead of the medical library, so I took a field trip. The medical library was not what I expected. Not pale and contemporary. No glassy blue-green emptiness and high, arching city view floor-to-ceiling windows. Only old carpet and study carrels and a very long line to pick up a book. The requested books were on the smallest cart within arm's reach of the circulation clerk--there may have been fifty books waiting. It all felt tiny and very low-tech. But while waiting in line for my book, this glass case of brain anatomy models caught my eye.


Like broccoli or intricate tree trunks or lungs or coral.



Maybe these are Alzheimer examples?

Really, September blurred past. I barely took my camera out. But there were a couple of trips to the farmer's market.

And completely separate from junk pick-up month, someone put this tent out on the curb with a free sign, along with empty old fruit crates and a little dresser and a chair and all sorts of other junk. My new tent is only missing the rain fly, and it is so lightweight.


And St. Teresa's gas station got a new bit of paste paper.

I want that whole awning to be covered...

And then October arrived, and the nights instantly got cold, and I made the first soup of the season--red lentil--and ate it every night for almost a week, although this batch was really a bit too salty.

3 comments:

NS said...

I think you should put a piece of your own on the awning!

Elizabeth Hartsig said...

i miss your pozole. those brain-parts look like they are holding hands. are you coming to winter?

Bloom and Rot said...

I was just thinking that its time to make some pozole, e. I don't know if I'll make it to winter, but I'm planning to look at the calendar and the budget over the weekend...I have been reading Don Quixote for class and thinking of you and your fiction-punctures-reality-punctures-fiction life.