A Thousand Green Flavors
5:48 PM and Leona’s recorded voice is singing smoothly. Warmth is weighting the air like cotton. It’s Wednesday and once, as a child, I had a fever. I told my parents about the birds I could see fluttering here and there. Today, real birds fill the trees. Chirping and tweeting, swooping. Evening sunlight makes their feathers shine. And the leaves (multi-shaded in a thousand green flavors) shift and fold the air. Gently.
Last night, glimmering curtains of light hung over the city. Vast ephemeral blossoms opened wide in the black sky. White-snap flickers thumped the air, echoing back from the hills. Colors leapt into the flash-strobed darkness as boats posed on the black glass of the river. I stood on the railroad tracks, head tipped back, watching and grinning.
On Sunday I’m leaving town. Ten hours or so to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I want to smell the ocean, dig my toes into the sand. I want to feel the wind in my face, the waters on my skin. I want to see the sea.
I bought some books today. Beach reading. I’ll be there for two weeks: I hope is goes slow, sweet, and bright.
--- JWR, 7/5/00
Leona's Voice
Leona? Well that would be Leona Naess. My brother, Joel, loaned me her, "Comatised" CD. Good tunes.
Books? Hmm...
My beach reading (so far):
All Tomorrow’s Parties by William Gibson (ISBN 0-399-14579-6)
The Iron Dragon’s Daughter by Michael Swanwick (ISBN 0-380-73046-4)
Earthling by Tony Daniel (ISBN 0-312-866I-5)
Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King (ISBN 0-684-85351-5)
(And my favorite song on Leona's CD is "New York Baby". What's yours?)