A New Bloom

Epiphany! I need to go fishing.

Thus went one of the many thoughts to run through my mind along the way this morning. But really!I need to go fishing.It’s been years and the last time I went, I caught an eel. I’d like to catch something not covered in slime, thank you.This epiphany was followed shortly by the un-epiphany: I’ve never baited a hook (because worms, if you had to ask) and have never cleaned a fish. I think of my Nana, who was very good at it; I remember watching her clean fish in her kitchen sink, scales flying all over, the cats watching hungrily outside the window as they awaited the various bits she would give them as treats from what she wouldn’t cook and eat. She was a master at frying fish roe. But I digress, as usual.I need to go fishing.Yet and still, I don’t need a Walkman (um, just told my age there, didn’t I?) because my mind is always full of music. I spend my days, bathed in sacred-space soothing sound while I work, so it stands to reason that when I am out on my morning sojourns, I wouldn’t need a music device.[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0AvO0oBmUA%5B/embedyt%5DI took a slightly new route to measure its length.

Route map for 4 August 2017 by Andree Robinson-Neal on plotaroute.com

Just over 3 miles, this square. As I passed Chavez Middle School, I saw vehicle after vehicle, filled with grim-jawed teachers. School starts Monday, so sing along if you know the words:

It’s the end of the world as we know it …

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY%5B/embedyt%5DMy quiet, solitary walks on which I am treated to silence — save the calls of birds, scurrying of creatures in the underbrush, the wind passing my ears, and the music in m mind — are at an end. I realized today that the hum of the bees in the trees mirrors that coming from the electrical boxes along my path. I thought of Westworld, of Blade Runner: were the bees I heard in the trees real or were they some mechanical masterpiece that I could not see?Only the crows and blackbirds know the truth, but they are not telling. On the naked arm of a tree in the field closer to my house, two crows sat. They grumbled at me, disturbed that, despite my flightless path below, that I dared venture so close to their perch. I wanted to snap their photo but when I held my camera to the sky, they threw bird curses at me in loud voices and flew off. I wondered if they were among the crowd at the park: there, crows and blackbirds walked the sunny grass knolls, looking for all the world like old women in babushkas.

It’s the end of the world as we know it … and I feel …

I don’t feel fine.I am irritated that come Monday at the hours I like to walk, the streets will be filled with children, teens, buses, and impatience. The birds and scurrying creatures will only have the twilight or the heat-filled day in which to go about their business undisturbed. I will be forced to go to the gym, to put on headphones, to close my eyes and set the incline on the treadmill at 10 so I can imagine I am stalking uphill in the neighborhood, if I want to visit the cacophonous silence of my own mind during that time of morning.That, or I will have to wander about earlier, which is a possibility.I find two trees with blue-colored berries that look fat with juice. I think of Thomas Covenant‘s aliantha and wonder if I were to eat them, would I gain strength and vitality from The Land. But alas, I do separate the wonders of the fiction world from the harsh realities of the place where my feet are planted and do not dare taste one (or more) of the delightful looking fruits. I continue round toward home and come across an area littered with pine needles that look like the sheddings of a short-haired red-headed giant.I still want to go fishing, I’m still not fine that school is due to begin on Monday, but I will survive.How’s your Friday?