 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|
||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
Reading OutsideJuly 02, 2006 I live on a quiet, shady street; just outside my front door is a short flight of wooden steps and a landing that's the perfect size to sit and read on. I almost never sit and read on it. Either the air's too muggy or the bugs are too buggy or I'm working at the computer (no laptop) or waiting for a phone call (me, get a cell phone??) or editing a hardcopy manuscript to which bad things would almost certainly happen if it left the apartment. Besides, editorial paraphernalia is unwieldy: working outdoors would mean relocating two dictionaries, the Chicago Manual of Style, a fistful of red pencils, and an agglomeration of recycled Post-it notes. Excuses R Us -- I rarely run short, but today is an unbelievably perfect summer day, bright, crisp, and breezy; I'd had enough of the current proofreading job, and I'm in the middle of an excellent book that I'm supposed to review by the end of this month. The book, gods bless it, is portable. I filled a glass with ice, poured the remains of this morning's tea into it, grabbed book and felt-tip pen, and went out. Plan #1 was to sit on the lawn (needs mowing again) under one of the big oaks. I went to flick a fat caterpillar off my intended sitzplace and got brown juice all over my left hand. Finally I understand why the punch-like beverage so ubiquitous at the summer camps of my youth was called "bug juice." After hosing squished caterpillar off my hand, I settled on plan #2, which was actually the original plan: sit and read on the landing. This morphed into plan #2A, which involved sitting on the step just before the landing, but in the process I knocked my glass over, spilling most of my tea and soaking the step. Sometimes the original plan really is best. I settled myself on the landing, back against the railing, feet propped opposite. Perfect fit. So I read for an hour, making notes and feeling the ripples of green and gold sunlight, occasionally watching Rhodry snoozing under his favorite unidentified (by me anyway; maybe he knows what it is) shrub. No regrets; it almost feels like I've been on vacation.
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
Home - Writing - Editing - About Susanna - Bloggery - Articles - Poems - Contact Copyright ©
Susanna J. Sturgis. All rights reserved. |
||||