Friday, April 5, 2013

4/4 Time

What if each day were a fatefully mapped series of random encounters arranged according to some rhythm and plot not directed by you but by some auteur like Luis Bunuel who has taken an interest in your life, and may even be the boring genius who's scripting and shooting the cinema of your dreams?

This is not an original idea, but some days do seem to march along in 4/4 time gathering ingredients like a scavenger hunt.  I once promoted March 4th as that sort of march-forth day. Maybe it was always 4/4, a pair of hoofers and a cane dancing offstage in a buck and wing...

Some of today's ingredients:
Listening to half of a James Taylor/Carole King "Live at the Troubadour" CD, and learning that JT wrote "Sweet Baby James"not for himself but as a cowboy lullaby for his infant nephew.

Spending several hours reading and writing about Of Mice and Men and learning that its original title was "Something That Happened."

Taking a late afternoon walk down to Spy Pond, passing a tuning-up mockingbird on a chimney and on the shore of the shining blue waters of the pond, encountering a small box turtle, head and appendages tucked inside.

Taking a second later afternoon walk with Carol to Spy Pond, encountering the same box turtle again and happily--having looked  in vain for them earlier--coming upon my favorite couple: a male wood duck and a female mallard who are inseparable. This is not all that uncommon, according to other citations on the Net, but it's a first for me. And this time we had a little drama. The wood duck was getting very agitated, piping away excitedly about something, which turned out to be an approaching male mallard. However, rather than snatching the hen away from this species robber, the mallard drake got chased away by the smaller wood duck. The two then calmly stepped ashore while the drake sailed bemusedly by.


And finally, after the dishes, Matt and I watching approximately half of Bunuel's "Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" with its graceful flow of random events, including a squadron of soldiers delaying their departure in a crisis to allow a young sergeant to tell his dream. That's what I'm talking about.

—Old Hatch