3.18.00

It's been storming the last few days but this evening the wind blew some of it to the sides briefly and the sun shone. I went to the sunset and the wind flowed, unwaveringly, and rumbled like a young river. The Sound below wrestled in its bowl, misleadingly claiming for itself the sonorous friction of the wind. There are some notes from the plane that I want to share with you: Of course the thing shudders as we leave the ground. I looked around beforehand to note the corps of faces that might die with me and now there's just this strange young boy to the right, and a young Chinese couple to the left, bouncing in their seats. I'm closing my eyes so as not to see, but I can hear the pitch of the nose into the sky and the exponential increase in the probability of certain death as the ground falls. I imagine all of the rivets and the wires and then force myself not to imagine those things. Breathe ... and I'm thinking about the shape of bamboo in a game of Go. It's a strong shape, though I am very much a novitiate and cannot yet say how to make it stronger or how to use it effectively in defense. This shape is on my mind; in the center of this image I will position a single white spot of desire before placing both hands along the hips of the stalks, squeezing in ... I'm in a flying trailer park. I can't imagine a more colorful quilt of trash than the people locked with me into this plane. Obnoxious sneezing and ignorant dialect drown out the roar of the ancient Boeing turbines. There are college kids heading for Las Vegas, or beyond, for Spring Break: There's a young thin woman wearing cake mask and flip-flops, and boys kicking and pulling on the back of my seat and talking at less than 30 rpm. I'd like to string them all together by the hemp cords around their necks and ankles so that I might push them all out the door, one long rope of eggs. The interior is trashed no less than the people and something about the brown and orange colors just says this plane is going down. Plastic parts are missing from the seats, the carpet and seals are worn. (What keeps this bucket of bolts in the air?) I hope all the money this airline is saving in neglecting interior maintenance allows them to hire happy, perfectionistic mechanics. I wasn't in L.A. long enough to draw clear observations; the air travel still lingers with more valence. Mostly Yvonne and I passed time catching up. What I know is that the weather was warm and redolent of the Southwest, which brought nostalgia for New Mexico and Arizona. Maybe I will write more about that later. Right now I only want to record that I went skiing Wednesday night with Pam. Another impossibly perfect night of fast snow and empty slopes. We worked on jumps, spending time scoping out the run for all the little bumps tucked behind poles and trees before developing a course that hit each one. With each run I dared it a little faster, allowing the skis to take flight; with each run those moments of silent groundlessness extended just a second longer and the effect was nothing less than ecstasy. I have been thinking about it ever since, wanting to go just one more time before the season ends.

future past index