Photo by Paul Beaman
There were clouds upon waking but blue sky triumphant behind and around them. Then a wind that kicked up as I sat in my upstairs knotty pine room and tried, with some desperation and silliness, to concentrate on words. Afternoon was errands, a Ladybug coffee meet-up, and then back here to regroup. Then, around early evening, the rains came sudden, real and furious, and with the rains, the cooler air and it became a day when the autumn that’s six days into the future announced its arrival, early. So instead of clarity and crisp, we get diffuse and murk. Eleven years we’ve lived here and still the return of the rainy season seems oddly like something alien, unable to be contemplated and understood, as if its ending the spring before canceled it out as a winter weather pattern in the Pacific Northwest.
Today—the Gothic green of the St. John’s bridge against the forest that is Forest Park on the opposite shore of the Willamette. Today, a random tomato on Rosa Parks Way near the median—lost, abandoned, tossed out a window, what? Today at dawn, Asian elephants walked, trunk in tail, from the train, up Interstate to the Rose Garden where they’ll perform assorted tricks in a circus the rest of this week. I know this from a photo in the newspaper, finally ready as the day near its close.
Listening to Divaville and, at 9 p.m., the Bob is on XM Sirius again. A calm, quiet, mostly holed-up day. The cats sleep on the futon, the dishwasher is emptied, the stack of magazines needing attention continues to grow. Dateline: halfway through September, Portland, Oregon, 2009. And now we have Gene Kelly singing in the rain. What is it about this corny music that so cheers?
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
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