Toppled and Crushed

I knew it was a dumb title ... Kingdom of the Wind. Well, that kingdom just took down not only the Sword of Damocles, but the 110-foot-tall split-trunk oak that had snagged it. And with an awe-inspiring precision, the huge tree fell right on top of my trampoline.

Smashed it, split it right down the middle.

I'm grateful no one was hurt, that Copper wasn't in the yard ... and of course that I wasn't bouncing at the time (not that I would have been in 60-mile-an-hour gusts).

But the trampoline meant so much to me, as did the tree — and now they're both gone.

Soon there will be chainsaws, re-fencing, carting the trampoline away. There will be estimates, expenditures, recalculations.

But there won't be that portal to the sky.

High Midsummer

On a sultry evening I take in the world from my perch on the trampoline. Butterflies flit through the coneflowers and hummingbirds dive-bomb the nectar feeder. A long goldfinch perches near the birdbath. It is high midsummer. 

I think about how pleasant the world is when I'm in motion. Not unlike the kaleidoscope of the carousel, those old memories of going round and round and up and down. Circular and spherical. Altitude and plentitude.

A fullness, in other words. Not easily defined, but felt in the blood and the bones. 

Bouncing with Britten

Almost lost among the Kennedy anniversary hoopla was that yesterday was also the 100th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Britten.

For some reason I've been on a "Britten kick" lately anyway, having taken one of the British composer's CDs along with me (totally randomly) on my most recent drive to Kentucky. I'm no Britten aficionado — no "Peter Grimes" for me, thank you very much. But the more accessible stuff, like the "Simple Symphony" or "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" are highly hummable and provide hours of listening pleasure.

Last night, long after dark, I went outside and jumped up and down on the trampoline with Benjamin Britten's music in my ears. I do some variation of this all the time — bounce while listening to the music of dead white guys. But for some reason last night the miraculousness of it all hit me with extra force.

Benjamin Britten was born 100 years ago. He wrote this piece in 1946. And here I am, 67 years later, his music piped into my ears with a device he could not have imagined, bouncing on a trampoline to its rhythms. Bouncing with goosebumps, I might add.

(Last night's Benjamin Britten portal.)