A Quiet Friday Evening…

Woke up this morning,  damp spring air carrying on to coffee.

Now the day’s passed on, it’s quiet again and our moon floats overhead dragging the sun behind it.

Coyote Devours the Moon…

Coyote, ululating on the hill,

is it my fire that distresses you so?

Or the memories of long ago

when you were a man roaming the hills.

Jaime de Angulo, Coyote’s Bones

~:~

They’ve set a bounty on coyotes in a neighboring town; very distressing news to hear. I’d been waiting all winter for the weather to break to hear their nightly conversations.

Last fall we were out in a nearby field, walking our dog, and were followed cautiously by a ghostly friend. Slipping in and out of sight, it kept watch, pensive and waiting for our next move.

When spring came we could hear them in the distance rejoicing after a successful hunt. Down by the creek bed, out in the small sliver of woodland that the village leaves wild as a feeble reminder of nature, they hunt and sing. In the morning finding a bit of torn rabbit hide, calcified droppings; it was good to know they were there.

Now the county has sent out trappers. Their call was a way to ride out into the Eternal, now with cries cut short, there’s another road block on the path to grace.

Society in the Elements

The sun in summer, rain in spring, winter snows and biting autumn winds. On foot the elements become well understood companions, your clothing quickly deteriorates with their ever present attention. Shoes wear thin, the cuffs of your pants fray, and your sport coat becomes softer with each passing day.

All this goes unappreciated when you aren’t on intimate terms with the natural order. As quick as a cigarette pack rots on the curb, the soles of your shoes get holes that let the air and water in.

Technology, as artifice, requires an artificial environment to survive. As society embraces technique in all it’s forms, the understanding of what life outside of a controlled environment entails passes away into grandparent’s bemoaned reflections.

How do you attend a meeting after walking 2 miles to get to the office? Your hair unkempt, sweat pooling at the small of your back, it’s an odd condition to walk into a board room filled with people who’ve had their heads crammed with crafted portraits of executive demeanor.

What if it’s raining? or the snow is piled 2 feet high?

In Europe gas is already nearly $12 a gallon, but cities designed before the automobile are fit for walking and their public transportation is up to the task of managing the requirements of the daily commute. The suburbs of the United States were designed to accommodate cars, not pedestrians.

Started in the 1950’s when every middle class family assumed to have a car, the suburbs are not kind or attuned to the needs of those on foot. Have you ever tried to stroll down the highway?

How will we face our fast approaching future, with high speed trains? car pooling? or on foot along crumbling roads and untended side ways. Have you started practicing your stroll yet?

A note on walking…

If you own a car it’s difficult to fully experience how filthy the civilized world is. Boxes, bottles, paper, and various other tidbits of cultural detritus spot the landscape. Chunks of rusted metal, pieces of molding fabric, and unsavory rubber shapes jettisoned from decaying cars make the thought of walking barefoot untenable.

How does an ancient, rusted nail end up on a sidewalk next to an acre of poorly tended field?

What happens overnight, early morning or in late afternoon that a wet sock, ripped pair of underwear or perfectly serviceable sweater end up in the gutter of a highway?

While you drive the world around you becomes annihilated in tender solipsism. A windshield and an assortment of mirrors do nothing to reveal the details and passing pieces of civilization’s entropic end.

Take a walk, feel the warmth of our slowly dying sun, listen to the bird calls against an ambient bed of white noise, watch your step amongst the broken glass…and smile.