October in Paris
Oct. 5th, 2004 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I think the secret of my apartment building -- the reason it's called October Mansion -- is that the entire structure is actually carved from one giant piece of amber, and when the angle is right -- beginning on the first of October -- it's lit from within by an astonishing warm golden glow, as though we all lived in a bottle of really good brandy and swam ecstatically through its light. Sometimes, just at dawn, you can see the faint skeletal shadow of a trapped insect's wing throwing its frail mesh across the floor, magnified through the lens of your kitchen wall.
I don't know what happens in November (apart from my birthday, ahem) -- I suspect the light moves and the building seems like dull brick and opaque stone for another year. So if you'd like to see Paris in October, plan your trips now. If you don't have a private jet (and we can't all be grumpy bastards), my good friend B. points out that the Number 14 bus goes right by Paris.
Greatest.kids.evaaaar
I met grumpy bastard's (see above) Dogkids the other day. While he and their mother smoked and talked philosophy on the deck, musing over the star-glittered view of the Gorge, the kids and I played what I have dubbed Speed Hide n' Seek. This involves a small child shouting random numbers while staring directly at you and running full-tilt in your direction while you "hide". Each round lasts approximately fifteen seconds. Then it's your turn. Then it's their turn. And so on. We made occasional forays onto the deck to make sure they weren't getting too laid-back.
It reminded me again that the only thing I'm sad about in my parents' move to Gibsons is that I have no kids to take to their house. it's a great house, not very far from the water, and I have so many good memories of that place as a kid that I want someone else to experience it. I like being there, and seeing them, but there's a missing generation of screaming happy hungry people, and somehow I feel the lack most when I'm there.
I don't know if my brother plans to have kids. I sort of hope so, because I decided a long time ago that I wasn't, and, barring an act of Dog--
Hmm, that's an odd image.
Anyway, no kids for (or at least from) me.
--rf
I don't know what happens in November (apart from my birthday, ahem) -- I suspect the light moves and the building seems like dull brick and opaque stone for another year. So if you'd like to see Paris in October, plan your trips now. If you don't have a private jet (and we can't all be grumpy bastards), my good friend B. points out that the Number 14 bus goes right by Paris.
Greatest.kids.evaaaar
I met grumpy bastard's (see above) Dogkids the other day. While he and their mother smoked and talked philosophy on the deck, musing over the star-glittered view of the Gorge, the kids and I played what I have dubbed Speed Hide n' Seek. This involves a small child shouting random numbers while staring directly at you and running full-tilt in your direction while you "hide". Each round lasts approximately fifteen seconds. Then it's your turn. Then it's their turn. And so on. We made occasional forays onto the deck to make sure they weren't getting too laid-back.
It reminded me again that the only thing I'm sad about in my parents' move to Gibsons is that I have no kids to take to their house. it's a great house, not very far from the water, and I have so many good memories of that place as a kid that I want someone else to experience it. I like being there, and seeing them, but there's a missing generation of screaming happy hungry people, and somehow I feel the lack most when I'm there.
I don't know if my brother plans to have kids. I sort of hope so, because I decided a long time ago that I wasn't, and, barring an act of Dog--
Hmm, that's an odd image.
Anyway, no kids for (or at least from) me.
--rf
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 09:31 pm (UTC)I know the feeling of wanting to share the glorious moments of childhood with someone else--to watch them experience what you experienced. Isn't this what Christmas is all about? We want to watch the ghosts of our old selves wake up ecstatic with excitement. Is this why people have children? To reproduce their own joy--make it a living memory?
B
repro
Date: 2004-10-05 11:28 pm (UTC)But, um, yeah, the good thing too.
I feel ambivalent about my genes. I'm fond of some of them, and would really like to give those a chance to go around again. Some of them I'm pretty sure would bring down the while species if they were allowed to propagate.
Which, you know, possible bonus.
< / unnecessary bleakness >
No, I actually think you're right -- I really do want to ((((spread joy)))) -- don't tell anyone. I remember that kid ecstasy. Infinite magic. I want someone else to have that.
The ex-co-con and I talked about foster kids sometimes.
--rf
October light
Date: 2004-10-06 12:06 am (UTC)Here's hoping that November brings more surprises (good ones of course).
Re: October light
Date: 2004-10-06 01:08 am (UTC)It's one of the things I keep.
I wonder if in Prince George (municipality of my birth), farther north, it might start earlier. Because I associate that light with late August and September, but my building, as I say, seems to be calibrated for October.
--rf
i can act like a kid if conditions are right
Date: 2004-10-06 06:32 pm (UTC)leirdal
Re: i can act like a kid if conditions are right
Date: 2004-10-06 07:08 pm (UTC)I mean, honestly, I think I appreciate things a lot *more* now than I did when I was a kid. I certainly understand them better. But I can't experience them in that particular way.
*Not* that I don't appreciate the offer. And really, really, really enjoy the idea of my grandmother trying to figure you out.
I always feel an overwhelming responsibility to play in the snow when it's there, especially since it's so rare in this area. Which, come to think of it, is not very playful of me.
--rf
Re: i can act like a kid if conditions are right
Date: 2004-10-06 07:09 pm (UTC)--rf
no subject
Date: 2004-10-06 08:12 pm (UTC)"One loses so much when one becomes incredulous."
incredulous play
Date: 2004-10-07 12:59 am (UTC)But lately I feel like I'm much more rigid than I thought I was. My brain stiff like my body in this chair all day. That's an odd thing for me to have to say. I always thought I'd escape that particular trope of aging.
--rf
...incredulous
Date: 2004-10-07 12:59 am (UTC)\i/
no subject
Date: 2004-10-06 11:29 pm (UTC)A wide variety of our city's transit routes pass by Paris for those who know to look - my favourite being the number 22, or the Irony Express as I know it: at a time when I could most have used the number 22 in order to get to my place of work I could sit for easily half an hour and watch 10 other busses pass by all going elsewhere. Now that I almost never take the route, if perchance I sit at a bus stop what is the one that always comes first? Really, take a guess...
Sadly the 10 is no more. It made such a lovely decorous turn at that corner. The 6 gets one close, and it's worth the work to make the rest of the trek. Avalon is on the way for those of an Arthurian bent (or who just need good toast and eggs). The 11, though largely indistinguishable from the 14 these days, also runs past. All in such a hurry to make straight lines. Meander, I say. Enjoy the amber days. Kick up some leaves. Just don't track them in.
\o/
(the sig ought to be self explanatory for those who've seen the recent tonsorial update)