Accident and Purpose

It’s been raining since about 5 this morning. Dallas takes on a calm, an affect of waiting quietly, people become patient in the rain. Everything’s packed but the kitchen, and that waits only because Esther wants to take some photos from the porch of that process for a series of ‘through the window’ photos she’s working on. So, today is a resting day, with rain. This is good. Because the next thing to “deconstruct” is the bed, get that down to a futon on the floor. Which I will then sleep on for nearly a week. Fitting, real nomadic bedding.

Anyway, I was drinking some coffee on the porch, letting myself be cold and damp (practice for the weather at home this time of year), and I witnessed one of those poetic events.

Foreground: a woman stops her car. Gets out with her umbrella. Walks around the car. Removes the coffee cup from her sunroof! – OH, pity and sympathy. How many of us have not done this?

--- There was a time in France, my first trip with Fleur and Speed there, 1986, and we were in, I want to say, Angers?, Reims?. We stopped at a bakery for some pastries to take the edge off being trapped in a Peugeot with my growing brother who was mis-er-able, one of these 14 yr old boy days when the bones hurt, got in the car, and … you know it. People all up and down this sycamore lined boulevard were waving at us, in a bit of a panic, and we thought maybe we’d misread the road signs or something, or were driving too fast, when Fleur rolled down the window, and someone yelled, “You left the bag on the roof!!!” (in French of course). Fleur was irritatedly embarrassed, Speed and I found the whole thing very amusing and learned that French people will emphatically help you when you are about to lose your pastries. Those people have some priorities.

Background: Two people in sweats with newspaper bags (?) over their shoulders, walking down the road in the opposite direction. No umbrellas. Clearly on purpose. Just moseying along in the steady, nearly heavy, rain.

--- One my last students at the Institution wrote this astonishing essay about how he missed rain now that he lives here in D. Told these meandering stories about his experiences walking around in thunderstorms and little downpours in Iowa, how he skips school on day of rain to take long walks. I can promise you, this rain is too delicious for him to be in school today. It’s a good autumn rain. Thick and cold. A fine harbinger. Hookey sounds like a good idea.