Waiting for the impact of Hurricane Irene has both mundane and surreal aspects. We pick up groceries as always, but this time wondering whether that big tree in the front yard will crash down on our home soon. Where might we be with our little parcel of possessions in 24 hours? Things are suspended: trains, trips, even time until we can resume our daily routines.
I always have more flashlights and radios than any one person needs, so I did not have to trek to the mall for those items. I did go to the library for extra books, finding two on Newsweek's list of books read by President Obama since the last campaign, "What is the What" by Dave Eggers and "Plainsong" by Kent Haruf. And I am only halfway through a book about Britain's folk music craze and another book it made me want to read again,Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native."
I always have more flashlights and radios than any one person needs, so I did not have to trek to the mall for those items. I did go to the library for extra books, finding two on Newsweek's list of books read by President Obama since the last campaign, "What is the What" by Dave Eggers and "Plainsong" by Kent Haruf. And I am only halfway through a book about Britain's folk music craze and another book it made me want to read again,Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native."
Being an elder without a household full of people wanting meals and laundry on time regardless of the weather, I have the discretionary time to dawdle and muse. Since finding out last week that a dear friend from the 1970s has passed, I keep coming back to the thought that whatever we experience in this much-touted storm, he will not share in it. As much as we are all trying to fill the time until we learn our fate this weekend, I keep sensing that void. A lot of memories crowd in.
So while I am prepared for the deluge as best I can be, I will stay off the road and just do a bit of time travel in books and in thoughts, among those buckets of rain.
--Bernice
What is the What was excellent; way better than Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius I thought. I'm chugging through "The Uncrowned King," an excellent bio of William Randolph Hearst.
ReplyDeleteI am currently reading the following:
ReplyDelete"The Pox and the Covenant: Mather, Franklin, and the Epidemic That Changed America's Destiny" by Tony Williams (I am drawn to reading about the history of contagions in the "New World" and their effect on world events); "Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894-1994" by Deborah Gray White (antidote to the execrable "The Help"--lol); and "Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural" by Ronald C. White, Jr. I will, as usual, also be playing on Facebook until the power goes out. Heh.
Rebecca