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radfrac_archiveAnd when I finally sat down, the cold and the salt and the noise and the constant rushing rose from my skin like a white mist, and I was left in a still place, suddenly quiet and warm.
Thursday I woke at ten to six because of the windstorm. I got up and went out with the minimum of preparation so as to miss nothing. No matter what I do it seems to take too long to get out of the house on these mornings when my time is limited.
It was early enough that I could walk into James Bay instead of going down through Cook St. Village. It was a good walk in itself, singing in the dark (yeah, that was me), peering into the exquisitely dated foyers of old apartment buildings. Red carpet, gold mirrors, a spiral staircase with green and blue flowered carpeting, gangly as a grandmother in a too-short coat.
I cut through St. Anne's in the gloaming. A few lights on in the Ministry, as though some extra diligent public servants were already at work. Maybe they couldn't sleep either.
The James Bay Coffee Co. wasn't open yet, so I went to the ocean. Otherwise I might have missed it all.
Aqua blue, glass green, streaked and tumbled with foam. Waves smashing apart on their own force. Or lunging into the seawall and exploding into white fireworks -- thalassotechnics. (Though there's no technology in it, except the wave and the wall.) Crowds of golden leaves were blowing down the cliff past me like ecstatic lemmings.
The spray was leaping right up over the breakwater. I didn't figure I had time to go that far, so I went to the lookout, which is built like a semi-circular fortification out onto the beach. I've always liked the way the steps are covered at high tide, as though you're standing in a half-sunken ruin. That morning, the waves were fighting each other like a seething mob, up the stairs and onto the lower platform, falling back, churning and tangling together again.
I stayed at the top level. Watched the foam break against the wall on either side of my station. The white spume blossoming like a poplar and dropping right to dust, salt, gone. Occasionally, the flashing self-destructive leaves would THWACK me in the head on their way down.
I could watch an angry sea forever. Every big wave approaching the stairs to break, or be blocked by the ill-timed retreat of the one before, to mysteriously fade or to smash open sideways and spit a plume of foam at me.
When I turned to leave, a wave hit the wall with a FOOMP, driving the spume fifteen feet above the railing. Like a man throwing down a sack which bursts into phosphorous flames thirty feet high.
Walking back along the path, the grass was charged with green under the gold leaves still lying on it in multitudes, and the wind was so strong that running against it was like running against an escalator. Cold hands pushing you in all directions while you fight, until you have to laugh at the joy of wrestling with the air itself.
At the coffee shop, the owner was worried that he hadn't put enough salt on my food. I said it'd be fine, since my mouth was covered with salt, my face matte with it, my glasses obscured under a salt frost. My hands tasted so sweet with it that I kept licking the tips of my fingers. It was strange not to be shoved and howled at and spat on by the air. I felt like I'd stepped off a train and wasn't sure of my feet.
If it blew like that every day, I could stand the winter.
On the other hand: walking home past South Park School (unfortunate name for such a great old red-brick building), I heard a CRACK under the ceaseless monologue of the wind.
You may have noticed that I am the sort of person who tends to worry too much. "Hmm," I said to myself, "I think I'll walk on the other side of the street." So I crossed into the schoolyard, where a couple of crosswalk volunteers were also peering into the trees opposite for the source of the
CRACK
And I kid you not, sixty feet of tree came down right in front of us. In Emergency Slow-Motion Vision. Yellow leaves shaking, branches lashing. It knocked out the power line as it went -- I could smell it burning. Blocked the street like a barricade. Killed all the traffic lights for blocks.
There's that fire station about a block away, though, so the fire trucks were there in less than five minutes. They probably didn't even wait for the call -- just came down the road to see what that CRACK was. There weren't any kids around -- it was still too early for that -- just a handful of startled adults, and no one was hurt.
After that, on the way home, everything, even the snapping of the flag outside the cathedral, sounded like a tree falling down to me.
{rf}
Thursday I woke at ten to six because of the windstorm. I got up and went out with the minimum of preparation so as to miss nothing. No matter what I do it seems to take too long to get out of the house on these mornings when my time is limited.
It was early enough that I could walk into James Bay instead of going down through Cook St. Village. It was a good walk in itself, singing in the dark (yeah, that was me), peering into the exquisitely dated foyers of old apartment buildings. Red carpet, gold mirrors, a spiral staircase with green and blue flowered carpeting, gangly as a grandmother in a too-short coat.
I cut through St. Anne's in the gloaming. A few lights on in the Ministry, as though some extra diligent public servants were already at work. Maybe they couldn't sleep either.
The James Bay Coffee Co. wasn't open yet, so I went to the ocean. Otherwise I might have missed it all.
Aqua blue, glass green, streaked and tumbled with foam. Waves smashing apart on their own force. Or lunging into the seawall and exploding into white fireworks -- thalassotechnics. (Though there's no technology in it, except the wave and the wall.) Crowds of golden leaves were blowing down the cliff past me like ecstatic lemmings.
The spray was leaping right up over the breakwater. I didn't figure I had time to go that far, so I went to the lookout, which is built like a semi-circular fortification out onto the beach. I've always liked the way the steps are covered at high tide, as though you're standing in a half-sunken ruin. That morning, the waves were fighting each other like a seething mob, up the stairs and onto the lower platform, falling back, churning and tangling together again.
I stayed at the top level. Watched the foam break against the wall on either side of my station. The white spume blossoming like a poplar and dropping right to dust, salt, gone. Occasionally, the flashing self-destructive leaves would THWACK me in the head on their way down.
I could watch an angry sea forever. Every big wave approaching the stairs to break, or be blocked by the ill-timed retreat of the one before, to mysteriously fade or to smash open sideways and spit a plume of foam at me.
When I turned to leave, a wave hit the wall with a FOOMP, driving the spume fifteen feet above the railing. Like a man throwing down a sack which bursts into phosphorous flames thirty feet high.
Walking back along the path, the grass was charged with green under the gold leaves still lying on it in multitudes, and the wind was so strong that running against it was like running against an escalator. Cold hands pushing you in all directions while you fight, until you have to laugh at the joy of wrestling with the air itself.
At the coffee shop, the owner was worried that he hadn't put enough salt on my food. I said it'd be fine, since my mouth was covered with salt, my face matte with it, my glasses obscured under a salt frost. My hands tasted so sweet with it that I kept licking the tips of my fingers. It was strange not to be shoved and howled at and spat on by the air. I felt like I'd stepped off a train and wasn't sure of my feet.
If it blew like that every day, I could stand the winter.
On the other hand: walking home past South Park School (unfortunate name for such a great old red-brick building), I heard a CRACK under the ceaseless monologue of the wind.
You may have noticed that I am the sort of person who tends to worry too much. "Hmm," I said to myself, "I think I'll walk on the other side of the street." So I crossed into the schoolyard, where a couple of crosswalk volunteers were also peering into the trees opposite for the source of the
CRACK
And I kid you not, sixty feet of tree came down right in front of us. In Emergency Slow-Motion Vision. Yellow leaves shaking, branches lashing. It knocked out the power line as it went -- I could smell it burning. Blocked the street like a barricade. Killed all the traffic lights for blocks.
There's that fire station about a block away, though, so the fire trucks were there in less than five minutes. They probably didn't even wait for the call -- just came down the road to see what that CRACK was. There weren't any kids around -- it was still too early for that -- just a handful of startled adults, and no one was hurt.
After that, on the way home, everything, even the snapping of the flag outside the cathedral, sounded like a tree falling down to me.
{rf}
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-05 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 05:35 pm (UTC){rf}
love
Date: 2005-11-06 11:33 pm (UTC)I love you sweetie. I'm very glad you didn't get squished by a tree and that you got to see the sea that way.
[waves][& more waves]
Date: 2005-11-07 05:39 pm (UTC)More prosaically, it was sunny & I was glad.
I was thinking of you and I wanted to ask you a question about Washington, but I can't remember what it is... can you tell me the answer anyway?
{rf}
Re: [waves][& more waves]
Date: 2005-11-08 12:54 am (UTC)