October 02, 2000: automatic steeple
A few months ago, I was driving around Southcenter on a Sunday morning. Southcenter is in the southern suburbs--a mall and a Target and big box stores set in a little valley south of the city. It's really sort of soulless. Most people down there are only passing through.
I was down doing some shopping and decided to hit the Ethan Allen showroom on my way back north, for whatever reason. I was looking for something, and I thought I might get an idea or two for decorating there. So I pull into the parking lot, which backs onto a hill, a ridge of sorts, where a gravel road led up into the trees. There was a dog standing at the mouth of the gravel road, and my eyes registered it as a dog but my mind saw nothing but the cant of its ears and the shape of its muzzle and said, "Wild."
"That's a...coyote. I think. A coyote, down here?" I drove closer, thinking all the time that it was going to bolt any second. But I got within a hundred feet and it stayed, shifting from foot to foot, tilting its head at me.
It was definitely a coyote. A small one, probably young, but definitely wild. There was that intelligence in its eyes. It looked at me and dismissed me as a threat.
I got out of the car. Closed the door quietly. Stood there, resisting the urge to walk over.
It took a couple of tenative steps towards me. The set of its tail told me it was interested in me, its ears told me that me approaching it would be a bad idea. Yellow eyes followed every move I made.
We stood like that for a while. Seconds stretched out into minutes, the domesticated creature looking at the wild one and the wild one looking back. Then it turned and trotted off, into the woods.
I was breathless. This evidence of the wild in this sterile place was enough to knock me a little askew.
And now I occasionally look for coyote tracks in the mud of the Seattle drizzle.
Quiet Monday here in Seattle.
Fall's here. The air is filled with the smells of rain and sea, the tree outside my bedroom window is turning a startling red color. i'm harvesting the last of the tomatoes and making salsa.
I learned a few painful lessons yesterday.
one: the dayglo orange peppers are habaneros.
two: do not nibble on the habaneros to "see if they're hot".
three: (and this is the important one) when you've been chopping hot peppers for ten minutes, and having nibbled on a pepper that turned out to be a habanero, do *NOT* by any means rub your eyes, which are watering because of the pepper.
Ow. Ow ow ow ow ow ow OW. I wouldn't have done it had I not been so very out of it on sunday morning. I was really kind of fuzzy and flaky and not paying attention. But I was blinded for about fiften minutes and it took an hour for the burn to go all the way away. My eyes are okay, but MAN that hurt.
I won't be doing THAT again, thanks.
I have a sore throat.
Uh-oh.
I hope this isn't what I think it might be.
I don't *want* to get sick now. no, no, no, no, no. No.
7 years
(this is the history I wanted to relate)
when we met we were both almost done with 18
18 and I love you and the whole world
sent spinning like a clock wheel
and we were careless, of course
I have always been the feckless one
always the one to slip away
19 and I love you and the world
is slowing down now and we're
looking around
and not at each other
and off we go spinning away
of course it exploded.
(this is the history I wanted to relate)
19 and I hate you and the world
stopped between us, suspended
in the places we'd go no longer
I picked up my little limbs
and took my smarting pride
and went on to the next big thing
20, 21, I don't care
and all was dropped into this silence
the world spinning slowly, gears meshed
I loved again, lost, loved, lost
and listened to the careful silence
and walked the line I'd been given
I kissed some boys and then some girls
and liked girls better and you went
places and kissed some other girls
who I'm sure I'd like now
but who I hated at the time
even by rumor
relocation, trepidation
and a signal returned to me
a piece of mail, opened, blinking
at the unsealed blessing.
22 and I don't know you
but it occurs that I might
like to, one day
When we met again we were both 24.
The world sent spinning between us again
this is the history I wanted to relate
this is our outline, the containers
we pour our meanings through
26 and I love you
nothing more than that, my constant friend.
The world ticks on, unconcerned,
spinning regardless of us.
--for Chris. 10/2/00
