A Lapse

I haven't felt like blogging for the last few days, more from the blissful summer feeling of endless days than intention. The twilight last night was extraordinary, low sun, high tide, the reeds and live oaks lit from inside against a moody bank of fog over San Francisco, then when the sun set I could see the lights of Oakland burning fiercely under the arc of the bridge. There were little breakers on the open bay, we ate our cracked crab on the deck with jackets on, watching an unfamiliar white bird dart and hover. It had a divided tail, I think it might have been a tern, and its flight was distinctive, swift and quirky like a swallow but larger, and able to hover like a hawk.

Waking this morning I felt weightless, I think I had the tern in mind all night.

As I rebound between mystical awareness and domestic order I realise that one has its roots in the other. The house is glowing with wax polish and absences: absence of half the accretions of the past five years, absence of clutter, absence of dirt. I have cleared the nine hardest drawers, Stefan's technical drawers and it has made a resonance in me of courage, knowing and clarity.

One strange thing happened this morning. We have eight deep white bowls, and while I was putting them away one somehow trembled and leapt onto the counter and smashed. I cleared the shards away and looked up to see eight deep white bowls on the shelf. I took them down and counted them, and there are eight. Still.