Sunday, June 14, 2020

The trash on the rubbish heap looks like modern sculpture. Boxes form a cityscape at the center. Branches rest around them. A set of broken folding chairs is scattered on the pile. One chair has fallen on its back at the left edge, another on the right. A third sticks up from the top, over the boxes. At first, I think it’s the handle of a lawn mower. It’s just off center, as far off the ground as it is from the chair on the left. The chair to the right is slightly farther away. Without measuring, I imagine that the rubble illustrates the Golden Section. I think of taking a photo, but any complete image of the pile would also include the six women doing Tai Chi on the plot of grass beyond it. They are already looking at me suspiciously. Closer to work, on the street where I pick up my packages, three women wearing long off-the-shoulder black dresses drift along the sidewalk. They aren’t together and don’t seem to notice each other. One is walking a dog. Another heads out of the grocery store with a large cardboard box. The third gets into a silver car and drives away. Later, I do a web search on “off the shoulder” to be sure that the phrase matches what I saw. It does. An article appears in the search about the loneliness of people who crave physical touch. I assume that it discusses isolation and the quarantine. I click through. It’s from February, before the virus was known, aeons ago. So much has changed. So much is as it was, only more so.