online: 31 july 2003

30 july 2003 what makes a difference?


20:30 Seat by second pond. I sit to look at rain drops on the water... but they drop also on the screen of the handheld so I close it... and then I notice a rainbow...

(continuing on paper)

...a strange atmosphere this evening, grey clouds, pinkish yellowish light... raindrops, a coot chasing another one, a welcome change after an afternoon at the keyboard (at which I'm typing this) - I was slowly perfecting the latest addition to 'websites I like'. The reflected images of trees shimmer - seemingly below the water surface.

I'm wondering if any of us make a difference to the worlds of others (or only to ourselves?) - and then I remember my delight at finding the multi-ethnic radio station and realise that quite modest and obvious things as that, if done and kept going, make the greatest difference there is - between the unpeopled world and the one composed so largely by our presence. All of us. Those in prisons or graveyards and well as those in the news, or at home, or ill, or lively, even those who are ruling or managing or teaching or otherwise trying to influence people, those who laugh, or despair, or sneeze, or look at clouds, or ruminate, or wonder, or feel bored, or who are sorry, hurt or suffering (so they think) or what is happiness? I didn't intend to write this. The water surface ripples in an ancient pattern, seen by all with eyes (in all times or ages) near to water, land and air and light and sound and touch and tone of voice what else? the syntax is cracking up perhaps fortunately...

The rain is getting less and I could sit here all night perhaps but something stops me, cold, or fear, or darkness, but I'll stay a few minutes at least (it's 20:47)... But noting the time turns a pleasant impulse into a task ('stay till 21:00 perhaps')... As soon as I think it the world shrinks. No, I don't know what I'll do... I'll inhibit planning.

A smiling, smoking man with 3 most obedient-looking dogs walks by and says a word or two, the rain re-starts and now the pond surface is a pattern of expanding circular waves and I can hear the sound of rain drops striking the leaves...

...I've run out of paper and I have to write in the margins, and the paper begins to get soggy, and soon the rain will reach me through the tree, a plane, I'm sitting on the only part of the seat that's still dry, I didn't bring my umbrella... No more space.



While walking on to Parliament Hill to see the different weather zones in different parts of the city - rain or mist in the two business districts and clear air in the west and north towards the sunset - I remembered that my list of ways we can make a difference for others excluded love, and companionship, and giving birth, and upbringing, education (or 'formation' as it's called in other languages) ... why do I exclude these actions? Is it because they must change form to fit the times, but they don't, or much too little. That's how it seems.



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