wednesday morning and mellow as a precious metal

when i was running this morning i was thinking how odd it is to pass by houses as people are just starting the day. everyone is so locked into the becoming of the day, the routine of it. i feel like such an intruder on their lives. for example this morning there was a woman wearing a blueberry nightgown holding a long yellow rope which ended on a collar of a golden retriever. she just looked at me as if i were a spy and i smiled letting her know that i didn't care that her dog was barking at me, that if my dog was there he'd bark at her too. after that i got to a man who was walking out to the mailbox to fetch his newspaper. it was almost eight in the morning and everyone was speeding down Lake road to get to work on time. still, he didn't mind that he only had his boxers on. he was that confident, that comfortable i thought. but when i got closer, he turned around and pretended to look at the lake, at the storm coming in. it was such an awkward thing to do, and he knew it. but he wasn't ready for me to say "goodmorning" or to catch a wave coming from me, so he did it. it wasn't part of his routine.

anyway maybe i don't feel like a spy as much as i feel guilty for feeling so mellow in those moments. if it were the other way around i would probably turn to the lake as well. maybe that's why some people are runners. maybe that's why i am.

i would like to be as wonderful as an old idea

I was noticing today how whenever there is any fuss, hummingbirds just rise up and float away, like that sweet nectar is nothing to them next to the uncomplicated virtue of silence, like they’d rather just be alone in the world without the mess of noise, other than the clapping of their own small wings, waiting patiently for their next chance at sweetness. This must be why they’re so small.

Today I was walking around the city, trying to find the law library. In Indiana the buildings are so close together and situated on these very neat and even planes with each other. There aren’t people on the streets or sidewalks that aren’t students, visitors, or professors of the University, but here there are thousands of people going about their every day lives, totally separate from students. It occurred to me that I had been on the same street as the law library so many times before. Last winter my mother and I went to see a show at The Playhouse Square, which happens to be right next to the law library. We were running through this thick December rain to try to find a restaurant to eat at before the show and we accidentally witnessed the lighting of the Christmas tree. We stood there for a moment, pretending like we had meant to see it, like we planned it and it was special even though it was something that we would never really do. Still, it was the surprise of it all, the mystery of being caught in an unintended moment. Not knowing something was there and then becoming a part of the history of it. So, seeing the law library was a surprise, but I didn’t feel anything that magical. In fact, with everyone walking around wearing business suits, or tracksuits, or baseball caps looking for the early opening hot dog vender, I felt pretty unremarkable. This must be a familiar feeling to many students downtown, because it seems like there are extra steps taken to make students feel special in their education. For example today I received my university ID card. The man at the desk told me that I could do “anything” with the card. Anything? I thought, but didn’t say it because I thought I would hurt his feelings. But now I have this green card in my wallet. It is in the third position behind my Driver’s License and my debit card, so maybe it is special. But then, when I was walking outside back to my car, I saw a group of about ten students who attended the College of Court Reporting. They all had these great book bags with this golden shimmering seal that said “College of Court Reporting.”

At that moment I kind of wished that I were going there, so that I could get the bag. But instead of making a fuss, I just rose up and floated away.

in the beginning there was a blog

and that blog was a beautiful blog