Every night I sleep fitfully and have dreams of misapprehending the physical. In several dreams I am abruptly the wrong shape and size (this fear is obvious). Other times I try and try but cannot lay my hands on what I need to touch. And once I am in bed with a handsome man I do not know and then, horribly, grotesquely, he turns out to have the anatomy of a machine instead of a person: his stomach is filled with gears, a slick lever lies flush against his leg, and in place of his genitals is a terrible, dirty length of tube that, waking, I recognize as the exhaust pipe to a car.
It is partly the heat. Although my window has no screen, I leave it open because I need the air, and neither the busy road nor the collection of animals that live under the eaves are every completely silent. Their rustling and scratching seems in some ways a manifestation of the uneasiness that can come with the heavy summer temperatures.
More than that, though, it is certainly me: I am out of place; I have misplaced myself.
But this evening I entered the grounds of the asylum again, the big one, nearest my house. Before I had only walked around the perimeter, up to the cemetery and out again. Tonight I went straight up to the building, and I found that it was open.
They were all open. Every building, every gate I tried, they were open. They seemed to be resting. I did not go in to any of the buildings, except very briefly into the very first one, because I was afraid that someone might be making his home there and would not want me, but I spent a long time walking around.
I do not know if I’ve seen anywhere more beautiful. My camera’s battery is dead, so I could not take pictures, but there isn’t any way to capture how heartbreakingly beautiful this place is even with a photograph. It is so quiet, even though you can hear the cars going by all the time. It is so peaceful, even though it is surrounded everywhere by barbed wire and guarded gates and iron cages. Those things are no part of this place. The core of it is peaceful – or at least it is now. The place is astoundingly peaceful and astoundingly beautiful.
At one point, as I came up through an ivy covered arch into a wide, sloped courtyard, eddied with small hills and evergreens and two huge oaks, a rabbit hopped out of a depression in the lawn and sat watching me, completely still, for longer than I have ever seen one sit. It was the same brown as the trunks of the trees, and its tail was bright white. Its ears looked intelligent.
By the time I came up the hill at last to where the cemetery is, it was twilight. There was that purple light you get at then under the trees, and it was sparkled with the intermittent gold of fireflies over the plain, grey stones, and I stood there for a long time. Then as I came back, there were, impossibly, even more fireflies over the neat, rolling green lawns by the colonial houses for the caretakers, and under the willows with their stone benches, and the whole world seemed to be full of them, like it does if you catch it at the right time.
It was very beautiful, and I was thankful that I went there
It is partly the heat. Although my window has no screen, I leave it open because I need the air, and neither the busy road nor the collection of animals that live under the eaves are every completely silent. Their rustling and scratching seems in some ways a manifestation of the uneasiness that can come with the heavy summer temperatures.
More than that, though, it is certainly me: I am out of place; I have misplaced myself.
But this evening I entered the grounds of the asylum again, the big one, nearest my house. Before I had only walked around the perimeter, up to the cemetery and out again. Tonight I went straight up to the building, and I found that it was open.
They were all open. Every building, every gate I tried, they were open. They seemed to be resting. I did not go in to any of the buildings, except very briefly into the very first one, because I was afraid that someone might be making his home there and would not want me, but I spent a long time walking around.
I do not know if I’ve seen anywhere more beautiful. My camera’s battery is dead, so I could not take pictures, but there isn’t any way to capture how heartbreakingly beautiful this place is even with a photograph. It is so quiet, even though you can hear the cars going by all the time. It is so peaceful, even though it is surrounded everywhere by barbed wire and guarded gates and iron cages. Those things are no part of this place. The core of it is peaceful – or at least it is now. The place is astoundingly peaceful and astoundingly beautiful.
At one point, as I came up through an ivy covered arch into a wide, sloped courtyard, eddied with small hills and evergreens and two huge oaks, a rabbit hopped out of a depression in the lawn and sat watching me, completely still, for longer than I have ever seen one sit. It was the same brown as the trunks of the trees, and its tail was bright white. Its ears looked intelligent.
By the time I came up the hill at last to where the cemetery is, it was twilight. There was that purple light you get at then under the trees, and it was sparkled with the intermittent gold of fireflies over the plain, grey stones, and I stood there for a long time. Then as I came back, there were, impossibly, even more fireflies over the neat, rolling green lawns by the colonial houses for the caretakers, and under the willows with their stone benches, and the whole world seemed to be full of them, like it does if you catch it at the right time.
It was very beautiful, and I was thankful that I went there
0 Responses to “places”
Post a Comment