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A fresh batch of dandelion seeds are racing across the surface of the pool, passing slower moving pellets of fish food as the wind blows across the surface of the water. It's late afternoon and the light is turning golden, slanting in and turning the water into golden greens and golden browns, dappled from the dirt and leaves at the bottom of the pool. It really does look just like an above-ground pond. My imagination strips off the edges of the pool and I see what I want to see, seeing a pond set into the ground. Imagination is a wonderful thing. But even when I let myself see the sides of the pool, it's still incredibly beautiful. At least to me.
I mowed the lawn this afternoon, racing and bumping around the yard on our riding lawnmower, Horton. (Yes, we named our lawn mower.) I love mowing the yard--it's so much fun. I steer with my left hand and pull up on the seat with my right to maintain enough pressure on the safety cut-off thingy (they don't design these mowers for people as small as I am) and keep my foot down hard on the gas, pretending I'm a cowboy or a racecar driver.
Pulling down my mail this morning with a mug of coffee in one hand, I suddenly remembered something from when I was a little girl. I remember wondering if I'd do my homework at a desk in my room when I was in high school and if it would make me feel more grown up. Well, kiddo, you hardly ever used your desk for school work, preferring to work on the floor or sitting in your big, comfy chair, but now you have a computer--have had it for years now--and you work at a desk. And yes, it does feel rather grown up--at least when remembering how you felt then, it does. It was neat, because for a moment I could feel the child I once was seeing everything through her eyes, and she thought it was all really neat. Yeah, it is really neat. It's neat to be a happy grown-up and it's neat to work on such an incredible computer--when I was a kid, Trash-80's were the hot new thing. Sometimes life tastes like a bottomless orange soda.
Today was Happy Mail Day email-wise. You who've written me really sweet letters, today or any other day, you know who you are. Thank you. I found one in particular really interesting because it mentioned things I've long believed. Basically how sharing ourselves on the web is making the world a little smaller, filling it with more understanding to bring us all a bit closer together. Those in power will probably continue to bring us all grief, but among the rest of the population of the world, (those with access, that is), the internet is bringing dramatic changes. When we can see that our brothers and sisters in other countries and cultures are essentially the same as we are, when we can hear their voices as if they were sitting beside us sharing iced tea and afternoon sunlight, and when they can explain their differences to us, we learn to forget the ignorant and prejudiced things we may have been taught. Black and white, gay and straight, American and Japanese--while some will always hang onto their hatreds, others were given their hatreds and are flexible enough to throw them away when they see that we are all very similar. We laugh, we cry, we have dreams, we have fears, and our differences--are they truly more than those between someone who lives in Chicago and someone who lives in New York? When you think about it? I think our differences are small because we are all the same in the essentials. And we're telling each other this; we're showing each other this. Perhaps I sound like a raging liberal or a bleeding heart or whatever. I'm not. But I just can't help feeling that if there's a bunch of people in the world whom I might hate (personality-wise), there's also got to be a whole bunch of people whom I would love like siblings. I can't help but feel this way.
Olana Send me a photo for the pond album if you'd like to be included.
on horseback: journey in spring. --Natsume Soseki
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