Quarter of six.
Black as ink outside, and it’s been raining again. I could hear it hit the rooftop last night. I hear a train barreling by, possibly an Amtrak full of sleepy passengers. There’s the horn, like the spouting of a whale. An aural beacon in the darkness before the dawn. One lesson I took home from The Prelude is the primacy of imagination. It is a belief that challenges the cognitive therapy I learned two years ago. Surely a great poet like Wordsworth couldn’t have it wrong?
Eight o’clock. Clouds outside like purple chalk as the sun ascends on a Sunday. Not a sound but the whir of my mother’s electric face clock. Three minutes behind. Now the furnace kicks on to keep it 72 in here. Squirrels scamper overhead, drumming with tiny hands. Moments ago I lay in bed dreaming of books I have yet to read, particularly by Thomas Mann and perhaps Marcel Proust. Until I do, the books sit there in mute limbo, letters awaiting a lector.
Nine o’clock. I don’t think cognitive therapy had creative people in mind. There’s such a de emphasis on imagination, which is very similar to the Vienna Circle. No one ever said I had to be a logical positivist. I feel a little like Wordsworth, living in the city for a while and losing his vision and his judgment. Fortunately, in Eugene there is still a faction of Jungians running around.
Ten ten. It looks like a true October in my backyard. Only a few of the oak’s leaves are red, bunched together in clumps, though already many have fallen. Oregon Lottery is up and running again at the store. Right inside of the checkout counter is a glass display of the different games offered. Strategic and subliminal. Vicki sold me two Snapples. I didn’t observe much on the way: the same bandaid on the concrete sidewalk, and the shards of a broken brown bottle next to Randy’s auto lot. Passing the stop sign at the intersection made me remember something from two years ago, a painful experience with my team at P—Health. Suffice it that I’m glad those days are over. The sea green espresso shack wasn’t very busy because it’s Sunday. And as I write, the railroad sounds still waft this way from the southwest.
robgradens 