Quiet gladness and rain

[cosmolinguist]

A day of quiet gladness,—
Mount Fuji is veiled
In misty rain.
—Basho
I didn't mean to but I woke Andrew up while it was still dark this morning. He was sleepy but he didn't mind; I made it up to him anyway. We got up and it was getting light. Andrew bought a bunch of comics yesterday and he read one of those as I finished American Gods. It was nice just to sit on the couch together for a while.

I read about the characters in my book having breakfast, pancakes and eggs and toast, and it made my mouth water. Andrew scoffs at pancakes—anything sweet for breakfast is bizarre and unacceptable if you're English, apparently—but liked the idea of food. We didn't have any in the house, just because we were uninterested in buying it yesterday afternoon, so he was trying to convince me I should go buy sausages and bread. I was not thrilled by this idea.

He put on the CD he got in the Mojo magazine he also bought yesterday, which was of other people doing Beatles songs. It didn't impress me much but it did get us talking about how good the Beatles are and how much we like them. Sometimes I forget that. It's such an obvious truth that it can go overlooked. Andrew went upstairs to get Please Please Me, and came down about fifteen minutes later with a stack of vinyl in his arms. I grinned, not at all surprised that it'd taken him so long.

We sat there, listening to the Beatles and the Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel, listening to each other and the songs. Good music like that makes people like us want to talk about everything: how interesting the chords of this song are, how much you have to know to get the lyrics of that one, how we memorized this album when we were seven, how the thin vinyl made during the oil shortages made some records wobble and some songs sound different. Most of the details are lost but the atmosphere remains; it has been a day of quiet gladness.

And eventually he convinces me that I really should go get some food. I don't want to, really, but I know for various reasons I'm the better candidate to go shopping today. Anyway it's good for me to do things I don't want to, and it's only a 30-second walk, for goodness' sake. I found jeans and shoes and purse and went out the door, walking a few inches away from speeding cars that swoosh through puddles at the edge of the road and spraying water on my legs. I narrowed my eyes at them, but didn't worry about it.

I looked for sausages. I heard thunder outside, but didn't worry about it. I paid for sausages and bread and chocolate-chip-and-hazelnut cookies. I stepped outside and am instantly wet. I jogged across the street, ever-mindful of the possibility of zippy little cars rounding the corner, and kept running even when I hit the other side. My sandals slapped against the pavement; they were soaked by then and it was hard to run in them. I couldn't help but think I had to choose those five minutes to be outside ... But I didn't worry about that, either, just got in the house and changed into dry clothes. Andrew offered me what he calls his "raggedy jumper thing" because I was cold now that I'd been veiled in misty rain. Of course it's much too big for me, but I like that. It's been so long since I've had reason to remember that other people's clothes are always better than my own. I felt all warm and cozy in it. Andrew cooked the sausages, and we ate them as we read our books. We took a nap. We got up to do more things like this. The cookies disappeared.

I don't usually write about the mundane events of my day, but I'm in a good mood and I've had a good day, even though it's nothing anyone else will want to read about.

Comments

[ihavemanyskills.livejournal.com]

I don't usually write about the mundane events of my day, but I'm in a good mood and I've had a good day, even though it's nothing anyone else will want to read about.

nothing mundane about that. sounds like you had a nice, relaxing time and enjoyed one another. that's what life should be like for everyone.

i'll be glad to read posts like this any day. lets me know there are folks in the world enjoying one another. gives me warm fuzzies!

[cosmolinguist]

Warm and fuzzy seems appropriate enough. :-) Glad you liked it, and thanks for saying so.

[parakleta.livejournal.com]

It's just the posts like these that are the very reason I read your journal... I get to enjoy seeing the coolest bits (unless your whole life is like this) of someone else's life, and generally get to experience by proxy more things than I would otherwise.

[cosmolinguist]

Nah, my whole life isn't like this. :-) Most of it might be, these days, but even so it's hard to describe it most of the time. Things like this are definitely among the cooler bits of my life, anyway.

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

That does sound like a wonderful day. Especially the "sitting on the couch next to each other reading quietly" bit. That kind of companionable silence is my Holy Grail.

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

You two are so cute! How could we not want to read about this?

:D

[paninogirl.livejournal.com]

::laughs:: Yeah, I'm with him.

He needs to come meet all us Minnesota folk when he's in the U.S. :)