It was Saturday morning, three days after the events of October 21, 2009. The end of a trying week. It was also my father’s 95th birthday, with the 27th anniversary of his death approaching. All are on my mind as I boot up the Dell desktop that always takes an eternity to get going. Instead of my usual grumbling and cursing and threats to shoot the damn thing, I happen to look out the window. An absolutely clear October morning. The fall leaves on the trees next door fill the view from my second-floor window with bright red, yellow, and brown. In their midst, between two of the trees, I see a gap. I can't take my eyes off that space as it fades into and merges with the reds, yellows, and browns. It has no particular color of its own. The tree-colors are all motion, but this space is still, quiet despite its tendency to melt into the masses of leaves. More and more still, the more I wonder as gap goes and stays.
As I was looking into the space between the trees, I wrote some words on a piece of paper. Somehow the placement of the words on the page conveyed what I saw, to me at least. Like an ee cummings poem. In my journal later, I called this experience “intimations of insight, previews of awareness.” Unfortunately the formatting capacities on Wattpad are too primitive for me to present these notes and some background here. I have posted them at http://drivingwithnohands.com/my-notes-on-what-i-saw-one-saturday-morning/ to satisfy my own narcissistic needs, if nothing else. Laura would look at them with the same expression questioning my sanity that she used when she finally noticed the statue of Ganesh near the entrance to her sick room.
Suffice it to say here, that in this experience I was drawn into an opening in the heart of this world, a space without Laura … without me. Yet, I felt at ease as I looked. Words were just attempts to hold on to that ease.
YOU ARE READING
Not right, nor orderly.
Non-FictionThe phrase "not right, nor orderly" comes from John Donne's poem, "An Anatomie of the World," written on the first anniversary of "the untimely death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury," the 14 year old daughter of his patron, Sir Robert Drury. The poet u...
