Interruption

Dad and I were walking in the woods near my house the other day. A perfectly linear setting: concrete bike path (straight), lines of still un-leafed aspens (straight), sun behind us (long, straight shadows). Tree tree tree tree tree tree tree moose tree tree tree tree.

This is the miraculousness of the moose, the way it inserts itself into a landscape, a massive behorned ungulant about six and a half feet tall melting into shadow and bark. One rarely sees a moose, but often thinks one has. The Latin name for the North American moose, which I remember from CBC Television ads (I think--where else would this have come from?) is Alces alces. Reminiscent of the perfume that soaks my adolescent memories (every third girl in my class wore it, well. . . "enthusiastically," shall we say?)--Anais Anais. I confess to conflating moose with blue eyeshadow, The Sweet and (more appropriately) jeans with flannel cuffs.

A strange snowstorm today is blanketing the city--my tiny crocuses are already buried, two days after they first saw light. It's melancholy and not as amusing as our regularly scheduled "freak" spring blizzards are, mostly because a friend has passed, suddenly. Just 29, in love with his life. Two days later, brain death, organ donation. In Virginia, of all places, where all kinds of young people have been mown down. Looking out my study window at the snow erasing every subtle sign of spring just moments after we first sensed them, I feel like it's all making a horrid fatal kind of sense and fully expect to be struck down. Except, as a quick look to my right confirms instantly, no one would mourn youth in my case.

Feh. The only way to turn this around is to go dance in the backyard like a lunatic. Wish you were here.