Baydreamin'

A fog of lace. (Photo: Erin Whitney)

I could spend hours looking out through these lace curtains. A different view through each small hole – a patch of grass, a pink clover, the tip of the wharf, a lazy soaring gull. Shift focus back and a fuller picture emerges but not quite clear, fuzzy clouds of lace obscuring my view. It's a drizzly day, the air warm and close, wrapped around me like a blanket and keeping me from feeling fully awake. I drift along the roads and paths of Keels, walking right through the puddles, rubber boots sinking into the soft wet grass.

It's a day that is resisting getting things done. A few doors knocked on this morning, appointments made for interviews tomorrow, one set for this afternoon already put off. Tomorrow will be busy, but today remains soft and open, keeping afloat in milky tea, reading, writing, preparing, thinking. Maybe I've still got some fog in my lungs from my hike along the Skerwink Trail in Trinity East yesterday morning. The springy comfort of forest floor underfoot, gulping in the scent of pine, moss and juniper like an addict, fog so thick it would catch you if you lost your footing on the cliff.

One more week - do we really have to go back to town? To the concrete and crosswalks and coffee and classrooms? I want to offer my surrender to the bay – to the boats and bogs and berries and bonfires. Maybe I'll bring these lace curtains back with me. Wear them over my head like an errant mummer, a fine foggy filter between me and that dirty old town. 

A day obscured. (Photo: Erin Whitney)