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Is This Real Life?
By Billy | November 3, 2011
I feel funny. Is this going to be forever?
(no, of course not. this too shall pass)
Austria is unbearably beautiful right now. A thick and everpresent fog has descended upon us. If you can even see the mountains nuzzling whichever little hamlet you’re in, you certainly can’t see past them. Today I stepped outside into the crisp morning air at 6:37. It was as bright then as it will be all day. We are utterly timeless. I lost track of time five days ago.
There is an everpresent precipitation occuring of late. It’s real enough to see when you look at the sky, but magical enough that you don’t know there’s water falling on you when you go outside and play tag with the children. I’ve always had a hunch that I could live in Seattle or anywhere else where it rains more often than not. This summer it rained a lot, this Autumn it’s cloudy for weeks a time — a cloudiness I’ve never seen. It’s not in the sky, it’s on the ground. I absolutely love it.
It’s scarf season. I have loved scarves since I was a small child. Winnie the Pooh wore scarves and mittens, and I wanted to do the same. In my younger years, I thought only women could wear scarves and mittens, so if I ever found one in the closet, I would don it for a moment, imagine what it would be like to wear a scarf outside in the snow, and then I’d take it off and zip up my coat. Now I wear scarves probably every day.
I don’t have light weight gloves, so I wear socks on my hands. I made a child cry yesterday because I tagged her in a game of “Fangen” (which means catch. It’s confusing that they call “tag” “catch.”) with a sock on my hand and she didn’t want my socks to touch her. I told her they’d never been on my feet since I washed them, and she just whined the word, “trotzdem.” That’s one of my favorite words and it means something to the effect of “however” and “nonetheless.” Someday I cannot provide tough love for small children. I can be such a coddler.
Fog (der Nebel) smells, tastes, looks, and feels like… Hum.
Maybe this will help:
(Yes, Autumn feels like a song called Summer)
Life is ethereal, eternal, an has a subtle sense of infernality. Otherworldly. The leaves when you can see them spotting the mountain guardians in the distance scream success and triumph. (I congratulate you!) Amidst the evergreen forest, there are subversive camps of patient beeches and mighty oaks. They keep together, but occasionally one will go off on their own and start their own family. They want you to know that their fleeting nature is fleeting, too. They want you to know that their death necessitates a life, and their life demands a death. They want you to know that Living is different from biological aliveness. They want you to know it’s OK.
When the leaves started their leafing in August, I raged against their dying light. Now I’m begging the leaves to stay — just for a week, just for a week. Do not go gentle into that good night.
There’s someone I need you to meet. I am always backpaddling. Always backpaddling. Always backpaddling.
In the mean time, let’s all look at this kid who is stuck in a fog:
And what the hell? The Be Good Tanyas, too! Because, because!
Topics: This is my life | Comments Off on Is This Real Life?
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