March 27, 2011

Late dream of flying, one of those classics that linger in memory and are brooded over by the consciousness. I was living high in the mountains, at the edge of a town built of stone, around which were great floating rocks. I ran out onto an alpine meadow and willed myself into the air, and after that it was easy. I flew over the floating rocks and found, as I suspected, that they were the perfect nesting places for birds. Diving down over green valleys I thought “how beautiful!” I even cured myself of the height-sickness that would have overtaken me in real life. After a while a little Japanese girl joined me on my flying expeditions. We seemed to be the only ones who could do it.

Thinking of the kids at the Thespian festival, their slender bodies, the wild extravagance of their dress and hair styles, the mixture of awkwardness and grace which attended their movement. I’m not used to children quite that young, and may not have been gentle enough in my critiques. I was amazed by the gap between kids-- though they looked pretty much the same– one of whom was writing goofy shtick for vampires, and the other real drama with real dialogue. They gave us gift bags with candy and pencils and notes that said, “Thank you for this opportunity.”

Internet video of the tsunami inundating the town of Kessenuma in Japan. Someone was standing on a big building filming while an estuary filled and overflowed, hurling cars like woodchips, turning a prosperous little town into–literally–nothing. A bankside warehouse disintegrated like sugar. A watertower sailed down the stream like a swan. Sublime and awful. The water which was once distant began to climb up one storey, two storeys. I wish I knew what the photographer was saying in Japanese.

Last summer I planted bluebells. They promptly died. This made me sad, as I had planted them over the place where I had buried Theseus long ago. But in the last few days they have sprung up and bloomed, and it has been a wonderful and healing surprise. I suppose I had planted them just when they were ready to die back anyway.