Saturday Night Thoughts

I. I sit out here and I watch it get dark. I can see the mountains in front of me and my warm, light room behind. It's pretty quiet so you can here birds squeak and the spur of thier wings. There's music beyond that, music made by happy people for other happy people who are ready for it to be dark, looking for the company of others, to move easily, to know thier place and not have to worry.

The musicians, too, don't worry- thier fingers know and they aren't embarassed to whoop or shout. They are proud of the music, its patterns and shiny, spinning heaights. There's no need to end songs quickly like the scared white boys in front of guitars do so fast. People are enjoying it, it some thing to adore, so why end?

It's very different here than in Quito. I see only one layer of houses and roofs, trees, no cars or trolleys and no people. Is there daily life here? Is everyone struggling to keep floating and breathing and wear clean underwear? Yes, of course they are, you can tell from the smoke of cooking fire barbecues, from the yelps of musicians, the lights of cars on the highway below. Just as we learned that everybody's pretty much working for the same stuff when we took the bus or on our class fieldtrip to the history museum or on that golden ticket of study abroad, I know it too in Cumbayá. We're close to Quito, but with a mountain and a rainstorm in between.

II. It's not at its most obvious but the earth is most subtle and vunerable at dusk, and humans are at thier brighest on a Saturday night. At 6:35 pm July 2nd on the Equator, you can see the mountains sigh and the people squirm. At this moment, the ground is tired and loosing its sun heat. The plants are squinting critically at their stores of sugar-from-sun, stream keep going but wish they were dry. Light blints but it knows it doesnt have much left before the slide from wave to particle. Hills slope. The earth looks backwards to rest.

But the people- everyone's on the bus, putting on thier best pants, making eye contact, biting their lip dreaming of hamburgers and solace and sex. Everybody's wondering what's coming next on a Saturday night.

That future, that past, that spilling cool darkness.