The last few days have been overcast and rainy. We need the rain, but it would have been nice to see the crescent Moon sweep by Mars yesterday evening. It seems so strange that we're in the last week of Spring, the Summer Solstice is in six days -- and then the days will grow shorter and dark again. Oh well, best not to borrow from the shadows until they're actually here. Better instead to appreciate the slanting northwestern sunlight making the arbor vita glow like green velvet against the steel and slate colored clouds, and wonder how the dying sun will stoke the clouds into coals. Better to enjoy the cool evening, and growing perception of the trees' scintillating auras as the twilight deepens.
There was a family birthday party over the weekend -- it was refreshing and weird to have all of us sitting down at the same table and sharing a meal. Hugging people feels elemental. Some people when you hug them feel like a river; some feel like knots of wood; others feel like a layer of sand over solid rock. Other people hug you like a half-closing door, their frame rigid while a part of them swings -- and you find yourself gingerly holding a doorknob when you thought you were going to press fully into a door to open it. Some people hug you like they'd hug a cliff, holding on, fingers pressed into crevasses or around anchor points; or they are the cliff, steady and unmoving, while you find a purchase. Sometimes, you feel the boulder in a person's chest, or the breath flowing in and out and in and out between you. And some people aren't there yet, holding themselves in some pocket universe that's out of phase with the rest of the cosmos -- when you hug them it's like typing the word "hug" on a keyboard, or hugging them with arms that have fallen asleep, or it's like hugging a shadow.
I can only imagine how strange it will be to go back to work in an office when it opens back up in September.
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