It went like this: A locals’ show on KUSP Radio, First Person Singular, recorded an excerpt from my Jacks Peak writing. The piece was about the art of listening. It aired a couple weeks ago, and Clytia, who I’ve have known nearly forever, though not well, heard it, which, not surprisingly, considering she’s a reader who works at Bookshop Santa Cruz, made her think of something she’d read.
When I walked into Bookshop a few days later, she stopped me, slipping a book into my hands and, can you believe it, she’d opened up to the very section my essay had reminded her of?
Rose in A Storm, by Jon Katz, is the book. And since a storm is here, wind beating a wildness out there, I thought now the right time to post this. Clytia didn’t love the novel but she absolutely loved some of the writing. It’s, in part, a story about how a dog, Rose, knows the world. “She lifted her nose to the flood of smells that was the world... Earlier, she had caught the scent of snow on the wind, and ice, and then deer, then the old wild dog that ran through the woods, then eggs in a nest... and the dead and frozen petals of flowers...”
Thanks, Clytia! This is what I want from writing, from my writing, to shorten the distances between us, to bring the world—all its nuanced, complicated, blue-green, war-torn, tear-ravaged, innocent and sullied, laughter-promising self—close.
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The rain came down in torrents, as if it would put out what it thought was a series of fires along the ravines leading to the sea. Rising "smoke" was nothing more than clouds that had come down to visit (as they always do this time of year) and they took the place of fog and mist, both off on vacations they figured they deserved. The clouds didn't mind. These first cousins never do. They knew the rain would join them shortly, for that period of time is, indeed, quite short when observed by any but humans.
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