I cross the street; I see God.

I was walking across the road about an hour ago, just as the sun hit the moment in its decline that I like best in every season, and I was watching my shadow on the east side of the street; it was about eight feet tall and had funny pigtails because I was wearing the lime green cap my beloved Brooklynite sent me for Christmas. Looking back over my left shoulder as I hopped onto the curb, I saw an arrangement of clouds and sun's rays that I remember believing was God, when I was a child. I have a clear memory of sitting in the front seat of my mother's Malibu, on the day she had to buy a particular kind of notebook (musical staves, I think) at the drugstore near Bell's grocery store, and saying to her, "See that, Mama? There's God." All my life I've been trying out for the most good girl ever, see? I don't remember what she said, but I suspect it was the right thing, since I still remember the scene some 26 years later.

The wind here is so high today it sounds like a jet engine, like a plane passing over when no plane is in sight. The wind is so high that doors don't fall to behind one; the door to the post office hung noncommittally half-open until I went back and tugged it closed after me this afternoon. Out the back of the house, the sky has become a black and white still, except that it's not still at all; it's a monochrome image in intensest motion.


Though the evening is cold and blustery, though the day had me layering up and buckling down again, still engaged on the project of getting rid of all this built-up stuff that's overwhelmed my past few weeks, I am feeling mighty full of pep. Two good friends of mine are on their way here--should be here any minute, in fact--and though I have no idea what we're going to eat, I have a sense that it will be excellent, if only because they'll be here. They're excellent friends that way, and many other ways. And after we eat, who knows? Perhaps there's mischief to be undertaken somewhere in Knox County.

Plus, I find myself continuing to enjoy getting acquainted with people by means of these writings. It feels funny to call people friends when I've never met them, but there it is. Because of one of my blogfriends, I spent a substantial part of yesterday trying to decide whether I'd rank the Pet Shop Boys above the Talking Heads, as a dance band, and whether I'd choose "Baby Got Back" over "Rock Lobster," if I could only take three dance songs to a desert island. (My answers were "no" and "no," by the way.) Because of another, I'm walking around seeing things a bit differently than I did before; she has an amazing way of picking out the essential detail, the most luscious color or grating texture or startling pattern, then skewing it just enough to make it exceptional. On my way home from the office this evening, for instance, I started noticing how street signs get more fun when you start picking them apart instead of seeing them as wholes. Tonight, I played by selecting the messages I liked. But now I also know where to look if I want to reinforce grimmer feelings; "No" and "Do Not" are all over my walk home, as well.