Jodie Foster transmutes into helium in the ether

[gurdonark]

When I left the office, I caught the LBJ Freeway, heading from the eastern suburb of Garland towards the northern suburb of Allen. Light traffic headed west made the earliest part of my journey simple and pleasant. When I headed north on the Central Expressway, I was pleased to see that the yuccas along the roadside retain their red bloom-like spikes. One thing I loved about living near the Angeles National Forest was the sight of yucca whipplei ("Our Lord's Candle"), a century plant, throwing up twelve foot tall bloom/spikes. The plant was called a "century plant" because it was reputed to bloom only once a hundredyear and then die, but in fact it blooms each twelve to sixteen years, upon which the individual plant does die. A June on the Angeles Forest Highway is a June filled with
huge yuccas on the mountains, some of which have those yellow spike "blooms". I miss that whipplei form of yucca, which speaks to me in some language I barely speak about cycles and change and death and renewal. The little red roadside yucca on the central expressway are a lesser but welcome reminder of my happy times in the "elven" chapparal forest in southern California.

When I was passing through Richardson, the radio program Fresh Air featured an interview with the actress Jodie Foster. She spoke with a poise and confidence I found deeply comforting and yet stimulating--not a gender thing, not a "gee, if I met her she would like me" thing, but a soothing, enjoying-life-lived-with-practiced-grace kind of thing. It may or may not have been a performance, but I was a very willing audience. I heard her constantly relate her story back to her history of working since she was three, and I thought again, for the xth time, how bound and limited and transformed we are by our narrow perspectives, however "picturesque" or workmanlike they might be. God save us from the unisize world view.

Traffic slowed near the Spring Creek Parkway exit, and I worried that I would be badly delayed. Soon, though, it became apparent that a fire engine and an ambulance were clearing up a road situation. I wondered for a moment about the people whose peace was shattered, just as my peace was setting back in, but my powers of creative visualization failed me, and I was reduced to a quick thought of good wishes.

Then, as the interview with Jodie Foster took an odd detour into the question of whether the Hinckley experience should cause one to question the making of movies such as Taxi Driver, I looked across the horizon at two colorful hot air balloons and an ultralight delta wing parachute plane. I love about my part of Collin County that any summer evening can be a picture show of things aloft; I leave my worries about poise and drama and interpersonal matters behind when I can pause, like a kid, in wonder at what flies above me.

Comments

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

a poet's musings definitely worth reading, the enormity and the diminutive waxing and waning

i like the image of the LBJ highway. poor man

Lady Bird and her wildflowers

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for commenting....I wish our LBJ Freeway had the grace of the LBJ ranch, which is amazingly beautiful, perched among the Hill Country....LBJ--a man of his time, a man out of his time....

[burninggirl.livejournal.com]

I leave my worries about poise and drama and interpersonal matters behind when I can pause, like a kid, in wonder at what flies above me.

That's beautiful. It's feeling I find myself getting in touch with more and more as I stop to notice the little things around me, or above me as the case may be.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Some years ago, I was driving on a Sunday on a rural Texas highway, when I spotted an ultralight plane flying over a nearby field.
I was so intrigued I *just had* to stop and watch. I pulled into a little dirt entranceway to someone's field, and pulled up just short of the closed gate. I felt a little silly, stopping and getting out just to watch a plane, until I looked down the way, and every little gate had a car parked in front of it, and rural folk in their Sunday go to meeting outfits
standing outside their car just as I was.
There's so much to see--but sometimes we have to remember to look! :)

Thanks for commenting.

[burninggirl.livejournal.com]

Your story reminds me of something that happened when we first moved in here. It was baking hot summer, we were feeling a bit restless...suddenly we heard this beautiful music drifting through the air. it was an icecream truck playing the loveliest, most intricate and melodic melody I've ever heard an icecream truck play (a change from "Greensleeves" and "Red River Valley"!). It just got louder and louder, and finally both Iain and I dashed out onto our balcony to look for the source of the music. We werte slightly self-conscious when we got out there - until we noticed several other people who'd come out onto their balconies for the same reason. It was a real bonding experience with complete strangers whom we've never met again. I always liked the way that happened...

ice cream trucks

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Now that's a great story. I wish our local trucks could play something besides Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer", not that I dislike ragtime, but ragtime wasn't really meant to be played on those little carrillon sounding things and besides, your story is much nicer!

[sushimonkey.livejournal.com]

Nice post!