It’s never really quiet outside even in the hush of early morning when a whisper-thin coating of diamond dust ice sparkles everywhere. The morning dawning glazed orange and pink showcases the silhouette of a church tower across the fields in the distance. Bobbing daisy chains of geese flung across the sky, heading southwest (wrong direction again). Driving up the hill to Öderslöv, ahead of me is a many-armed monster, freshly killed, being hauled on the back of a huge tractor trailer – drawing near, it resolves into the huge twisted gnarly limbs of a recently downed ancient tree.
I’ve been working late the last three nights since there is nothing pulling me home and a deep-seated sense of responsibility often keeps me there longer than I’d like despite the fact that I’m well aware I could work non-stop 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and the work would not be done, in fact will never be done.
In the darkness of the living room, I can’t see what I’m choosing and random musical picks from the CD collection have brought me from The Carpenters to Sissel Kyrkebo to Santana’s Greatest Hits, which I’m not in the mood for. …there, I’ve random grabbed again and am much happier with Sarah McLachlan. As I cross back across the expanse of the house, the angelfish both visibly take notice of my approach and turn to watch me eagerly through the glass of the aquarium, which I can see needs cleaning again. They’re quite curious and alert to our movements, tracking me back and forth in the course of my puttering about the house, probably hoping for an early dinner.
Last night the sky was sweepingly clear and so black it looked made of velvet, of obsidian and diabase, of oubliette air. The moon shone, cold and stone, in the center of the sky and swung to follow me each time I turned. The edges of it were was so crisp that I suddenly had the feeling it was not a solid object but rather a HOLE in the fabric of the sky, through which could be seen the shining back of beyond. I could almost imagine zooming up and out and THROUGH the hole that was perfectly circular there, into another plane of existence. Dark side of the moon, indeed!
What do you suppose we’d find on the other side? A mirror universe, only silvery-shiny-brighter and full of hope? Today I read Bizarro online, which I do every day because it’s been a favorite since I first discovered it many years ago, for its unpredictability and skewed sense of the ridiculous. The panel shows 2 silverback gorillas sitting in a glade talking. The first gorilla says “We share 99% of our DNA with humans, but there are 6 billion of them and we’re nearly extinct. What’s the difference?” The other gorilla gives him a jaded look and says, “WE’RE pacifists.”
It’s kind of nice, in a sad and dreamy sort of way, to imagine that other world on the other side of the moon has more gorillas, more polar bears, more lions, giant pandas, white rhinos, dolphins and marine turtles than humans. Heck, more dodos and passenger pigeons and tasmanian tigers and every kind of shiny-skinned pop-eyed frog that ever leaped from a lilypad and landed with a plop in an algae-blossomed pond.
My family has one of these somewhere, does yours?
Total frickin’ awesomeness from Olan Mills, et al.
Lots of Lovely Laughing Birthday Wishes for ladyvox!
SENDING SPECIAL VIBRANT LOVE VIBES AND EVERYTHING-GOOD VIBES TO MY DARLING WEE, JOHNNY BETTERSOON & FINNY JANE