Out In the Drizzle

Read more of my “Collected Stories of Chester Himes” yesterday.  I had to stop because there is work to do, but I would have liked to continue.  Then again, I needed a break.  A tale about rape and then prison rape gloom is followed by the tale of a man on death-row’s final day alive.  Each protagonist plausible.  Each trap set just so you finish swiftly with a uniquely bitter lozenge to flip over and over with your tongue. 

 

A full-throated shriek, not too long ago.  That can only mean one thing.  I stand up from my work and walk to the door and call my younger daughter’s name.  “It’s a huge spider.  I’m not kidding.  It’s frickin’ enormous.”  “Can’t you take care of it baby?”  “No!  It’s too big.  Come kill it.”  Predictably I double back to grab my phone as I’ll want to identify this demon before I do away with it.   It has, of course, moved on and though we turn over her night table and unpack her handbag, carefully, the arachnid has wisely made himself scarce.  I think to show my daughter the remarkable spider I photographed yesterday, down on a tree that was less than half the size of my pinky nail, but who, in focus looked ferocious, but I reckon this will not be well-received. 

 Rain this morning.  Rain all day.  The hourly forecast they have for my town there on Weather.com suggests the next few hours may be the only conditional rest we get.  It still looks soggy out there.  But the lawn looks lush in the wet and with so much time considering the plants in this yard, I am much more grateful for rain than I ever was.  That’s good, as we certainly get a lot of it here in this valley between the Gunks and the hill behind me. 

 

We’d otherwise planned on heading out to the Storm King Art Center today.  I’ve missed going to museums and there shouldn’t be any issue social distancing at a sculpture park in the woods, but no one wants to admire sculpture in the rain.  “Don’t talk to me, if you go there and come back without seeing Andy Goldsworthy’s “The Wall that Went for a Walk!” My dad, who came to pick up some photos from the basement, pipes up on this matter, once we mention the sculpture park.  But we were all just out in the drizzle and it’s clear that we’re not going anywhere today. 

Alvin Lucier must have been the music director at Wesleyan when I was there.  Our dates overlap.  His name is only vaguely familiar.  There are one or two friends I could check with to confirm.  I’ve had his odd, spacious compositions unfolding about me all morning.  Wind Shadows from 2005 has amplified the vacant feeling in the view out the back yard today. 

Wednesday, 09/02/20