Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax
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Getting Out, Getting Better
Posted on July 20, 2003 in Book of Days Hope and Joy The Orange
Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer’s Book of Days. It’s something of a rebellion against the Friday Five and similar tupperware content memes.
Today’s topic: Write about passing time.
Stillness, lassitude within the confines of one’s house is the great enemy of sanity.
On the way back from Dripping Cave in Wood Canyon, I ran into a man standing atop a concrete ford, staring into the creek. When I asked him how it was going he said “Better, now that I got out and did something.” I walked over to where he was and looked into the cattails, plumbing their mystery. He walked on down the road while I waited for Lynn to catch up. That was the sum of our conversation. I didn’t ask him who he was or what he was doing there. Nor did I ask or dare imagine what brought him there. He needed to pass time, unquestioned by strangers.
I went out there to cure my own moodiness. The merciless shaving light of the sun kept me indoors these past two weekends. It cooled today and we went down near the shore. I could feel the tension in my chest, a burning crayon rubbed over my ribs and surface capillaries. Every beat of the heart hectored my brain. I lost myself in “issues” and fought the walls.
I needed to get out where the harriers roosted atop dead sycamores, where a lost mountain bluebird stationed itself atop a signpost leading nowhere, where trail bikers mashed a amber scorpion flat. We walked two and a half miles to the cave, marked the holes stage coach robbers had drilled in the rock to support their booty, and came back, where I met the man studying the algae in the creek as a means of passing time. The air smelled of mulefat and a wet bottom. We arrived back at the parking lot well before nightfall, free of the unspoken misgivings that I’d had when we’d set out.
Others who participate:
Want to participate? First either get yourself a copy of A Writer’s Book of Days by Judy Reeves or read these guidelines. Then either check in to see what the prompt for the day is or read along in the book.
Tomorrow’ topic/prompt: Write about packing a suitcase.
