the great leslie

You'll be surprised to hear this: Portland, Maine, seems slower than New York City. Okay, okay, maybe you won't be. I was expecting this, of course, but I'm still sort of surprised by it. Maybe because I was so used to the craziness of the city: the onslaught of people, the hush of constant noise.

Here, the craziness is so much more visible because there is so much less of it. Not to mention, the "crazies" seem crazy by affliction, not by choice. I hear every voice because there are so many fewer to hear; I see every face because there are fewer to see.

Things happen here: a black crow soars toward the water against a blueblue sky and over the blueblue water; a red maple leaf floats down from a tree; bubbles rise from a shallow place in the bay. But, nature is never as beautiful second hand: you kind of have to be there.

Human stories seem to be easier to write about, perhaps because I can assign my own meaning to what they are doing and how they are behaving. A crow is a crow is a crow. A woman in a yellow dress catching a glimpse of herself in a store window is ... a woman searching, a woman feeling her age, a person hoping someone will notice. Tomorrow, she might be something entirely different. But the crow is still a crow.