bugs, nectarines and george the prick.

the bugs are about. mornings these days, are spent on the porch drinking tea and reading, quietly swatting the mosquitos. hearing the birds and watching the bees, the giant ones, dump themselves into the open flowers. they tumble into tunnels like drops of heavy water, and back out like small spaceships. i wish that in all the futuristic films, they would at least design some of the flying machines to look like birds and bugs. instead of modelling them after cars, since they fly, shouldn't they look more like flying creatures. or at least airplanes? or do these imaginative minds think that we will overcome the laws of physics? this could easily become a philosophical debate. with myself.

and so the summer is here. upon us like the snow was. heavy and thick and wet with the hot damp air. the trees around the house, full and lush, looking something like a south american forest. though i confess, sadly, to never having seen a south american forest in person. only photos. and as i sit here typing, thinking of so many grand things to celebrate, like my beautiful wife's birthday last weekend, and the conversations i've been having with ron via email about music, and the fact that keri and i have decided to move to california instead of spain, and how this decision fills me with both great joy and great sorrow {letting go the idea of moving to spain is a difficult thing, and one doesn't want to spend the rest of their life saying, "we ALMOST moved to spain for a year} and how excited i am to begin playing live again, and especially with christian, and lunch with my parents, and so on...i cannot stop thinking about george w. bush and how nearly every time i see a photo of him {not by choice, online} or hear his name or his voice, i can hardly refrain from saying, "what a prick."

i try, but i have such an unbearably difficult time trying to love him, and accept that his presidency and all of the attrocious things he has brought to life is precisely what is supposed to be happening at this point in history. there is a thin and fine line between acceptance and apathy. it is so difficult for me to understand why anyone would want this war, and why anyone would feel the need to drill for oil in alaska, thusly destroying such a stunning place, and why anyone would give a shit about men having sex with other men, and why anyone would think they should be able to decide what other women do with their bodies, and.....but as deeply as i fail to understand any of this, i try to accept that this is simply what has come to pass. george and his army of fools. his sick and selfish and bloated army. why don't we all just start riding bikes george? why?

perhaps i should just sit and read all day, turning the wine stained pages and drifting back to the late 1800's when the west was a place i would have understood better. one of the characters in the book has just invented cement if that might shed some light. yes, wallace stegner, steal me from this modernity for a while. from george and iraq and strip malls. cement. i daydream of a california long ago. a california that i would likely have loved, even more than i do now.

"For example, my grandfather might take a bunch of us down the mine...he might let us help him in the orchard where he fooled with burbank hybrids and developed hybrids of his own, and when fruits were ripe he was not stingy with them. many a taste bud in Grass Valley and Nevada City, blunted by sixty years of greasy french fries, ketchup, and bourbon, must remember as mine do the taste of sun-warmed nectarines and Satsuma plums up there in the end of the orchard....."
~wallace stegner

Posted by jeff pitcher at June 30, 2005 11:35 AM

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