A Glacier on Granite

Fifty-eight degrees. A light, steady rain. Smoke. A four o’clock run.

I don’t care to be in a room full of noisy people. A room full of quiet people, I can appreciate and enjoy. People are at their best when they’re quiet. I can move about among them as I move about among rocks and trees, loving them softly, without needing, seeking, or expecting love in return. But I love noisy people too; it’s just a bit wearing to receive so many signals all at once, requests, demands, offers, cries for help.

Cemeteries are nice; so are great cathedrals in the cedars, redwoods, and pines.

It’s possible, too, that if I’m quiet enough, a room full of noisy people will become quiet too. Maybe I’ve never been that quiet. Maybe I’m noisy without saying a word. Maybe I’ve grown a bit senile, and am a bundle of nerves.

Let’s say you’re in a room full of people, and everyone is quietly waiting for you to speak. Let’s say you’re hoping you’ll be able to say something truly worthwhile. Let’s say that when you’re finally ready to open your mouth, someone clears his throat and moves towards the door. A stampede ensues. Someone popular and famous is in the next room. You find yourself alone. Then you speak — and your words flow like a glacier on granite. A thousand years later, there they are still. So are you.

Out for another run in the rain. The wind has picked up somewhat. But the smoke has thickened, the source being local field-burning, rather than wildfires. What must be in the smoke of burned fields? Fertilizers, pesticides — in a word, murder. Or should I say, suicide?

Read The Rambler, Numb. 7. Tuesday, April 10, 1750. The importance of solitude and time away from the stimulation of the senses in leading a religious life.

Our senses, our appetites, and our passions, are our lawful and faithful guides, in most things that relate solely to this life; and, therefore, by the hourly necessity of consulting them, we gradually sink into an implicit submission, and habitual confidence. Every act of compliance with their motions facilitates a second compliance, every new step towards depravity is made with less reluctance than the former, and thus the descent to life merely sensual is perpetually accelerated.

Read the thirty-fourth chapter of Middlemarch.

The seasons are the seasons, sure, but we bloom when and where we will.

September 25, 2023.

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