Sunday

I walk down the stairs into a flood of golden light.  I look around to see where it's coming from, an almost blinding wash of sunlight pouring in through the kitchen window: washes former things away.  When I pass through again on my way out the door, the world has gone back to gray.

My sense of forgetfulness keeps me around home all day:  I soaked beans, and then ran the dishwasher.  Promptly forgot about the dishwasher until I came downstairs to rinse and cook the beans.  Dishwasher still running, it's the old-fashioned kind, slow and plugged into the sink for water. Find I am wasting too much time on the computer, so eventually turn it off and go out to find somewhere to get some writing done.  I go to the park.

The sun is hot, the lake smells from all the algae.  I walk around it anyway, working on the monologue - walking helps me with text.  Halfway, I see a heron trying to eat something.  A little ways over a small crowd has gathered to watch.  This bird has caught a large fish, and is trying to gulp it down.  It's some sorta' catfish-looking creature, gray and bewhiskered.  The bird keeps stabbing at it with it's beak, but without talons, or a crushing beak, not really able to break it down into a manageable size.  After about 20 minutes, it finally does manage to swallow the fish.  Looks like it just went down and got stuck in the throat.  The heron walks a few feet and stands on a rock, occasionally dipping it's beak into the water for a drink.  Can't imagine flying with that fish in the belly, nor how long it would take to digest.  Looked uncomfortable, but I guess it won the battle.

And now evening is falling, a breeze blowing the birch branches when I look out my window, the whistle of a referee cutting through the constant sound of traffic.  I'm home again, and still waiting for the beans to cook.  (Apparently, they are quite old, they end up taking hours.)  Sitting around actually working through the script.  The darkness tricks me into thinking it's later than it is.