I don’t know how it happened- I thought the summer was dust. By myself I drift through the Midwest. On my bike I go from park to park. The small dogs, green grass, leaves on trees, the smell of the air, families on stoops- I’m part of it and moving through it at the same time. A multi-celled organism adrift in the warm inland sea. “When you look into the oceans’ depths, they are there unseen, right before your eyes. Much of the sea is actually a crowded place, swarming with organisms struggling to survive and aspiring to reproduce. The majority of these creatures are small, too small to see, including tiny plants, animals, bacteria, and other microbes. In just one teaspoon of sea water there may be millions of organisms. Drinking seawater- not a good idea for a whole host of reasons!” -Ellen Prager, Sex Drugs and Sea Slime. And yet our mouths are almost always open.
When I woke I had blueberry yogurt with coffee and listened to my mom’s Exile on Main Street. That’s the kind of sound memory that cannot be shared digitally- a warm and imperfect record handed down from one generation to the next. I did that in the sun with my cat. Later I had more coffee and a piece of bourbon pecan pie- and followed the sun West on my bike. A Mexican family walked out of the matinee showing of Casa De Mi Padre. I do not blame the parents. That’s an example of an audio visual memory best handed down from one generation to the next when the kids are older.
3rdarm for President. 3rdarm for coffee in the sun, 3rdarm for sufficient sleep and warm Western light.