sprite writes
broodings from the burrow

August 2, 2019


swinging by the canal, yesterday, and goodbye rat tree
posted by soe 1:03 am

Swinging by the Canal

If it’s Thursday, it’s time to think back on three beautiful things from my past week:

1. After biking back from an early morning jaunt to Virginia, I stopped in Georgetown for a bit. Their Business Improvement District, as with many neighborhoods’, has worked hard to reclaim public spaces and make them inviting. Today I noticed they’d recently added a porch-style swing to the seating along the walk by the canal. I sat there with a cup of tea, rocking slowly, watching the dragonflies and damselflies flit amongst the cattails and the water slowly meander over grasses toward the Potomac. (They’re currently overhauling the canal, so have let it go wild during the process.)

2. We got to the movies on Tuesday to catch Yesterday, about a 20-something singer of little success who, after awakening following a freak worldwide blackout and a subsequent accident to find that no one else remembers who the Beatles (among other things) were, proceeds to record the songs as his own. Himesh Patel as Jack Malik does a great job with the material and with portraying the stresses of both fraudulently representing someone else’s work as your own (Why did you write a song about the USSR, which dissolved before you were born, for instance), and of the changes to your life when you suddenly hit it big after years of getting by. The music is a standout, and Rudi and I were not the only ones to find ourselves singing along in the theater over the closing credits.

3. A neighbor on the next block had a large, diseased tree cut down last Friday. Normally, I wouldn’t say this was a positive thing, but the fact is that there was a large warren of rats living underneath its roots and I’m glad not to have to hot-foot it past in the dark any more. (Like any city girl, I can cope with rats on their own just fine — they’re way more scared of you and just want to get away — but saw way too many cartoons as a kid to be comfortable with them ganging up.)

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

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