Considering the nature of my life as it is: a series of moments, only occasionally written by the time on a clock face, but more often punctuated and defined by the urges of bodies: mealtimes, the feeding and watering and playing with of animals and children, naptimes and sexual encounters and physical touch and sometimes the settling down and reading of a book or indulgence in art or film or dancing. The ecstasy of simplicity, of doing what bodies ask of us, of doing what the land asks of us, its parched tongue caressing our worn hands. The walking of food to a neighbor, the kind of grief and acknowledgement of need and sickness and the days of our lives intertwined with the cycles of this shifting, rolling earth. The kneading of dough and the movement of water, acts of humility: contact with one another's skin and fur and feathers, with one another's sustenance and perspiration and hot breath and excretions. The breaking down of one into all, of all into many moving parts, of breezes and shadows and sunset and parasite life cycles. The rising of all like performers -- synchronous and slow -- in this grand dance of existence in all its demands and guiltless wanting, in all of its perfect splendor, in all of its grace. The setting of all simultaneously ruled by the Sun: the children to bed, the birds to roost, the dog to patrol and then to sleep, the breeze shifting and calming as though tired and making way for brilliant stars.
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