6/29/07

Sometimes, it amazes me how much women can talk. These three, behind me on the train, talk something important, it’s clear from the tone, but their Spanish is faster than I can catch, and the sense of what they speak is meant to stay between them. Their mouths are full of popcorn and gunfire, rising and falling, piercing and dodging, so that I cover my ears, like a latecomer forced to the front row of an IMAX flick. I fold my book at the creases, trying to pay attention to Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, but the talk keeps piercing, keeps folding in over my shoulder, and I’m reminded that life isn’t in books, only reflected in them. On the next train, I look for the quietest spot to sit, next to a man reading a book. I notice his book is covered with paper, a picture of a woman and child that he wrapped round the covers himself. I find wrapped books suspect, like there might be pornography or white supremacy hiding between the pages. But when I lean over I see the book is in Greek, there is a whole other world behind that story. And so, I sit and watch the black of the subway tunnel punctuated by blue and yellow lights. Are they to lead our way? We are what we make ourselves. How we live our days is how we live our lives, Annie says. Ideas come in like arrows on a wire, sticking for a moment, then retracted by that unseen beast in the shadows.