sahara

the scarf and the sandals are no pretention--sand and wind have a tag-team attack plan against your neck creases and tooth enamel. obvious fact: the sand in the sahara desert is hot. there is not enough flesh on the bottom of the foot to protect it from this element. more heavily padded surfaces are required for resting on the dunes.

God spilled the glitter

God got an early start on His Christmas cards this year, and as He lay down His meticulously cut snowflake patterns on the floor of heaven and reached for His glue stick, He must have upturned a canister of glitter, because the sparkling flakes have fallen down and are now floating in the lake at Loring Park. The sun, smiling on the blunder, warms the three men speaking frantically in Spanish on the park bench next to the fountain, the children playing flag foot ball on the flat space between the tennis and shuffleboard courts, the homeless sign-holders stretched out asleep on the grass. A white-haired woman in white tennis shoes steps gingerly along the path where just recently the geese took refuge from the spill; as she steps she deftly avoids that which the arguing geese left behind in their flight. A siren calls in the distance; could it be a harbinger of the decay to come? A bell in St. Mary's Cathedral strikes: it is three o'clock. Flowers bloom and blades of grass persistently green stretch their spindly torsos to honor the sun, to spite the cold devil lurking on the edge of the next cloud over the horizon.

survey: fall

a sunday at the coppock's survey:
what makes you think of fall?

april:
apple cider, leaves, pumpkins, jackets, early darkness, soup

kirsten:
scarves, tobacco pipes, bill cosby, courdoroy, sitting outside with a cup of coffee and your nose getting red and sniffly, fuzzy boots, amsterdam, little kids in costumes, apples

chad:
nebraska football, harvest, the dry raspy rattle of corn leaves, grain chaff swirling and getting in my lungs and eyes, the smell of soybeans, big diesel trucks carrying grain (the cabs of which smell of dust and grease and grain chaff all mixed together), the color of the fields, traversed by the perfectly straight line of the horizon, separating blazing gold from brilliant blue

patti:
pumpkin bread and hot chocolate, driving home in the dark, fresh notebook paper and new pens

melissa:
the smell of burning leaves, nice cool, crisp evenings where i get to wear layers of comfy things to keep me warm, trips to stillwater, leaf piles, hot apple cider, hayrack rides...they don't have those anymore...not proper ones with your grandpa and your friends...they're all stupid hired ones, the nebraska landscape: ever-changing, those peanut butter toffee things, in england: mulled wine, celebrating guy falks' day

cora:
pumpkin picking, the smell of campfires

last scent, summer grass

i rode my bicycle home from work yesterday, keeping to the sidewalks. it is unsure how much longer the brittle gears of my rusty-station-wagon-of-bikes will keep turning.

the last thing we need: pieces of my cream colored bicycle and pieces of my cream colored flesh broken and tumbling down the hill among the cars toward lyndale ave.

the weather had turned suddenly chilly, the sky was bright, opaque and grey, and as i rode i passed a freshly cut lawn , one of the few small patches of grass to be found in my neighborhood, of the well-manicured persuaion, a very poor carpet for sitting. the trimmings were scattereed across the sidewalk and the green earth-scent mingled with the cold breeze that pulled at my pant legs and stung my eyes.

i inhaled. i love the scent of cut grass. cut grass is growing up in the suburbs, cut grass is taking a walk in the summer twilight, cut grass is sitting on the backporch waiting for the stars, cut grass is springtime come, cut grass is summertime's singular smell.

cut grass smells of earth, and earth feels of the seasons, and the seasons are changing. this was perhaps my last fully appreciated scent of the summer cuttings, as the sky again today is leaden and grey, and the breeze speaks of failing light, changing leaves, tea, and hearty soup.

colin firth:hope of mankind?

what is it about colin firth that makes me so irrationally starry-eyed?
i keep breathing...more out than in, and sometimes a little sound comes out with the air, a little "ah..."
i'm a worthless mess...and he's 46.
sick.

getting it out of the way

this is my first post.
i don't really believe in blogging.
i'm not the first person to write this.
can you tell:
i'm trying to be original by being
unoriginal?

"when people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other."

may this weblog be a form of imitation, unlike flattery, that has a force to illumine without the oppressive weight of self-referrential tripe.

here we go.