We have blue sky and sunshine.
We had rain on Friday afternoon, a little more rain on Saturday. The weather has been mild, cool, the air moist. It is autumn coming on.
How much difference in a life a mere two hours makes. Last week Thursday morning I rose about 2:00 a.m. instead of 4:00 a.m. I headed in to start work at 3:00 a.m. in the bindery, where help was needed because of a heavy workload. I did the same thing again on Friday. In both cases, I worked no longer than a total of 10.5 or 11 hours, yet my exhaustion far exceeded the bit of extra time. Saturday morning I slept til 8:00 a.m. in spite of my alarm going off again and again. I rose at 2:00 a.m. again on Monday morning, worked til 2:00 p.m.
Partly it is a matter of my age perhaps; I have come to a time in life where routine is a real comfort and any disruption of the routine has more extensive consequences than for a younger man. I think it's a matter of physical resiliency, but I might be making excuses.
Of course I used the disruption as an excuse to abandon these notes for a few days - I didn't leave slack in the changed schedule for writing notes; and, of course, driving to Ripon at 2:30 a.m. doesn't invite elevated thoughts, at least it didn't invite elevated thoughts from me.
It is good to see the morning sun. I have missed several sun rises with the hours I've been keeping.
There is a delicate haze rolling off in all directions, not enough to shroud anything, simply enough to make all the edges indistinct.
What kind of omen is an orange truck? There's a county fellow driving slow in front of me. I have to pass him.
There is a skunk dead on the road north of Five Corners - the air is as bracing as a shot of morning whisky.
There's something striking about this one. Well, a lot of somethings. Of course there's the date of it. I guess it was written before the news came in. Maybe it's only in retrospect that I see a kind of foreknowledge in it, an anticipation.
And that last line knocks me quite flat. I expect I'll think of it every time I encounter the remnants of a skunk on the road, now.
I wonder whether having just been in the City -- having seen, at night, the enormous spotlight beam that marks the place where the towers were -- makes all of this more poignant and more strange.
Posted by: Rachel | September 11, 2007 at 08:44 AM