In the Moment
There is a point on my drive home where traffic gets backed up. No apparent reason, it just slows, then stops and creeps along at the pace I think of as molasses going uphill in winter. Really, really slow.Today was no different and I was watching words flirt in and out of my mind...I am water, I am wind, I am ice, transparent web across the world...when all of a sudden I see the smooth, undulating ripple of the very tips of the grass.
A breeze that pushes back the weight of the sun and locks my eyes to the moment so that I can see the black bellied sheep clustered around the trunk of the dunks tree grazing in the shade while the two kids keep darting out into the light, little tails whirling like beanie helicopters stuck to their butts.
Over to the right is a rum shop, the faint aroma of fried fish with pepper sauce drifting languidly across the air, while the blue blue sky punctuated here and there with pompous little clouds stretches from side to side, bright backdrop to the mix of greens from palm trees, from the casuarinas and the breadfruit trees that anchor the soil to bedrock.
Construction clutters up the landscape to the left, cramped and ugly condos growing up, instead of out, jumbled so close together in their greedy placement that a sneeze in one will need a kerchief in another, and grey concrete blocks replace the elegance of limestone, the smooth comfort of wood, making walls so thin the conversation will trickle through the poorly plastered crevices that pretend to offer privacy, a home of your own.
The moment ends, the traffic moves, but in my mind's eye I still see the smooth, undulating ripple of the grass that woke me up to life.