walking and writing. walking and reading.

I've had many interesting thoughts today. Maybe because it's finally cold outside...I mean really cold. I walked with Anu in the woods and, for some reason, a crystal clear monologue just sort of tumbled out of my mind and mouth. I wished I had a tape recorder because I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with myself any other way. But, instead, my words slipped into the sky and frost and frozen leaves...

***

Later, as I walked to work I read A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman. I found it in a used bookstore a few days after Sunday Scribblings used her quote for their prompt. On the back of the book there's a review by the Chicago Tribune that goes like this:

"An aphrodisiac for the sense receptors. Read a chapter, then step outside and voila: The sky is a deeper blue, the birds sing a sweeter song. How could the world seem otherwise, after feasting on voluptuous prose like this?"

Ok...now imagine reading voluptuous prose like this WHILE outside. Oh my god, I wish it wasn't so late. I wish I didn't need to get up so early. Because I want to tell you about it and I don't want to leave out even a single detail. But I need sleep and, instead, I can only leave you with this (because otherwise I would never stop writing)...from "A Map of Smell":

"Breaths come in pairs, except at two times in our lives--the beginning and the end. At birth, we inhale for the first time; at death, we exhale for the last. In between, through all the lather of one's life, each breath passes air over our olfactory sites. Each day, we breathe about 23,040 times and move around 438 cubic feet of air. It takes us about five seconds to breathe--two seconds to inhale and three seconds to exhale--and, that time, molecules of odor flood through our systems. Inhaling and exhaling, we smell odors. Smells coat us, swirl around us, enter our bodies, emanate from us. We live in a constant wash of them. Still, when we try to describe a smell, words fail us like the fabrications they are. Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world. But they are shapes, they bring the world into focus, they corral ideas, they hone thoughts, they paint watercolors of perception" (6-7).

Oh, and that's just the beginning. "Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world. But they are shapes, they bring the world into focus, they corral ideas, they hone thoughts, they paint watercolors of perception"...I let those words roll around in my mouth and mind...and it was the best walk that I've had in quite awhile.

And for a thought to fall asleep with:
"Try it now. Describe the smell of your lover, your child, your parent" (8).

it's not so easy as you think.