Tag: stroll

Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 46

garethlivesay1 Comment

Hi.

Coffee: Maxwell House Drip, Office Coffee

Since it’s Spring, and cool, and a little cloudy, I took a short walk after work today. Nothing special, just a circuit around the apartment complex. There were weeks last summer where I would take a walk like this every day, but with winter and rampant rain for the last few months my strolls had tapered off.

Here’s what I saw:

Two kids were swinging on the swing set. They were both wearing blue, though not the same shade, and they were both talking loudly about school, though with different pitched voices. Isn’t it nice how kids become each other when they’re playing together? It’s easy to slip together with someone when you’re still learning who you are.

I saw a lot of crushed flowers on the creek banks. It rained so hard yesterday that trees were coming down. The creek flooded. The wind walloped. The brightest spring colors were washed into the mud. This means we’re close to summer. Another couple weeks and the heat-stink will be back. Oh well. Spring’s mostly beautiful because it doesn’t last.

A family of four was walking with their dog, a big black German shepherd, and the dad had to reign the dog in when it saw me. It started barking and slobbering. It was trying to protect it’s family. It looked very young. It hasn’t been around long enough to know I spend just about every day choosing to not be a threat. That’s what being human’s all about, right? The choice to avoid violence? Puppies can’t do that without a leash and a firm hand.

Two geese went by as I got home. They shared a long, sad honk. They looked like they were headed somewhere, maybe farther north for summer. I don’t know what they were sad about, what they were missing.

Novel Count: 37,208

Currently Reading: The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes

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A sound like a big crowd a good way off, excited and shouting, getting closer. We stand up and scan the empty sky. Suddenly there they are (the geese), a wavering V headed directly over the hilltop, quite low, beating southward down the central flyway and talking as they pass. We stay quiet suspending our human conversation until their garulity fades and their wavering lines are invisible in the sky.
They have passed over us like an eraser over a blackboard, wiping away whatever was there before they came.

Wallace Stegner


Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 5

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Hi.

Coffee: Sumatra Medium Dark, Trader Joe’s Brand

The forecast says its strolling weather. And by ‘forecast’ I mean the three families and half-dozen kids that are hanging around the apartment playground.

I took a short walk around the complex. Here’s what I saw:

Three 3-foot girls in pink puffy jackets skipping on stones in the creek-bed. Two old men – completely unrelated to each other – both wearing ball-caps and working hard at that sort-of-scowl-sort-of-smile you expect of a grandfather. One dog walking, ignoring it’s owner, and another dog upright behind a black fence watching people walk by. So many cold winter trees. It’s almost spring but they haven’t caught on. A few cars. And a 2nd floor railing that’s still strung up with Christmas lights.

Strolling weather – my favorite time of the year.

Novel Count: 26,709

Currently Reading: Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami

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I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

John Muir

Coffee Log, Day 277

garethlivesay2 Comments

Hi.

Coffee: French Roast, Trader Joe’s Brand; woke up a bit late, caught the coffee just after the heater went off; that’s my favorite time to drink it – a bit stale, a bit sour, but still warm.

I took a walk yesterday. It’s been so cold or wet or dark or busy that I haven’t taken a walk for a while. I took my usual route out of the neighborhood and towards a strip of greenway that follows a stream and courts the backsides of some houses. It was Sunday, there were some families and some joggers. It was just a bit chilly.

I always feel forgiven walking in the woods. Not for anything specific, but the trees are accepting, like ‘this is a place you can be.’

I took the long way up Maynard. There were cars. It’s a steep hill and you’re getting tossed all around by the wind coming off the cars. Then you’re in another neighborhood that goes up and down and has a lot of money so all the lawns are nice. There were Japanese Maples and some yellow trees. I passed a couple. I said hello. They were pleasant. The guy had a limp.

And after all that I came home and opened all the windows in the house, wanting to be baptized in the world a little more.

Novel Count: 13,662 words

Currently Reading: Autumn, Ali Smith; Cherry, Nico Walker

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We all have forests on our minds. Forests unexplored, unending. Each one of us gets lost in the forest, every night, alone.

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters


Coffee Log, Day 222

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Hi.

Coffee: French Roast, Trader Joe’s Brand

A dog-walk day.

I took a stroll. Sundown, 2nd of October. My mouth was still wet from dinner. I started on the second floor landing, thought about the book I wrote that started on a second floor landing. Kids on the playground; parents at the picnic tables. I crossed the creek and sidled the first floor apartment that’s got a screen door. The TV was going. A courtroom drama. Objection!

It wasn’t until I passed the pool that I started to see them: bipedallers puttering around with leashes leading every size of furball into the first comfortable day of Autumn. I think I counted five in all, about four more than most days. They fell to two categories: guys in cargo shorts looking bored as toy poodles pulled them around; women in athletic wear talking to their cell phones. That dogs yipped and bapped at each other, yipped and bapped at me, made up for every lack of interest in their owners. To them, it was Christmas. To them it was the fifteen-hundred down on a new car, new wheels, broad October, open roads, wild nights. For five to ten minutes, the dogs got to remember that their paws once clawed beds of dirt, hunted woods and fields. For the same amount of time, the people got to think about what show to watch when they got home.

Currently Reading: Autumn, Ali Smith; Cherry, Nico Walker

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“To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.” – Aldous Huxley

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Coffee Log, Day 135

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Hi.

Coffee: Cafe Pajaro Extra Dark Roast, Trader Joe’s Brand

The rain took the heat away, then the rain went away too; packed-up houses. I took my daily walk in the space it left.

Tonight, I saw: a new family. The mother and father were both taller than me; their son was twig-high. He was toddling, dressed in a red tee. They held both his hands when he needed it. The three walked the parking lot searching for sticks and acorns. He picked one; he wasn’t satisfied.

“They’re better by the playground,” Dad says.

“Yeah,” says the toddler.

There’s a bend in the neighborhood that obscures oncoming traffic. The rain washed the tires of an SUV loud enough for me to dodge. My downstairs neighbor drove by. She waved. In her wake, I saw a mother and daughter slogging toward recycling. Mom was stern. She had handfuls of wood and cardboard. Her daughter was sterner. She pulled a pink wagon full of broken boxes.

Trees look best in a storm; your first love coming out the shower. I snapped a few pictures, even the sewers looked nice.

At the dog park, wet fluffs were yapping. They had death in their lungs but cuddles everywhere else. Their owners chatted across the fence. The dogs weren’t happy. Both were fat, still hungry.

The last stretch goes by the office, the pool, there’s a deck that’s always open and a guy in a dark armchair who’s always watching TV. We see each other often but look away when our eyes catch.

I took the new bridge across the stream. I saw the family again, only the Dad and son this time. I waved. Dad waved. The kid ran circles, he was scared of me; I’m no stick, no acorn. I said “Hi Hi!” to red shirt, folding my best paper-plane smile.

“Say hello,” said Dad.

“No!” said his son.

He ran away to find more fairies. I wasn’t hurt; summer storms are enticing company.

Currently Reading: LaRose, Louise Erdrich

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“I’m tryna get high as I can.” – Future, Hate the Real Me

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Coffee Log, Day 94

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Cafe Pajaro Extra Dark Roast, Trader Joe’s brand

Walking in the parking lot: girl in purple jogs by, seen her a few times; crickets; last ditch birds holding that daysong; every light’s on at the apartments; the moon is woebegone.

I left home to make home out of nothing. A high-pitched air conditioner; it’s all still following me.

Currently Reading:
Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson

Even so, there were times I saw freshness and beauty. I could smell the air, and I really loved rock ‘n’ roll. Tears were warm, and girls were beautiful, like dreams. I liked movie theaters, the darkness and intimacy, and I liked the deep, sad summer nights. – Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

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