"That's just Sagi," I said; or did I think it?
"Sagi?"
"He's shredding a roll of toilet paper," I said.
"Shredding toilet tissue?" he said.
"Tissue or paper," I said, "both are correct."
"Why?" he said.
"There you have me in deep waters, I'm afraid, but it's a favorite pastime," I said.
"Habitual?" he said.
"He finds it hard to resist but he swears he can stop anytime he chooses," I said.
"That's what they all say," he said.
"Well, nothing to do about it but wait for him to hit bottom," I said.
The conversation led from one topic to another as conversations do in the hours leading up to dawn. These desultory talks are dangerous places for me when my brain is just starting and the spark plugs are firing in random order. I felt the need to be outside so I hastily pulled on the outer crust and hied for the crepe myrtle glen. A bit of mindfulness hits the spot when the entire week has been nothing but one damn thing after another.
In the early morning stillness beneath the morning star and buoyed up by aromatic pine straw, I was serenaded by a mockingbird singing a selection of Frank Sinatra melodies. In the middle of "I've Got You Under My Skin," the dawn bloomed in all her South Durham rosiness and soon the sun was visible, hot-dogging in the heavens. His antics gave an iridescent glow to the edges of the leaves on the crepe myrtles. It was a mood lifter.
You may have read accounts of near-death experiences. If you have, then you're familiar with the reports of being surrounded and possibly buoyed up by a light of indescribable beauty. That's how I felt. Had Ms. Wonder been with me at the time, not that she is ever with me before 8:00 AM, having wisely concluded that since most heart attacks occur before that hour, I consider it prudent to stay in bed until the danger is past. But as I say, if she had been with me, I would have said, "I've got a feeling, everything's going my way!" I said it anyway.
I suddenly felt the urge to begin a brisk walk in the sunlight and remembered a quote from Shakespeare, some little gag from one of those plays you read in high school, if they still read Shakespeare in high school, "If something is worth doing, don't waste time thinking about it, just heave into it." I'm paraphrasing.
The walk worked its wonder and for several minutes I was caught up in all the beautiful ephemera of life. This kind of thinking is something that drives Princess Amy manic, her job being to spot danger and assign the yellow, orange, or red codes to the day. You remember Amy, of course, my own personal collection of almond-shaped neurons in the middle of my head. She made her best effort to turn my light, fluffy cumulus musings into the fret-edged stratus variety, but I saw through her plan right away.
Amy and I have danced around the block more than a few times. She works tirelessly to distract me and give the mean-spirited aunts of the universe an opening to sock me with a cosh behind the ear. Success does not come easy even without her monkey wrenches and who can say why really? It could be that the path deviates from the dotted line connecting A to B or it could be that life is simply difficult. I'm inclined to believe the latter. Scott Peck and the Buddhists agree with me on this.
The point in all this is that Amy is intent on derailing the completion of my book, Out of the Blue. She'd laid her plans out accordingly and I might have stepped on the banana peel she'd placed in my path. Fortunately, having arrived at the northernmost edge of Chatsford Village, I turned and noticed far across the swale, up the terraced hillside, and beyond the ha ha, my six-cylindered, front-wheel driven charger, waiting to answer my whistle. The sight of her reminded me of all the road trips we'd taken in the bright sunshine and in the gentle rain and it was as though I were standing in that before-mentioned indescribably beautiful light once more.
I raised my arm in salute and said to the morning air, "Good morning, Wynd Horse!" Now I know you're going to find it difficult to credit this but if you've followed this blog for a few turns of the moon, then surely you know that I do not mislead my audience. Not intentionally. And I'm not misleading you now when I say that no sooner had I greeted her than she responded with "Toot, toot!"
I raised my arm in salute and said to the morning air, "Good morning, Wynd Horse!" Now I know you're going to find it difficult to credit this but if you've followed this blog for a few turns of the moon, then surely you know that I do not mislead my audience. Not intentionally. And I'm not misleading you now when I say that no sooner had I greeted her than she responded with "Toot, toot!"
That's right; all one her own. It's little things like that in life that make all the difference, don't you think so?