Rain last night so hard and so sudden that we went outside to find out who was throwing ball-bearings at the windows. The gutters were overflowing - noise and volume as if you began to tip a full bath onto its side, pouring from a height - and the covered, er, porch was filing up because the mat had gone over the grating. Stair-rods. And since then, the weather has done its English thing, and first thing this morning, I lit a bonfire in bright sunshine. Large piles of hedge-trimmings, mowings, garden rubbishings do dry out in the sun, but when the rain comes, they stay dry at the core. Big flames.
Now it's breezy and blowy and airy and bright, and there's air in everything. Daughter and dog have set off to Falmouth for a dog show, and this is about the time I was meaning when I agreed with myself that I'd go round the point for a walk before lunchtime. Sun and wind, airing myself like a sheet hung on an outside line.
Keeping a note, in the back of my mind, of the difference between here-time and New York time. In New York, the radio told me, they are holding a sequence of silences, to mark each impact, each collapse, crash. My silence will be somewhere between the tenth anniversary of Tammy coming in to say, "You'd better come, there's something going on in New York," and the tenth anniversary of realising what I was hearing/seeing. The announcer saying something about helicopters to get people off the roof, and - there can't be people on those windowsills? My God - I don't believe it - that guy jumped!
Now I remember.
All those things I did, last night and this morning, not really remembering. Just casually living. Listening to the radio, not really remembering. Starting to write this, thinking about time zones. Not really remembering.
Ten years ago, while I was wondering whether I had time to be interrupted and come to see what was happening on the TV, that guy, his friends, colleagues, were standing between a fire and a windowsill. Deciding what to do.
Now I remember.
Now it's breezy and blowy and airy and bright, and there's air in everything. Daughter and dog have set off to Falmouth for a dog show, and this is about the time I was meaning when I agreed with myself that I'd go round the point for a walk before lunchtime. Sun and wind, airing myself like a sheet hung on an outside line.
Keeping a note, in the back of my mind, of the difference between here-time and New York time. In New York, the radio told me, they are holding a sequence of silences, to mark each impact, each collapse, crash. My silence will be somewhere between the tenth anniversary of Tammy coming in to say, "You'd better come, there's something going on in New York," and the tenth anniversary of realising what I was hearing/seeing. The announcer saying something about helicopters to get people off the roof, and - there can't be people on those windowsills? My God - I don't believe it - that guy jumped!
Now I remember.
All those things I did, last night and this morning, not really remembering. Just casually living. Listening to the radio, not really remembering. Starting to write this, thinking about time zones. Not really remembering.
Ten years ago, while I was wondering whether I had time to be interrupted and come to see what was happening on the TV, that guy, his friends, colleagues, were standing between a fire and a windowsill. Deciding what to do.
Now I remember.
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