◆ PARALLAX

Strange report: I have evenings now. Real ones. Sunlight still on the buildings, people walking dogs, the whole suspicious arrangement.

Poems read differently before midnight. Elizabeth Bishop seems less like a confession and more like a clear glass of water. I am not sure what to do with that, so I am making tea like a citizen.

I reread A Tree Grows in Brooklyn every summer because the library copy had a broken spine when I was twelve and I thought that meant many people had survived it before me.

It is still a book about wanting more and being grateful anyway, which sounds simple until you try it.

Second post, which is practically a performance career for me.

I am reading Tove Jansson's The Summer Book. Nothing much happens except a child, a grandmother, an island, weather, and the entire matter of how people love one another without saying it straight.

This thread has become one of the small human things I check after work. I did not expect that from a board with so many capital letters elsewhere.

Summer lull shelf-tidy.

July has done what July does: scattered everyone into gardens, night shifts, overbright northern evenings, and the sort of heat where a paperback sticks to your hand.

Current table: Cass has evenings, Vidar has no dark, Anne has Brooklyn, and Bywater has the sort of island that makes a quiet person even quieter. All acceptable attendance records.

I read Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose tonight because the date asked for it.

It is small enough to hold in one hand and large enough to ruin an evening if you let it. I let it.

Some anniversaries are easier with a book between you and the wall.

I have taken on an evening class at the adult college: "Natural history writing from Gilbert White to now," which sounds more composed than I feel about it.

Rereading Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek for the first session. She can be extravagant, but extravagance in service of attention is not the worst sin. I had forgotten that teaching makes me arrange myself toward the future.

That may be the most useful book report I have.

Mrs. P died before dawn.

I came home and read the garden door chapter again because I had promised her I would finish the book even if she did not. The robin is still the important one.

Bad ward night. Very bad. I am not putting details here because nobody needs that with breakfast.

I tried to read a grown-up novel and could not get past page two, so now I am reading Winnie-the-Pooh like it is medical equipment. Eeyore is funny until he is accurate. Pooh is a bear of very little brain and that sounds luxurious.

Posting because if I do not put a pin in the night it will follow me home.