Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Desmoronadizo

Morning: I left you sleeping with the daylight on your face. In the window, not-quite blue contends with not-quite white for a mastery neither seems to care much about: the day feels flaccid, unstrung. We are tired of trying, I think. We need to get out into the hills and the free air.

It is the sort of day that makes you question every decision you ever made: when the fact that you have attained the age of fifty seven without having learned to play the castanets or read Arabic is clear evidence of a wasted life. When the sun does push through the clouds, it arrives with a metallic, ominous glare that's more like summer than spring. My uneasiness increases.

My life is crumbling underneath. It was never built on stable ground -- not something to blame myself for: we all of us start building where we find ourselves -- but I do wonder what happens when it gives way entirely. Not necessarily anything bad. Something new, perhaps. I'm ready for something new.

In the meantime, the dogwood flowers magnificently, and the Spanish bluebells continue their reconquista of the lawn. The solitary crow that visits us now sits in the maple and practices her new call: a clear, ringing "tok!" like a percussionist's wood blocks. Maybe she's been listening to the flickers.

My hands are stronger than ever. I am full of love and tenderness for my clients, my friends, my family. I am deeply ignorant and impossibly young, and it's April.

3 comments:

Lucy said...

But you will know that 'castanets' comes from the same root as 'chestnut', which is surely more worth the knowing. But deeply ignorant and impossibly young is very fine.

rbarenblat said...

Full of love and tenderness: I cannot imagine a finer way to be.

Nimble said...

Good weather can certainly seem ominous. But I think crows are always a good sign.