What do you think of when you look at this?
Paint by numbers.
I sat there silent for a moment, staring at the screen. She started laughing.
What? There’s nothing wrong with that. I loved paint by numbers.
I nodded, smiling. She walked toward the door, smiling.
I think I’ll leave now.
In these days of negative temperatures in the Northeast and snow-snarled traffic jams shutting down cities, I hesitate to talk about the weather.
I hesitate to talk about how the cold front came thru and passed right by, leaving blue skies and sunshine and warm temperatures behind. I hesitate to talk about the mid-80s that were our weather on Friday. And I hesitate to discuss the weather we had this afternoon.
So let’s not do that, shall we? How about this, instead?
It was afternoon. The sky was … you know. And the sun was … you know. And I was watering the Apple trees, because it hasn’t rained appreciably here for a while. And this tree against the back fence was abloom, and bees were coming and going and rolling in the blossoms.
Can you believe it!?
The sky is clear. The sun is out. The leaves of the Monterey Oak are shining green/orange/brown. The ice of yesterday in the bird bath is melted now and warm. Bill is in his front yard in short sleeves and shorts mowing his yard.
It’s certainly not like this here.
Thursday was the new moon.
The sky was clear. The sun had just set. But there was no sign of it. Try as I might from behind the wheel on the commute home, peer as much as I might try at the darkening sky in the west, I could see nothing, not even a thin, thin crescent.
Friday, on the same commute, the crescent was there. Having wandered in one day far enough to the eastern side of the setting sun, it took no peering. There is was. Hanging in the sky above hills. A thin crescent moon descending into the west. With Mercury trailing behind.
Pine hammocks on the horizon. Clouds streaming by. Brown winter grasses blowing in the ocean breeze.
An intercom voice counts down. A rocket engine fires. Latches let go. Morpheus rises on a spike of blue flame into the air. It hovers, translates and creeps back down. Orange flame blows sand and smoke and dust and rocks into the wind. The engine cuts off. The smoke clears.
The sun is out. The sky is blue. The dogs are blissfully tired from their long walk across the field and along the margin of the woods and thru the forest.
You are there. I am here with too much time on my hands, I suppose you’ll think.
So I send this to you. A little something from someone with too much time on his hands. Doesn’t it just make you want to rush on home? I promise to share my brush!
Fear not. Things are certain to return to normal tomorrow.
© jumpingfish by David Hasan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
