Surely Soon They Must.

It’s a long, anticipatory winter for Lieutenant Grange.  I’m reading "A Balcony on the Forest" by Julien Gracq, and the hero is stationed on the Ardens near the woods.  It’s all about to happen.  We know what will soon befall him and his lover and his fellow soldiers. But they haven’t yet much of any idea.  The Germans are likely to head to Belgium.  They’d never go through the woods.   These trees are impenetrable, aren’t they?

He has an improbable encounter with a wild wood spirit who, as she says, seduces him.  It reminds me of Lemontov’s Caucuses encounter with a wild, watery spirit in “A Hero or Our Time.” At first she is childlike as he spies her ahead on the road, and then she is alluring as she invites him in. Ultimately she overpowers him and she pulls him to the bed.  But she isn’t a spirt. She and all of these people are flesh and blood and no good can come of it with the Panzer divisions smash through this place as surely soon they must. 

Normally the high school gym is blissfully devoid of humanity.  In the morning at 6:30AM there are a predicable set of three or four other teachers who are sometimes there.  The weekends often have a few more people but not many.  Today there were a dozen, and that’s a lot, of teenage boys who all seemed to take pumping iron seriously.  I watched one kid use a long pole as a clip on end for one machine in a way I had never seen before and I could tell by looking at him that it would be great for that aspirational six-pack, beneath my gut. 

I never bothered with any weight lifting when I was in high school.  I’d have been suspicious of anyone who did.  There are so many of these guys and none of them are familiar I almost wonder if they are all here visiting the school to compete for a sports event.  I can’t help but looking at one and another kid to see how much they are lifting and if it is as much as what I can do.  It isn’t.   But they can certainly all run faster.

Saturday, 12/22/18