I walk home in the too-bright light of early afternoon, of just-after-lunch. I hate the light of this time of day, more than I do the cloudiness on cloudy days.
One can be forgiven, as I hope to be, for a lazy, empty morning. Some people, after all, are not morning people, and one of them is me. It is for me and all those like me that late cups of coffee are brewed, and tea and early lunches with a book are planned. One writes one’s letters, and one reads them, and others.
But after lunch, one must be about one’s business. One has people to meet, meetings to hold, reports to make, phone calls to return. One walks down the street, purposeful. A destination awaits. One’s life has structure, much of which has been arranged by other people to suit other needs than your own.
Picture the structure of your own life on these afternoons, when there are no necessities but your own to give bones to your life, and, one, I, you, must simply avoid impinging on the lives of others. No stepping out into traffic, no phone calls in a busy bookstore. You, I, buy three books, and pay cash, to make up for it.
And then home in the awful strong light of the world, light that the few trees around are not yet big enough to filter and mitigate.
If you, I, write long enough, the hours will go by and the light will slant and start to change color. You and I can put the pencil down and go back outside as everyone puts the tools of work away and says to everyone else, “So how have you been?”
white pebble 