We were to have gone away last week, to Quebec City was the original plan, but then we learned you can’t get there from here, or, if you do it will take 20 hours on a train or a plane. You can drive up 91 from the ferry, but we didn’t want to do that, so we scratched Quebec City.
Then it occurred to me we’d never been to Asheville, and that maybe it would be nice to go there. Robin said we could fly direct from La Guardia, and so we decided we’d do that in October. It’s always nice to have something to look forward to. Don’t look back, as Satchel Paige said, for something might be gaining on you. I’ve been feeling that way lately, to wit, that eternity’s just behind the door, one that I don’t want to open at the moment. But if you feel that way, things do take on a glow. Indeed, the world is magical.
Chimerical too, i.e., frightening — largely because of our desire to run things, to hold sway, rather than follow ‘the way’ — in the little time we have. You wonder which will win out. Meanwhile, it’s magichimeric, I guess.
Speaking of magic, our daughter from Ohio is bewitched by the light out here. “We don’t have this light in Ohio,” she says. “You’re glowing, you can even see it on your roof tiles.”
I’ve heard Venice has that golden light too. But Venice is sinking. Too many tourists. The same might be said of this place, at least in the summer. Too many people. Perhaps we’re sinking too. The water’s rising, that’s for sure. But, hey, we’ve got that glow.
“Go to the light,” Mary, my spiritual guide, says whenever we find ourselves at sea in a vast and labyrinthine mall at dusk, which I’m happy to say isn’t often.
I do, and am saved.