Shadows, Dust, Peace

Early one morning last week, I was walking Radar just before dawn. The stars were still thick and precise, the moon impossibly bright between the branches of pine.

Something moved just behind me in the grass. I started. My heart shuddered. And I stood perfectly still.

After a moment, I tugged on Radar's leash and kept walking. Again, something moved.

When I looked down at my feet, I could see a darker spot against the night darkness of the grass. It was my shadow being cast by the moon.

Literally, I was afraid of my own shadow.

***

Saturday, up to Washington DC on a school-enforced trip to the National Book Festival ("sponsored by the Library of Congress and Laura Bush"). A block away, a protest for peace was being held. As my fellow teachers and I trudged through the remarkable inches of dust on the National Mall, people walked through with their placards and signs denouncing the administration.

("I wonder if Laura Bush is here," I wondered aloud.
"I doubt it," said my friend.
I looked at the dust on my feet, encrusted on my shoes, lining the threads on my jeans. "No, probably not.")

My fellow teachers, being Virginians, didn't exactly approve of the peace protest. I have been careful not to align myself too closely with my own politics at work, so I don't think it even occurred to them that I might, in my heart, be marching right along with those same protesters that they were belittling.

The odd thing is this: I actually like these people. Obviously, they won't be affecting my beliefs, but it's been a long time since I've been exposed to people whose allegiances were so far away from mine. I was surprised by my response, that I still wanted to be their friends, that I wanted to listen to their opinions, even though I disagreed so strongly. I wanted to understand them.

***

To their credit, they did very much seem to enjoy Donald Hall's new poem, "We Bring Democracy to the Fish." Easily one of the most brilliant things I've heard all year, that poem.

***

Bumper sticker: Imagine whirled peas. It took me three rereadings to understand what it said. I was imagining peas in a circles.

***

For those of you who might potentially be reading my blog for information about others: For my lover, now it's Syria for two months, with credits to be applied to his graduate school. Potentially, I will see him in December, for a day.

I am happy for him. And the timeline of two months is immeasurably better than the two years that it might have been.

Still. The weeks and months have chains on their legs and drag them through my hours.