Sunday
I awoke this morning with a deep feeling of dolce far niente. It's hard to say what it is about an empty schedule that induces pleasure rather than boredom. Thinking about boredom for a minute - it was the bane of my youth - I wonder if it doesn't stem from the belief, almost always without foundation, that there is some unknown or unattainable thing that it would be interesting thing to do - if only it would present itself. Boredom is passive; dolce far niente is active: you're doing - nothing, and it's sweet.
Of course I am not doing nothing at the moment; I am scribbling here and feeling a bit guilty about not having snagged a Times but really rather relieved that, because I don't have it, I can't review the Book Review. I asked Ms NOLA to pick up the paper for me, and I'm sure that she will if she can. In any case, no Book Review today. I do have an interesting book to write up, Melanie Rehak's Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her. A former colleague gave it to Kathleen a few weeks ago, and I found that once I'd picked it up I couldn't put it down. More anon. Meanwhile, Kathleen took a book from my pile, Robert Traver's Anatomy of a Murder, which I've been having trouble re-reading. She zipped right through it, and rattled off differences between the novel and Otto Preminger's great film adaptation. Her resume piqued my interest, so I'll try to pick up where I left off. This afternoon, however, I am going to spend with Emma.
The weather continues to be highly variable, with the only constant a dandy wind. Neither a breeze nor a gale, it's just right for me, keeping me cool and dry in the otherwise warm and somewhat humid air. I'm looking forward to wading in the later afternoon. Yesterday, I went down shortly after sunset and wandered out onto the flat reefs - if that's what they are - to look for urchins. It took me a while to find them, because instead of being bright red, as they were the last time I was here, at a different time of year, they were a much less conspicuous black. It would probably be incorrect to speak of tidal pools, but water does collect behind rock outcrops during the lowest reaches of the tide, and sometimes there are little creatures in them. No naturalist, I couldn't tell you what they are, and in any case I'm more interested in watching the overflow of an occasional wave drain out over the smooth mossy rocks or through the little gullies between them. I thought about the motions of the sea, about waves that pass through water molecules without moving them until cresting at the shore and pushing sheets of foam in all directions.
We saw a couple of honeymooners at breakfast. They had to be; they looked barely of age. I couldn't see her face, but he had a big, open smile that I thought boded well for that marriage.
