if ever there was a day, a day to ride the light from dusk ’til dawn, today would be that day, and so it was, and so I did, I would love to tell you it was some great plan of mine, some great scheme, but I would be lying, just the random circumstance of life forcing my hand, would I be droll if I still said
“this was a long day”…
that would be both empirically accurate and anecdotally emphatic, because of the way it felt and this is, truly the longest day of the year by actual time measure, but other yardsticks poked their rule-y heads up this day, I had a store to open on the East Side, New York City that is, waking up at 5am to get a jump, showered, the dog walked, rye toast in tow, in the car by 5thirty, cruising, the sun not rising, at least visibly, only rain clouds writing the morning forecast on the canvas out before me, and then, then the faucet opens, full tilt, pouring, all of a sudden my dreams of beating the traffic become being the traffic, I get over the bridge and onto the FDR, I can not say what the “F” stood for this morning but it certainly was not Franklin…
so the freeway was doing it’s best impression of a parking lot, so to have a shot at being on time I hopped off on Park Avenue, making sure to avoid the guy with the sign in the middle of said FDR (a very common occurrence), cut across, 40 blocks down, all the while the rain beguiling me with change of pace, a constant game with my wipers engaged at the right speed, so I arrive, sort of on time, I must admit I scoped out a local coffee joint to try, so I loaded up on a latte, got over to the store grand opening, pouring, pouring rain, a grand total of ten customers in two hours, does not make the time fly I tell you, so the time passes, mostly all goes well, that chore doused, store secure on their own now, noon, around the corner I walk into the parking garage, slap down $38 buckaroos for 5 hours of parking, a guy drives up next to me standing, and rolls down his window
“hey, I will only be an hour”
I don’t recall wearing my garage attendant uniform, I look down and check anyway, nope, not today, besides I am holding a mouse and keyboard, not exactly common garage guy fare, from my experience at least, so I cheerfully offer to take the car off his hands (a spankin’ new mercedes sedan no doubt), it would be a nice upgrade after all, he realizes his mistake, and is very apologetic, I wasn’t offended anyway, with that charade passed I make my way back to HQ in jersey knowing there is a pile of files waiting for me to wade through and down, unfortunately, I am quite right about that pile, except little fires keep popping up and I am brigaded to those tasks while the pile grins at me, gleeful, for it knows it has gained a temporary stay of execution, the governor’s call has come in, for today, at least, admittedly the time passes faster in this bowl of hectic, I hardly notice the rain has hopped on a cruise out to sea and given way to delightful golden rays, six o’clock rolls around, predictably, right at 6, I figure over 12 hours is quite enough off this already…
so here I sit, the day has turned about, this morning was like a dreary monday dragging and now I am leaped to an ending friday, a perfect 70 out, truly a tale of 2 sittings, the sun is slowly sinking, the wind is warmly chilling, two baby jack rabbits are grazing, even the usual rambunctious crowd of local birds are just listening, I look out, at this familiar scene, I loosen up my mind, my body, I let my limbs drop limp, I look out and pretend I am a leaf on one of my trees subject to whim, letting the breeze rock me back and forth, to and fro, swaying, filling my sail as the wind sees fit, setting my compass to none, just letting the ocean of air wash over me in waves, with each moment draining away my worldly cares, whisking away the baggage from earlier in this day, as the curtains close, on this, the longest day… the solstice, from dawn to dusk witness, the solstice.
notes… (porch series) I write these posts in a certain way, I scribble them down in one of my notebooks, try to figure out my horrid handwriting (best done if I type it in the night I write frankly), these are pretty close to rough drafts, one drafts, one take, whatever you might like to label it, I edit it a bit as I post, but that is it… pretty raw, just the way I work these days, I wish I could just run a cable into my mind for you and give you a remote and let you drive… but this is the best I got at the moment, so enjoy, and thanks for the eyes, I appreciate one look, any look, 1 million looks would be nice, but would it make my post any better or any worse ? nah… and I am cool with that, thanks.
Shades of My Garden 