The thick of it.

Hello, September 9, with your aggressive late night e-mails and pursuant troubles galore. Hello, days scheduled from dawn to dusk, already. Hello, the collision of this possible event with that fixed event, and hello, that sweaty feeling that I'm forgetting something. Hello! I hadn't exactly forgotten about you, the thick of it, but I certainly didn't remember how you sidled up, almost silently, and hung around my doorway like a doom.

*

Yet there is beautiful weather, although there are also gusty winds. Yet there are interesting classes to teach and a good crop of litmag students; still, more and more meetings. Yet there is Beatles Rock Band (aka the birthday pony) and leftover birthday cheesecake that I may or may not have eaten for breakfast. And many, many tomatoes, and weeks and weeks left of the farmer's market. And mostly not waking up in the middle of the night because of The Troubles incumbent upon me because of being a faculty leader (aka, FL, which means . . . anyone? anyone? F*** Lisa?). Mostly not, the thick of it, mostly just sleeping with the window still open.

*

It just got so busy so fast.

*

And still, the thick of it, I will be able to keep riding my bike for a little while after dinner for a few more weeks. As long as dinner is early, and before the late night e-mails commence.

A little thing about Japan.

Maybe a year and a half ago, I read this story in the New York Times, about a Shinto shrine on the west side of Honshu, Japan, at Izumo, Shimane Prefecture.  This is the oldest Shinto shrine in Japan.  The shrine needed renovations--actually, a new roof--which necessitated the removal of the god inside.  Which the priests removed, the god being covered by a cloth; and now, people who want to can go inside to see some of the parts of the shrine that are normally seen only by priests.  People have flocked, and I sure wish I could too. 

There are a zillion photos of this shrine.  Here are a few I've been poring over (I've also zoomed in on it using GoogleEarth) while working on a poem I'm calling "Seven Clouds":

The building to the far left, with the spiky wheels at the pitch of the roof, is the inner shrine. (from The Office of Resources and International Area Studies at Berkeley)

An old postcard. (from No-sword)

The enormous rope hung from the lintel 

is kind of amazing.  This is at the entrance 

of the more public, hence less sacred, building. 

(From dissidence at Picasaweb)

When I was eight my family moved to Japan--we lived there till I was twelve, or thereabouts.  We never went to the far side of Honshu, which is apparently very different from the more urban side, the Tokyo side. Less urban, wilder.  I am brooding about this place, with its shrines and samurai dwellings and medieval castles and moveable gods.