Last night, lying on the couch wrapped in a blanket and reading his book, my companion said, thoughtfully, “Now is about the time I wouldn’t mind watching some football.” Ah, if only we had a TV. But we don’t! I decided to act some out for him, make him feel at home. I snatched up a basket that was lying about and clutched it jealously against my ribs, made a scuttled rush across the floor, growling. Arr, I said, growwwwr. Dumped the basket just inside the next doorway and rolled and fell, invisibly tackled from behind. Rawwwwwr, I said: rawwwwwwwr! (That’s the crowd). He watched, marking his place with a long finger. “That was good. But when I say football, really I am talking about soccer.” The European game! Oh, then… I sat down and we went back to our books.
Tag: love
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she-moon
Can there be anything more magnificent than clouds passing, at night between us and the stars, unhurriedly and without pause passing from east to west like the sun. In the distant western hills a community of storm birds screeches and wheedles and spools and yearns. The visitor I brought back with me from Europe had never seen the Southern Cross. It took him a long time to see what I was pointing at, some weeks back, because it is famous and small and dim: a cross properly. Dame Southern Land. The reef, the trees, the ineffable quiet hills. All of the creatures who burrow along the branches or through soil here underneath my head. The long beach, the wrecked mountains, the pulse. I’ll fight for you.
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the great beauty
If there is a chance you can get to see the Italian film before it closes The Great Beauty: do. It is just full and wonderful. Luscious but with not a drop running over, rich with sentiment free from sentimentalism. We sat so spellbound by the slow credits when the lights rose we were alone in the cinema. All the way home we were talking about it, but silently, pointing things out to each other to see. Under the moon we talked about it, mostly in gestures and unfinished language: the part with the flamingoes! the nun climbing the stone steps on her knees! the strippers in the window, the tourist who dies and the women singing on the antique balcony! It’s about a writer, who is old now and has only ever written one book. By the end of the film he knows what he will write next. He’s standing on a cliff top, indescribably except by film. If you love music, or dancing, or writing, or Rome, or the fact that human civilization has existed for a time on this planet: go see the film. I found it superbole.
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to stars
In an unpretentious Italian restaurant where all the pasta had been made by hand, the chatting-family atmosphere fell into something much deeper and richer and darker. A cellist had walked in and in his overcoat sat down on a backless chair in front of the servery and began to play. Something, I don’t know what. He drove his fibres of unholy sound into the great grail of all of us, each of us, like an ochre long-blown off the palm of his hand. I saw the small boy with dark lozenges of eyes climb down from his chair at the corner table in the second room and go to stand, unconsciously in the waiter’s path, his head a jar for the tadpoles of surety this man was making for us. He stood and stood, listening and watching, lost to every other thing. Behind him his parents and their friend kept chatting and only the older, grizzled, quizzical looking man at another table let his gaze rest on the little music lover so fondly, brimming with acceptance, and I let my gaze rest on him in turn and the music rested on all of us, like snow, that spares no needle in the pine forest and lifts its shifting darkness turn to stars.