Tag: Abigail Thomas

Saturday Morning

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hammock

I think about time differently since I got to be this old.
I think of each moment as a big La-Z-Boy,
or perhaps a hammock,
and the only direction is a little back and forth,
or side to side.
For this I need peace and quiet,
and I eschew all outside stimulation.
Perhaps this is why the future escapes me.

~ Abigail Thomas, What Comes Next and How to Like It: A Memoir

Photo: Jo Lynn Zamudio via Outdoor Magic

May first. Just too much.

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johannes-linder-sun-light

May first, there was too much green and pink and yellow. There was no escaping the loveliness, the delicacy. Beauty assaulted me on every front— forsythia, like a breaking wave, no, a tsunami of yellow; the old magnolia exploding into pink and white, like grenades; blue sky— there was no escape from all this beauty, I was being force-fed a spring morning, even the oxygen was divine…

~ Abigail Thomas, What Comes Next and How to Like It: A Memoir

Photograph: Precious Things (Johannes Linder by André Hemstedt)

It might solve all my problems, this shaking shimmy

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dog-shaking-water-dry

It is raining hard today. The dogs come in one by one, soaking wet. I dry them each with a towel, and they stand patiently until I stop. Then they give themselves violent shakes and water sprays all over and I find myself wishing I could do that, it might solve all my problems, this shaking shimmy for which there is no human equivalent.

~ Abigail Thomas, What Comes Next and How to Like It: A Memoir

Side Note: “…Animals can shake themselves almost 70 percent dry in just a second…Imagine if you could come out of the shower and, instead of using a towel, you could just press a button and in one-thirtieth of a second you’re 70 percent dry…Researchers posit that the shaking dry was an evolutionary response. We think this has been evolving over millions of years of time to become so good…A furry wet animal can carry about five percent of its body mass in its fur, while a wet ant can carry three times its body mass in water.” (Source: Globalpost.com)

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Bangbangbangbangbang

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woodpecker

A very small woodpecker is beating his brains out against a piece of metal on the telephone pole across the street. Bangbangbangbangbang. I stand underneath. “There are no bugs in there,” I call up to him, “you’re going to blunt your beak,” but he keeps hammering away. We have a lot of woodpeckers. Great big ones, and the noise they make is very loud. Maybe this poor baby thinks he’s doing it right. There’s a lesson in this somewhere, and I hope I’ve already learned it.

~ Abigail Thomas, What Comes Next and How to Like It: A Memoir

Notes: