A beautiful late summer night
My old friend Beautiful Hands Man invited me to come see him play in a little jazz duo tonight. He and my other friend E. were going to be opening for a slightly famous guitar act that would be performing later in the hotel lounge.
Normally I like nothing more on a Friday night than to take a long, leisurely ride home, share a little dinner with Mr. A and spend the rest of the weekend more or less hibernating. Beautiful Hands Man is an old friend whom I've been woefully neglecting of late, though, and I've also been complaining lately that I never go out and do anything anymore ... so I decided to go. Miraculously and to his great credit, Mr. A agreed to join me. He is typically even more exhausted by the end of the week than I am, so it's always a treat when he feels up to an evening on the town. He's so funny and smart and fun to go out with .... and I enjoy remembering that.
So we sat in the hotel bar, drank some wine, chatted with friends – there ended up being far more familiar faces in the room than I would have expected – and then walked across the road to have dinner at a different restaurant. Eggplant and lamb, plus a caesar salad, plus tomatoes and garlic. Yrmm.
When we came out of the restuaurant the sun had gone down and most of the day's heat had dissipated. It was still warm and the air was very soft. No traffic – it was that time of the night when it's too late for dinner people, and most of the wedding parties are still just getting under way. It would be hours before the roads began to fill with drunken tourists trying to find their way back to their rooms.
So partly because I wanted to work off some of the carbs I had just eaten (imagining numbers starting with 2 or even 3 in an hour or so), and partly because it was just such a perfect, beautiful, soft summer night, I decided to ride home instead of going in the car with Mr. A. We got my bike back out of the car and I strapped on my helmet. "See you at home," we said.
I never know what to say when I'm overwhelmed with the urge to wax rhapsodic about all of the various and sundry beautiful experiences I've had in this amazing place. I'm not good with that kind of language. And anyway, the experience is the main thing – not the talking about it. Still, isn't that what art is for? There's something in me, in the light of a night like this, that wants to be able to share the way that feels.
Not that I'm making any claims here upon the designation of this writing as "art." I do think of myself as an artist, but not that kind.
Anyway. I felt good while I was riding home under the sky, watched by the zillion stars. I still feel good, remembering it.
Getting back down to earth for a moment: As I was riding along the road out of town, along the base of a long row of redwood trees, I happened to look up and notice the lights of a jet flying far above at what appeared to be a very great speed. It really struck me as I watched it disappear behind the branches: What an extremely improbable way to get from one place to another. Here was ME, a human-sized person creeping smaller than an ant across the ponderous and interminable skin of the earth. A simple six- or seven-mile ride would take me a half-hour or more to do. Meanwhile, high above the surface I am circumscribing, a hundred people just like me are hurtling through the atmosphere at speeds so far beyond the human scale as to scarcely be believable (here I am speaking in the style of a certain author I've been reading this summer).
The desire is the same. To get from one place to another.
Somehow I think (and I'm aware I'm not the first to have this thought) that a lot of new questions were born the day humans gained the ability to transcend the limits of one's own body. Flying in airplanes, talking on the telephone, using a computer – even a bicycle – most of the people who have ever lived have had no concept of that kind of experience. I'm sure though that even a half a million years ago the drive to Move was the same. Clearly it must have been.
People are curious. We like to watch the sky at night.
Someday I would like to live someplace where the sky is completely quiet of human noise. I remember such great silences from where I grew up, in Northern Idaho, all night long in the lingering summers. I used to like to sleep outside on the deck when it was warm. I would fall asleep staring at the stars, and then by 3 or 4 a.m. it would be light enough to wake me up. I'd pick up my blanket and pillow and go back in to my bed to sleep until morning. The pillowcase felt cool and fresh from being outside in the dew.
This has been a good summer. And I'm enjoying the slow turn into fall. I love it when the seasons change. It's going to be a good fall, too.
Normally I like nothing more on a Friday night than to take a long, leisurely ride home, share a little dinner with Mr. A and spend the rest of the weekend more or less hibernating. Beautiful Hands Man is an old friend whom I've been woefully neglecting of late, though, and I've also been complaining lately that I never go out and do anything anymore ... so I decided to go. Miraculously and to his great credit, Mr. A agreed to join me. He is typically even more exhausted by the end of the week than I am, so it's always a treat when he feels up to an evening on the town. He's so funny and smart and fun to go out with .... and I enjoy remembering that.
So we sat in the hotel bar, drank some wine, chatted with friends – there ended up being far more familiar faces in the room than I would have expected – and then walked across the road to have dinner at a different restaurant. Eggplant and lamb, plus a caesar salad, plus tomatoes and garlic. Yrmm.
When we came out of the restuaurant the sun had gone down and most of the day's heat had dissipated. It was still warm and the air was very soft. No traffic – it was that time of the night when it's too late for dinner people, and most of the wedding parties are still just getting under way. It would be hours before the roads began to fill with drunken tourists trying to find their way back to their rooms.
So partly because I wanted to work off some of the carbs I had just eaten (imagining numbers starting with 2 or even 3 in an hour or so), and partly because it was just such a perfect, beautiful, soft summer night, I decided to ride home instead of going in the car with Mr. A. We got my bike back out of the car and I strapped on my helmet. "See you at home," we said.
I never know what to say when I'm overwhelmed with the urge to wax rhapsodic about all of the various and sundry beautiful experiences I've had in this amazing place. I'm not good with that kind of language. And anyway, the experience is the main thing – not the talking about it. Still, isn't that what art is for? There's something in me, in the light of a night like this, that wants to be able to share the way that feels.
Not that I'm making any claims here upon the designation of this writing as "art." I do think of myself as an artist, but not that kind.
Anyway. I felt good while I was riding home under the sky, watched by the zillion stars. I still feel good, remembering it.
Getting back down to earth for a moment: As I was riding along the road out of town, along the base of a long row of redwood trees, I happened to look up and notice the lights of a jet flying far above at what appeared to be a very great speed. It really struck me as I watched it disappear behind the branches: What an extremely improbable way to get from one place to another. Here was ME, a human-sized person creeping smaller than an ant across the ponderous and interminable skin of the earth. A simple six- or seven-mile ride would take me a half-hour or more to do. Meanwhile, high above the surface I am circumscribing, a hundred people just like me are hurtling through the atmosphere at speeds so far beyond the human scale as to scarcely be believable (here I am speaking in the style of a certain author I've been reading this summer).
The desire is the same. To get from one place to another.
Somehow I think (and I'm aware I'm not the first to have this thought) that a lot of new questions were born the day humans gained the ability to transcend the limits of one's own body. Flying in airplanes, talking on the telephone, using a computer – even a bicycle – most of the people who have ever lived have had no concept of that kind of experience. I'm sure though that even a half a million years ago the drive to Move was the same. Clearly it must have been.
People are curious. We like to watch the sky at night.
Someday I would like to live someplace where the sky is completely quiet of human noise. I remember such great silences from where I grew up, in Northern Idaho, all night long in the lingering summers. I used to like to sleep outside on the deck when it was warm. I would fall asleep staring at the stars, and then by 3 or 4 a.m. it would be light enough to wake me up. I'd pick up my blanket and pillow and go back in to my bed to sleep until morning. The pillowcase felt cool and fresh from being outside in the dew.
This has been a good summer. And I'm enjoying the slow turn into fall. I love it when the seasons change. It's going to be a good fall, too.
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