Cooling

Night brings damp, and hours on end when clouds obscure the stars. The orchard's sprinklers snap awake, chatter for a while, feed the breeze fine mist, then fall silent. A small flock of late migrating geese disturb midnight with brazen honks. Later, the quiet is shattered again when a single cone falls from a nearby pine, brushing through needles and bouncing from branches until it hits the pavement with a loud crack. There are a few frogs croaking again, but only intermittently. Some steps, perhaps of a deer, sound faintly in the road, but the darkness is too deep for my vision. Once more, the night reveals itself to my ears and nose alone, the scent pine and damp earth of such power that I can imagine taking root as I stand, concealing myself in thick bark, my head rising to view the land about, my toes gripping deep rock. But I do not become a tree. I let the night brush my skin with its cool softness, storing a memory on which to call when summer brings a fever needing relief.

Actual Events Befall Friday

While I slept, Comcast elves came and did stuff with the cable. Well, I'm bound to admit that they weren't really elves. They were actually big, sweaty guys with plumber's crack. You know -- cable installers. But one of them clambered up the utility pole in front of the house and replaced some bit of equipment which had corroded over the years (this being one of the oldest and most poorly maintained cable systems in California) and now the digital channels don't all look like Max Headroom reruns. But my astonishment that Comcast has actually done something is so great that, not having seen the guys myself, I can almost convince myself that they were elves. Whatever they were, bless them. May their cracks never chafe!

The day held another surprise. I received, via the U.S. Postal Service, a free sample issue of Rolling Stone. Under the paper cover informing me that I am eligible to receive four more free issues (which would cease to be free only if I consent to purchase a subscription at the regular price -- who ever thought up that brilliant marketing ploy?) there was the regular cover of the magazine with a picture of a hairy, tattooed Ben Affleck on it. Soft core gay porn! Free! It's been years since I've read a copy of Rolling Stone. When, in my happily misspent youth, I haunted the Free Press Bookstore in Pasadena's then un-gentrified West End, I used to pick up a copy of the then San Francisco based publication, printed on newsprint with ink that came off on your hands, filled with articles about Jefferson Airplane and Country Joe and the Fish and Tim Buckley and other icons of the soon-to-be-co-opted music revolution. I think it cost a quarter in those days. After they moved to New York, they began printing it on slick paper, putting staples in it and allowing movie stars on the covers. That was when I quit buying it. Just as well. Ben might actually be a nice guy, for all I know, but there's no way in Hell I'd pay $3.95 for a pop culture magazine, even if it has his picture on the cover.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Spring has fairly exploded into being. Oaks which scant days ago thrust bony, bare branches into overcast sky now flourish with an abundance of fresh green leaves, and the various flowering trees and bushes are bursting with color. Day hums with bees, and birds are nesting everywhere. The sexual riot is well under way, and the woodland is like nature's version of some Cecil B. DeMille production about Rome in its decadence, plunged into luxuriant indulgence, abandoned to lust. I don't want to miss a minute of it!