Yesterday was a steam-
cooker kind of day. The sun came out hot, heated the moisture in the air. No place to hide.
Today opens with sun and blue sky again. If storms came through during the night as predicted, I did not hear them. I slept with a fan on. The noise of the fan covered every other noise and I slept well.
If I try to argue that sense of place separates us from the beasts, I'll lose that argument, won't I? The dog runs away, goes back to the old homestead. The geese migrate to the Arctic tundra. The same pair of sandhill cranes returns to a particular place in Wisconsin year after year. The Monarch butterflies find their way to Mexico. It is clear that in the animal world all places are not the same and particular places are preferable.
If we attribute the animal pattern to "need" rather than to emotion, to blind memory rather than desire, then how do we make a different argument for humankind's sense of place?
Down at the Fairwater pond, the reflection of an egret in the water. If I dip my head to see what's behind a branch, I see the egret itself. Image and reflection: which is real? The bird steps slowly, majestically, in control. "What this is," it seems to be saying, "is mine."
Dew is still beaded on the grass, even where the sun lays across the lawn.
This is not a good sign: they have painted "No Passing" zones and a centerline on the torn-up highway north out of Fairwater, as if to say "You might as well get used to it, it's going to be a while." There is a county dump truck behind me but I cannot believe that means anything. Two miles to the north, another county dump truck, heading south. Why? There is nothing happening so far as I can see.
The flag at work flaps south to north.
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