Itinerant Imagination » Scribbler

This Isn’t Treasure Island

Scribbler — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 05:23:28 +0000

Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems were constant friends in childhood, poems my grandmother and I would memorize and recite. I knew all about having a little shadow, and going up in a swing.

One poem that I never appreciated until this weekend, which has been spent largely in bed, was “The Land of Counterpane,” in which a sick child turned the hills and valleys of his comfortable bed into all manner of landscapes for his imagination.

I don’t imagine my quilt squares as separate countries, but I do still let imagination run wild.
Even days spent propped on pillows have magic.

Foot Long

Scribbler — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:08:28 +0000

I’m thinking about my toes. The color of the polish I’m currently wearing is a metallic red that looked like swirls of red and pink and orange with glitter in the bottle, but on the nail, dry, it looks softer, somehow. It’s a very blue red, despite the pink, and it makes my skin look tanner than it really is.

I came home with sunburnt shoulders and tanned feet. There are sandal straps. Truly the rest of me looks sunkissed as well, but not in the same way. I’ve always hated my feet but lately I’ve come to like them quite a lot.

I’m thinking of the pedicure I’m having tomorrow. Pedicures are lovely, but the bottoms of my feet are extremely ticklish, and that makes getting a pedicure a bit of a challenge. I feel like a little kid when my feet are tickled, but what’s worse is that there’s this line connecting my feet to the pleasure center of my brain, and when I’m not in a pedicure chair and my feet are tickled there’s a completely different reaction.

I’m thinking of sleep, and clean feet and cool sheets and summers at my grandparents. The scent of sundried cotton surrounds me and firefly glow softens the darkness and I tumble into dreamland.

Shower

Scribbler — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 05:32:04 +0000

This afternoon, I left the cozy lamplit living room to stand outside in the rain and merge my soul with the elements. It was not so much a downpour as a multi-directional misting, with occasional streams of conventional rain, and it would have been lovely encased in the sliding glass and tiles of a shower stall, though there was something special about such bliss descending from above, as well.

For the first time since summer began, the air was cooler after the rain than before, and I smiled about that, as well, and took the dogs for a pre-dinner walk.

Double Rainbow

Scribbler — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 05:26:08 +0000

On our evening stroll tonight, Cleo sniffed all the storm-drenched stuff her little doggy nose could find, at one point attempting to roll in what looked like (but probably was not) an innocent pile of fallen leaves.

Zorro was not as interested in sniffing, though he did leave ‘messages’ at almost every corner and alternating trees. Mostly, he was happy to bound through the damp grass of our park, his tail curled in happy-dog mode.

As we rounded the corner onto our block, I looked up at the sky, and saw a double rainbow, with a flock of birds flying the arc between the two. Alas, the camera was at home.