Author: carin

no relation

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

“From then on, Matilda would visit the library only once a week in order to take out new books and return the old ones. Her own small bedroom now became her reading-room and there she would sit and read most afternoons, often with a mug of hot chocolate beside her. She was not quite tall enough to reach things around the kitchen, but she kept a small box in the outhouse which she brought in and stood on in order to get whatever she wanted. Mostly it was hot chocolate she made, warming the milk in the saucepan on the stove before mixing it. Occasionally she made Bovril or Ovaltine. It was pleasant to take a hot drink up to her room and have it beside her as she sat in her silent room reading in the empty house in the afternoons. The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.” ~from Matilda, by Roald Dahl

heart beats and a contrail

~ carin ~ 5 Comments

Ten thousand geese fly over my house at dusk, honking madly as I set out for a walk. And the moon (and is it Venus?) hangs over a fat white contrail in the not yet completely dark sky.

I consider the heart beats, the energy above me; do they notice things like juxtapositon of moon and man made cloud?

Christmas lights are on and cars pass, faces in my direction, possibly wondering why I’m standing in the street, writing on a scrap of paper in the now almost dark.

Because of the geese, I want to say.
And Venus, if that’s what it is.
Because of the moon and… everything.

I want to say look up!
I want to point.

But the contrail has been blown away and the last of the vees has passed by. The sky has turned black leaving only the sound of the wind and tires on the road. Just the moon and maybe Venus to see— and anyone can see them anytime. No need to point.

I put away my pen and carry on walking.

solitude en masse

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

 
At the beach where I go to walk among the gulls and mutter about darlings that won’t take a hint, where I write sometimes in my car or at a picnic table if the weather allows it, or simply breathe and gather pictures, I am rarely alone.

There are the gulls of course.

Now and then joggers.

And yesterday a woman in a headscarf eating a MacDonald’s burger in her car as she read something I couldn’t see.

Maybe because the day was sunny, or maybe because of the recent holidays and all that family and turkey and Auntie So-and-So’s Marshmallow’d sweet potatoes that render even the strongest among us a little queasy but is a tradition so must be taken with a mmmmm, that sure is good, Auntie So-and-So as you try to disguise the stuff under a pyramid of wing bones—maybe because of that, there is also a man in his car next to mine, eating a whole pizza from the box on the passenger seat.

Another man, this one elderly, stares out the window of his medium sized silver sedan, one hand held in the air over his head. I consider dementia, an open-eyed cat nap with sleep paralysis, loneliness turned eccentric, but then, as he remains focused on the lake, his fingers begin to move ever so slightly, more and more until with a dramatic swoosh his whole hand is swaying back and forth, then stops—and his fingers again…fluttering, graceful. I realize he’s listening to music and I wonder if it’s on radio or CD or just in his head. I turn the ignition, flip the dial until I land on CBC 2. A symphony. I glance back at the man who is still conducting, eyes open, now closed—his movements, the pauses, the dips, the quick tilt of his hand as the violins come in, match what’s being played. It’s a long piece and gives me time to consider why he’s there. I decide it’s a solemn day, an anniversary—of what though, his wife’s birthday, their wedding, her death, the death of their first child perhaps (was that child a disappointment or a joy?); is this the date he was taken prisoner of war sixty something years ago or is it a year to the day that his wife announced she was leaving him for the guy that runs the Saturday night films at the Senior Centre?

Who knows, maybe he’s celebrating.

Later, a couple arrive in a small red truck. The man is driving. The woman’s head is down, facing her lap. When he turns off the ignition she looks up but her eyes are vacant, she could be anywhere. She stays in the truck while he gets out, lights a cigarette and walks toward a few gulls perched on a railing. He stands facing the water and I’m pretty sure I see his shoulders drop at least a few inches as he exhales.