It's been raining, over Lake Bonny, Lake Holloway, its dock, the brick red pavement serpenting around campus, grass, and lamp posts. I find myself speechless on these grey days, cold and shivering on the bike, cold and shivering on the inside.
Grandma used to have an almanac, back in my Hakka home; or rather, she was the almanac. This woman who has been moon-watching for over sixty years, can tell with a glance at the night sky what the weather forecast will be for the coming week and generally the entire season. She told me about the monsoon rains, predicted the exact same coldness that would suddenly sweep our town at the advent of rain. And so it was. That year and every year.
An almanac would be handy now (like the one Aldo Leopold patiently wrote for his beloved Sand County). Especially since I'm on the bike, planed out all the field trips accordingly, and am completely at the mercy of the sun or rain. It's been disappointing day after day, at the Holloway Dock, with my umbrella cast aside and water reeds for company, in the rain. The ripples, widening, made over the lake seemed to exacerbate the cold.
But so is true of the soul inside me, its darkening circumstances only blow the problem out of proportion more and threaten to consume me completely, to invade into the spaces outside of me. I don't like the thought and image of the darkness in me as widening waves that overflow its boundaries, spilling into the sunlight like those God-awful globs of black oil on the Gulf. I'd hate birds to die some more.
As of now, it's nicely trapped and kept in tamely, just as the waters at Holloway have not rebelled unnecessarily, even with aid of the rain. The banks are secure, still, and so is the dock. Where then, is the dock of my insides? Even in this cold. When, will sunlight stream its shafts as it has been spreading over the glimmer of a once again blue lake?
Once again, an almanac would come in handy, I think, an almanac of the soul.
Grandma used to have an almanac, back in my Hakka home; or rather, she was the almanac. This woman who has been moon-watching for over sixty years, can tell with a glance at the night sky what the weather forecast will be for the coming week and generally the entire season. She told me about the monsoon rains, predicted the exact same coldness that would suddenly sweep our town at the advent of rain. And so it was. That year and every year.
An almanac would be handy now (like the one Aldo Leopold patiently wrote for his beloved Sand County). Especially since I'm on the bike, planed out all the field trips accordingly, and am completely at the mercy of the sun or rain. It's been disappointing day after day, at the Holloway Dock, with my umbrella cast aside and water reeds for company, in the rain. The ripples, widening, made over the lake seemed to exacerbate the cold.
But so is true of the soul inside me, its darkening circumstances only blow the problem out of proportion more and threaten to consume me completely, to invade into the spaces outside of me. I don't like the thought and image of the darkness in me as widening waves that overflow its boundaries, spilling into the sunlight like those God-awful globs of black oil on the Gulf. I'd hate birds to die some more.
As of now, it's nicely trapped and kept in tamely, just as the waters at Holloway have not rebelled unnecessarily, even with aid of the rain. The banks are secure, still, and so is the dock. Where then, is the dock of my insides? Even in this cold. When, will sunlight stream its shafts as it has been spreading over the glimmer of a once again blue lake?
Once again, an almanac would come in handy, I think, an almanac of the soul.
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