infinite detail and awareness

Yesterday morning at the dam.

Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget.

— From Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

Respite

The heat warning ended, more books arrived, and really? Nothing is right with the world, is it? But Friday still becomes Saturday and Saturday, Sunday, so here I am, reading Nights of Plague for a book discussion, practicing Florence Price’s “Juba Dance” for band rehearsal on Monday, and wondering whether I should walk first this afternoon or do the yard work first. And with a thud of all-at-onceness, such banal dithering has made me as uncomfortable as my first encounter with Ilya Kaminsky’s poem.

(forgive us)

August

From 57th Street Books.

Since my last post, the light has shifted and softened, the sunflowers have bloomed, and my flutes have nearly made it back home. The fall semester — and with it, band rehearsals and weekly music lessons — begins next week. But this week, I am celebrating the near end of the summer. 

Last night, after some noodles and bookstore wandering, we watched the White Sox handily beat the Yankees. Later this week, we plan to enjoy a post-tourist, post-summer-campers museum visit. And over the weekend, we will wander in one of the conservation areas.