Thursday, July 24, 2008

making record time

This slowness thing is quite educational. Moving at a speed few know
how to cope with. We scarcely know how to adjust to the speed of the
known world, not even the power boats and jet skis, or cars
trafficking around town lights, signs... our motor now even seems like
speeding. We know the, the, rhythm of .03 miles an hour, we can
distinguish the subtleties of moving or not moving. And the speed of
the river, the river moving on ever on though sometimes seemingly
backward. And meeting a person or being in a place is the only
stress, time rolling on past us quickly, us rolling little, stuck as
it goes. This is the biggest reflection to have at this point, and
the most important, to stay steadfastly combatant to the pressure of
the speeding world on us to move, to remember the length of an hour,
or a day, or a week. Now knowing the length of our boat, of one buoy
to another, of one lock chamber. It is almost as if we are entering
another plane of existence, approaching that space between still and
motion, who knows what opens there, what lies there. We will be in La
Crosse next. Someday. Well, before tuesday, probably the quickest
travel yet, as we have a passenger now, still living in the world of
schedules, and therefore an extra engine.

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