Saturday, October 15, 2005

I've been putting ashes to my lips.

As I began to take my seat on the flight back to New York the older lady in the aisle seat said, in French, that she'd been separated from her husband and would I mind switching?

We're pushing back.

I said yes, yes, of course, even though he had a middle seat and I wanted window.

The hyper-American accent of the voice from the flight deck. Suggestive of deep and mythical American experience: A lush green and sunlit farm by a winding country road; red barn shaded by oak, maple & elm; acres and acres upon which to play; milk and all it represents; no laws to follow but those of the planting and the growing; breakfast - eggs, sausage, biscuits, ham, grits, bacon, oatmeal, halved grapefruit, monstrous breakfast - steak, waffles, toast and butter and jam, jam, jam; corn muffins and popovers and holy hot cross buns; flapjacks or griddle cakes or pancakes or whatever you want to call them drowning in syrup, beautiful amber syrup. Syrp. Corned beef hash and cream of wheat with cream and molasses or brown sugar, hash brown potatoes. Carnal breakfast. Extravagantly sensual. A new meal for a new world.