Slowing down

This time I'm really taking the pledge. I am swearing off "instanews". You know what I'm talking about. All the online news sources, blogs, and social networking sites that perpetuate the idea that the world changes instantaneously, and if we aren't in constant contact with a source of information, we will be forever lost in the dark dungeons of the Internet.

Basta! My world encompasses my family, friends, neighborhood, hobbies, workplace. And to a lesser extent, my community, environment, government. And to an even lesser extent, radical fundamentalists, commodities markets, MMORPGs. Change occurs over months, years, generations, eons. I don't need Twitter to inform me that a leaf has just fallen. I can notice that for myself. If not today, then tomorrow.

Starry, starry night

I enjoy this time of year. Cool evenings. Cold, crisp mornings. Even the sound of the word "crisp". It makes me think of ripe apples, frosty lawns. Orion is high in the sky when I go out to fetch the newspaper. The Pleiades are sinking in the West.

The Pleiades are one of those night-sky objects that I have difficulty seeing if I look directly at them. Showing my age, I guess. Retina burnout from too much time in the sun. If I look just off to the side, however, I can see their ghostly wisps reaching out from deep space.

I need to remind myself to do that more often. Stop staring directly at things, sometimes, if I want to see them more clearly.

Neglect

Footsteps echo down the empty hall.
Through an open doorway, comes the rattle of a can rolling across a deserted street, pushed on by a dry wind.
Who lives here?
And the chorus replies: We do. We all do.