You ever read the
Winnie the Pooh stories? I mean the real ones, by A.A. Milne. I was
raised on the Disney version, but Charlie has a thing about Disney,
and growled on the subject until I caved and read the original.
Anyway, there is a
story that begins with Piglet sitting at home alone while floodwaters
rise around him. It’s not really flooding here, but it is raining
hard, and has been for hours, and I’m all alone here in the
Mansion, and I’m feeling very small and isolated.
Not literally
alone—Sharon and the others are working in the Office and Aaron and
the others are working in the Library, but everyone else is
elsewhere. Everyone else has something to do.
The students and
masters are all in class, except for Greg, who has no classes, being
retired, but he has a doctor’s appointment. June is in the office
making phone calls relative to the children’s camp, which is
starting in less than a month, now, so there is a lot to do, and she
says she’s not to be bothered. I was supposed to be off-campus,
working for the landscaping company today, which is why I’m not
scheduled for anything, but my boss there called and canceled work
because of the rain, and now I have nothing to do and I’m all by
myself.
I could take a walk
in the rain. I do, sometimes. I could take a nap. In fact, I might.
But for the moment I’m just sitting here in the Great Hall,
watching the Mansion be empty and dark and listening to the sound of
the rain coming in through a few open windows. Natural history of wet
weather. Zen and the art of rainy days. Meditation. Daydreaming.
The air in here
smells wet, but it is not the scent of wet weather in winter. That is
of wool and snow and sometimes of the wood stove, which has a
distinctive scent when it gets too hot. And someone is usually making
coffee or hot chocolate in a pan set on the stove surface, and you
can smell that. Then there’s the honey scent of beeswax candles,
more often than not, and always the mingled scents of various kinds
of incense and sage—though nag champa tends to predominate. Now,
the snow-scent is gone, and the wool-scent is going as people wear
fewer layers and some switch over to summer-weight cotton. Instead, a
green, muddy, live scent comes in through the windows. I can smell
floor-wax and soap, old wood and old potpourri, and a hint of mildew.
It’s starting to smell like summer. The incense and beeswax remain,
the constants of this place.
Greg returns from
his appointment, coming in through the Meditation Hall and nodding
gravely but companionably to me before heading up the stairs. I
wonder why he didn’t come in through the Secret Stair? Maybe he
wanted to see who was in the Great Hall, so he could nod, just so, to
someone. I think Greg is more companionable than he lets on.
It’s almost
lunchtime. I think I’ll go into the office and see if June is ready
to take a break. If she isn’t, I’ll go bother Aaron for a while.
There’ll be vegetable soup and crusty sourdough bread in the Dining
Hall in half an hour, and if I get cold on the way over I can wrap my
hands around a big mug of sweet coffee. I’ve had enough of
meditating, for now.
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