Paper scrap in shade of decorative bush. Rock nestled in dent of transparent large Mcdonald’s cup. That certain situations will require certain precise words like ‘nestled’ — From ‘nested’ perhaps? (Look up etymology of that.) (Do other situations not call up the same need for precision?)
Construction worker turned arm to get heavy shovel load over dumpster edge; edge of woman’s hair whipped chin as she turned suddenly to see her dog had stopped; bug hit me on the side of the face like a stone or acorn might have, that hard, flew off. Bird lands in front of my path and I stop and it stops. It takes longer than we both expect for him to realize I am not what he supposed, then he darts off. Superficial resemblance between early stage dementia patients and English as second language students — in both cases perfunctory conversations posing no difficulty (hi how are you) but asking slightly more complicateδ questions (what do you have planned today?), or questions which call for a non-rote answer, can result in complete confusion. Question: does the dementia patient (taking dementia as something homogenous, which it isn’t) not have access to memory or not have access to language or not have access to either? White woman: scratching interior of right knee. Black woman: raising, with pinching fingers, mask that had slid down. Was that a blond woman with a pony tail ahead? It was a tall senior white male with close-cropped white hair and an off-white baton projecting upward from his backpack, perhaps the handle of a tennis racket. (Racquet with ‘cq’ is alternate spelling.)
Pedestrian raises leg and leans down to swat something on the exterior of his calf. When I look in that direction again, some half a minute a later, before the light has turned, he does it again, the same spot. “Getting very small in yourself”: maybe it means “my ideas are no larger than my perceptions”, or maybe it means “I am no more than my feelings, which are my true physical extremities.” (My physical extremities were to my feelings as the block my house was on was to my house or no: as the block my house was on was to me inside the house.) Or maybe it means, “literature can give you ideas about glory like physical combat can inspire ideas of glory but like with physical combat there actually is no glory: there is walking around a room with a pen.” “The phrase seems to suggest humility, without suggesting obeisance, when I say it,” etc.
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