I got on an airplane on Sunday afternoon and whisked through the sky, clear blue above the fogs and cloud, to the seats of power – Washington, D.C. ((I can’t figure out why it’s called Washington D.C. I mean, why not just D.C.? It’s not like there’s a Jefferson, Hell or Paradise, D. C.)) In truth I didn’t set foot in D.C. – only to the extent that IAD/Dulles is considered D.C. the same way SFO is considered San Francisco, albeit not near the City at all. Straight to Bethesda with me.
I got on an airplane on Monday evening and whisked through the sky, indigo and starry above the rain clouds, back home. My flight was cancelled and instead of arriving home at a relatively comfortable 10 p.m., I was delayed until the small hours of Tuesday morning. Mostly I just got a day older. So much fucking life is wasted on airplanes.
I took Secret on the mountain Tuesday mid-morning. I had intentions of taking photographs of trees. Instead I took pictures of leafs. Sometimes it’s like that – I go looking for the whole and I get distracted by the beauty of the dead and discarded parts. We had to journey earlier than usual because I had a dentist appointment in the afternoon. I’d say I dreaded the dentist, but this one is so jovial, kind and genuinely concerned that part of me really looks forward to the visit despite the impending pain.
What makes it all the better is the traveling there. I ride my mountain bike ten miles along streets canopied with trees and a canal that leads to the bay – where I catch the ferry to the City. There’s carp in the canal this time of year – some over three feet long, that get trapped in the shallows when the tide goes out – in less than six inches of water in some places. I didn’t know carp lived in brackish waters.
And then back again once it’s all done with. But behind a shopping plaza I caught my handle bar in the chain linked fence while trying to maneuver around some scaffolding. The bike, of course, stopped abruptly and my knee slammed into the scaffolding. Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch. That’s the kind of pain that reminds me I’m alive.
It seems like the further we distance ourselves from the planet, the less valuable our experiences are. That’s a strange thing to ponder as it seems like it would be such a treasure to look back at earth from outer space – a big blue marble of a planet (who some have said should have been named water instead of earth.) I bet it would be beautiful. I bet it would feel incredibly lonely too.
