In Praise of Fog

11/24/2006 8:36 AM – 8:57 AM

The fog has come to Elmwood. It arrived sometime around the end of the Dallas-Tampa Bay game. I’ll walk, in a few minutes, and see how far it goes. Clearing one’s mind, the inevitable dreams of the Old Girl comes and we proceed on wetted streets.

All through the night and into faded dawn, we slept. Longer than anticipated. Awakening, we find ourselves in a world twice removed from that in which we bedded down. First, the light, second, the dreams. Indulging in the pleasant emotions of the dream-state, one finds that love is, in fact, enough. Awakening, the dream fades so we indulge in opiates that carry on through the walking life, benumbed to the possibility of endless torment and present not-quite-enough. This little piece is enough. Holding onto it loosely, like a rope that glides us through the impenetrable image of the lower caves.

The clouds align and settle down, hiding life, just life, from prying eyes. The great Paparazzi will have to wait for a better time to get the shot. So let us imagine then that we are free and clear, that the day is enough to carry us through all. Where is that one he said would come? Ah well, let us imagine he is here and so we will recognize the inherent allrightness of living in the endless day of judges, doing what we guess is right. The bubbles escape from the murky bottom waters and we rise with them, past the thickest mud, ascending without fear past the snake and alligator to the green slime that coats the surface water of the bracken swamp, where we join the subtlest pulls to and from the mountains and the ocean. The time of kings and serfs forgotten in being, just being. The drawings on the walls, the music of the footsteps, it is enough to be a lesser creature when one is warm and full and ready for sleep. Let us then praise fog for all its power to forget itself and us along with it, leaving room for stories worth telling.