WHAT YOUNG MEN DREAM OF

If you are Jewish, Saturday is the sabbath. And if you are not, it is still the sabbath. That's just the way it is. The Churchmen sought to separate themselves from the older religion by skipping a day, but the days themselves followed in steady order.
Today is Saturday. Even for cynics, skeptics, and freethinkers.

Consequently the city was filled with people in town for the four day holiday, packing buses and cablecars and generally being a crowd.
Saturday is a day for minds to wander.
To travel outside the camp, in fact.
Leisurely breaking commandments.

I walked over Nob Hill and Telegraph, down to North Beach and Chinatown.
Had a treifedikke lunch (snackipoos!) and smoked a bowl of aged Red Virginia flake before continuing my journey.
Shortly after tea-time I arrived home again, and took a nap.


RE-DOZING THE PAST

Late summer in the Netherlands is warm, and it is pleasant to spend weekends bicycling with friends across the country side. Everything is still green, deep intense green, though here and there golden wheat or pale yellow hay already form patches on the landscape.
The small rivers that traverse North Brabant cut through layers of trees that densely line the waterways, interrupted by bridges of uncertain age, and watermills that, absurdly, still find some use in modern times. The most well-known ones near Valkenswaard are the Venbergsche Molen, on the way to the Malpy Fens, and the Dommelsche Watermolen, just down the road from the famous brewery where Dommelsch Pils and Oud Bruin are made.

Dommelen is a beautiful little village which is part of the municipality of Valkenswaard; you can see it from the curves of the Kromstraat among the meadows west of town, as well as the bridge over the river where the Luikerweg disappears.

Warmth, soft breezes, and the fragrance of the fields.

We had ridden for several miles, finally coming back to an ancient pathway along the river. In late afternoon we dismounted and lay on the grassy embankment, in a spot where the trees shattered the slanting sunlight.
Before then we had driven our bikes with regular metronomic motion for several hours, now passing each other, now falling behind. We were bedewed and glowing, and now we were tired. Flaked out on the grass, we rested.

Later, restored to vigour, two of my friends wrestled with each other, one asserting "you are the Sabine women, I am Rome", while the other insisted "no way, dude, I am Leda, and you will become a swan".
I lazed off to the side, thinking "dang you two are twisted!"
Both of them were boys, you see. Sons of a man who took a degree in the classics, when that was still considered a useful thing to do.
Classic education leads to 'interesting' role playing.
Two strapping young lads, with smooth firm thighs, wrestling over female images.

I had seen their bare legs pumping while they rode, and could not imagine either of them as girls or women. Beautiful, yes, in that way that teenagers can be. But decidedly not feminine. Too butch, too hard, and too glowing.
And I already knew that they had dirty male minds.
Innocently dirty - nothing perverse.
Rather sweet, actually.
Idealistic.

Cupped in soft warmth among the trees, we relaxed, slowly drifting off into golden hazed sleep. We didn't wake up till a summer shower sparkled us with moisture, the fragrant sweetness of herbs mingling with a resurgent wet aroma of boys.
With still drowsy eyes we remounted, and headed into town.
Coffee and cigars at a cafe along the Luikerweg.
Then, separately, heading off home.


RE-WAKING THE PRESENT

It was already dark when I awoke from my nap. My bed is not a mound of fresh-mown hay, neither are there stands of trees on either side. Nor is there a river among these fields.
It is comfortable, but now far smaller than it used to be. The entire left side is presently occupied by beasts and books.
I usually have at least two or three volumes that I'm working on at a time. When the stuffed animals do not act rambunctious and demand my intercession.
Which seriously interrupts the flow.

The one-legged monkey will sometimes offer to help me read; he knows that that is hard for me, as I am only human, an inferior creature. The head-sheep demands respect, and butter sticks. The vampire hamster looks speculatively at the head-sheep (victim? slave?), before demanding that I tell her more about Dracula, Edward Cullen, Nosferatu, and other darkly handsome men, who gallop through wetly dripping forests before the sun comes up.
Others plot to steal my watch and wallet while I sleep.
I hide those in a different place every night.
As I said, the bed is smaller now.
Wildlife has taken over.

There is no fragrant grass growing here.
Yet.



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