5:07am. I open the blind - Elephant Mountain and the lake are still there. Good! No clouds. Lighter to the right - darker to the left. Small things just after getting up. I switch on the lava lamp. During the day glowing bitumous universes unfolding/folding, shifting. There is sex too - I stand watching often. Nights are different - I keep it switched-off then because I still have visions of the container bursting and rapidly expanding electric-fuchsia/molten-ruby ova swallowing me and
then what! I've only had the lamp a few days, after about a week ago realizing during my early-morning walk that I needed one. The early morning usually is my best, most creative time of the day. You can tell.
A special morning this - last night I took the plunge into a freezer-defrost, after having very actively resisted this for a few weeks. All is well, no flood - the pan below is full just so! I empty it.
You wonder what all this is leading to, with lava lamps and freezer-defrosts - things will inevitably develop as days do.
I get dressed, have a cup of instant coffee and leave. The mall's electronic board says 5:56 - I am about 15 minutes behind - and I turn there to head towards the road behind the soccer fields for two loops of the park. A car passes me, makes the same turn, and I see it stop farther along in the middle of the road. I get closer, and the driver leans on the horn repeatedly - there's nobody around this could be meant for, I don't think it's for me. Then I see the dog sniffing around bushes at the shelter and connect the dots. The horn was for the dog, telling it to get on with it. No morning exercise here but getting the first dump out of the way quickly and conveniently for the driver. I love my dog! Which takes the position, dumps, and I stop for a righteous moment. The car door opens, a woman gets out leisurely - cigarette in one hand and plastic bag in the other - and ambles over towards the dog. Having watched it all - including me - in the rearview mirror. We do not acknowledge each other - I walk on and don't turn around.
The soccer fields are turning a blotchy beige-green; I've never seen them in such poor shape before. There are geese - not as many as usually - most of them sitting down, there's little goose-mutter. Seagulls, pigeons and crows walk among them - it's all low-voltage - maybe even the early bird has a hard time getting the proverbial worm under given circumstances. No rain and odd watering-patterns.
There's a good-looking mountain-bike leaning against the tennis-court enclosure - it's not chained - aside from me there's nobody anywhere. I go into the park proper at the Rose Garden Cafe's Coke machine. All the energy missing along the way seems to have been absorbed into the flower beds just inside the gate - a tightly woven Uighur carpet of the most cacophonous color combinations! My lava lamp among the Michaelmas Daisies. I turn onto the path along the beach - there's an 8 x 10 note taped haphazardly to one of the unfortunate-blue rail-posts. It says: "LOVE (crude drawing of a heart). Take as much as you need!" A fringe of tear-off tabs along the bottom, all saying "Love, Love, Love.... ." The outside-two are missing. On the beach a pair of heavy, grey men's socks, a large beach towel, one smallish shoe. Again I wonder about the shoe situation. Did whoever go home wearing only one? Farther along on the railing a white t-shirt; farther yet on a post a red-and-grey hoodie. At the water's edge a large colorful beach-ball. No people - the combo of early and Sunday.
I usually walk on the grass of the soft-ball field in my bare feet - the deep, cold, dew-green carpet makes me feel clean, nourished, focused. Not so much today - the bleached grass is short and stubbly - the earth is hard and lumpy. Few birds on the lake.
Going into the second loop, farther down at the turn-around a woman in running-gear with a dog on a leash - both running. Balance. I stop at the mountain bike - this time I notice a pair of shades perched on the handle-bar. And then, along the side of the Rose Garden Cafe, a pile of clothes. I go to check - a blatantly colored serape; a hoodie, striped in grey/black; a pair of sandals and a lace-edged pillow-case.
At the labyrinth - Qi Gong. Some of it under a Norway spruce. And - I'm freely associating - there they are: the linden trees on Baker. I just don't get what's with the "baby-vomit smell" for years, "people walking by" asking the Main Street Diner's manager - who seemingly spends much time standing around outside - "if somebody puked on the street last night" and cutting them down being "a last resort". I have walked along this stretch of Baker frequently for years and never experienced the described olfactory assault. Did Mr. Cormack? Ubiquitous Donna?
I connect with these trees - called Linden (plural) - because in Germany they are the trees of lovers; in Germanic lore a ting - council - was held under a Linde (singular); Linden figure in the 11th - 12th centuries' Carmina Burana; religious wooden sculptures of the Middle Ages mostly are Linden wood; the blossoms make an excellent tisane - with subtle aroma and medicinal properties; Linden-honey is praised; a famous avenue in Berlin is called Unter den Linden (Under the Linden); even Goethe wrote about them in "The Sorrows of Young Werther".
As did Marcel Proust in "Swann's Way", with the protagonist dipping a madeleine into a cup of Linden-blossom tea - their mingling subtleties setting him off on a meandering exploration within his memories - Proust's way.
In Slavic mythology the Linde is sacred; in several Eastern-European countries it is part of their signature. The Ainu of Hokkaido in northern Japan make traditional clothes out of the inside of the tree's bark, and in the West - today - the wood is preferred for making electric guitars and recorders. Resonance.
There is more!
Back on Baker - aphids are attracted to the sap, ants and lady-bugs then "milk" these aphids. A food-chain. Yes, there is sap, and there was sap before these trees were planted - but nobody checked. Just as nobody now seems to have checked with knowledgeable botanists from outside Brigadoon.
It is not reasonable to ascribe an unbearable stench to a tree so widely prized/used - blossoms, leaves, wood, medicinal charcoal. There is a large, old linden-tree on the left side of Hall, just above Victoria. I have often stood under its canopy because of what it is and represents - there has never been a disagreeable smell.
Due diligence, indeed!
On with my walk. The athletic equipment at the pump-house is wonderful - I particularly like the contraption for running in-place! Stepping on it! Taking a run at lift-off! Two other set-ups were removed some time ago - they have not been replaced; another double-unit is loose and shaky when used - with bolts seemingly just about to pop out - so that using either side surely is dangerous.
Maintenance!
All this for about two hours every morning - prime-time for me. The very early morning - Nelson not meddled with and clear. But in a while everybody's intentions, actions will leave a residue, streak, even smear on the day - much of the clearness will go. This blog will take a swipe at residue, streaks, smears - and meddling!
I now feel foolish over not having torn-off a Love-tab. An opportunity missed!
Good morning, Nelson!
Sunday, Aug. 21, 2011
