August 30th
I lay on my back at
the end of my yoga this morning and stared at the sky. It was a
dreamy morning blue, with the faintest suggestion of wispy clouds if
you imagined hard enough, clear and bright but still easy on the
eyes. I watched the buzzards soaring and wandering aimlessly on the
thermals, first a few, then a dozen, then breaking off in groups and
pairs, circling over and over yet moving slightly each time to the
right or the left, appearing at the edge of my vision and gliding
across until I couldn't see them anymore, then turning and crossing
again, hardly a waver or a flap of a wing, breathtaking in their size
and ragged grace. They're beautiful in their own way up there, much
different from the startling WHUMP scrabble scrabble when they
land on my thin tin roof – no matter how often they do it, I still
startle every time.
I was cleaning out
the junk side of my second shelf, the one that has come to accumulate
letters, papers, games, cards, nail polish, a sewing kit, and who
knows what else – I even found a Koosh ball! Remember those? When
did that show up in my house? I also cleaned out my luggage canteen
(a big metal storage trunk). Somehow it's the only one that has
escaped taking on a funny smell, I'm trying to clean and air out all
the rest. At one point I went outside to throw some trash down my
latrine, and right as I was getting to the door I heard a little
tapping on my roof, the way it sometimes creaks in the heat. But as I
went outside I realized it was raining. Not hard, but a steady
drizzle, the sun shining away bright as anything. It made me laugh, I
had been completely caught off guard! A monkey's wedding, as my mom
would say. It kept raining for a few minutes, then the sun came back
out, a nice little pause to the day.
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