May 12, Book of Nonsense
Almanac for Post Moderns
High contrast shadows cross the yard, road, woods. According to the compass on my phone, they are cast at 285° West; near due west — it’s 40 days out from summer solstice.
If I slow way down and notice, as time passes around me, the hucklberry bushes and other things-not-flat are countless sun dials. Every contour, stone, oak and pine is its own shade throwing clock, marking 7:25am, 7:26, in a slow, synchronous parallax.
Paul Valery once wrote, “We know flowers by their edges.” In this shadow-dance by what crisp edge do I know myself? If by my edges — only truly alive in past, current and continually moving relationship — my head’s shadow on my wife’s thigh is me.
I often think what I notice is at best inverted, or due East. As if in some camera obscura, I and my shadow are most visible by others, my wife, the dogs. Today may help me make sense of relationship. Even while upside down, things and shadows define me more clearly than I do, and all else is vanity.
