I'm in the mood for lists. Lists of favourites and bests. Here's one, sprung from the moment. Add to it as you please.
1. the living room (not the family room), at the couch where no one can see you but where you can hear everything in the house just enough to know you are escaping it.
2. the tall tables by the windows in the French restaurant, reading Anna Karenina or talking to Tara about Jack.
3. the ledge outside St Giles Cathedral, particularly when escaping the flood and flow of tourists along the Royal Mile - watching them flood and flow, pleased in one's own stillness, with the fortress of Scottish Presbyterianism at one's back.
4. the fox bench at the park, where my Mom and I once fed Luke Carl's Jr. burgers at dusk and where, on a different nightfall, we thought the world was coming to an end. 'It can't be the rapture,' she said, only half-believing herself, 'because you're still here.'
5. underneath any Christmas tree.
6. on any empty ocean pier.
7. the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, preferably beneath the broad white hand of St Peter.
Favourite places to sit quietly:
1. the living room (not the family room), at the couch where no one can see you but where you can hear everything in the house just enough to know you are escaping it.
2. the tall tables by the windows in the French restaurant, reading Anna Karenina or talking to Tara about Jack.
3. the ledge outside St Giles Cathedral, particularly when escaping the flood and flow of tourists along the Royal Mile - watching them flood and flow, pleased in one's own stillness, with the fortress of Scottish Presbyterianism at one's back.
4. the fox bench at the park, where my Mom and I once fed Luke Carl's Jr. burgers at dusk and where, on a different nightfall, we thought the world was coming to an end. 'It can't be the rapture,' she said, only half-believing herself, 'because you're still here.'
5. underneath any Christmas tree.
6. on any empty ocean pier.
7. the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, preferably beneath the broad white hand of St Peter.
I like this one, too, especially when I'm sitting with you.
ReplyDeletethe ledge outside St Giles Cathedral, particularly when escaping the flood and flow of tourists along the Royal Mile - watching them flood and flow, pleased in one's own stillness, with the fortress of Scottish Presbyterianism at one's back.