The Quiet Spot

"So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing."

-T. S. Eliot

Our view this morning is my favorite among the vistas from our places, and we have some nice ones.

And it's warm enough out there for coffee on the patio, which is a little alarming for March in the Finger Lakes.

What makes this the best spot, the "Chosen Spot" in the language of the Seneca who once lived among these lakes? The vistas are interesting, with light dancing on the waters in an endlessly shifting pattern, and an occasional formation of geese flapping by.

Yes, I guess that's part of it. But Wyldswood has cows and Spanish moss, 407 brings storms off the Gulf and a constant parade of boats from center consoles to freighters. Tara's front porch gives us the park and Centerway Square at the bottom of the hill, a slice of Americana that's vanished everywhere else it seems. They're all beautiful in their own way.

Rather than the striking visuals up here on the cliff, I think it's the silence that makes this place so special. I've never abided anywhere so quiet, so completely still until a trickle of a breeze stirs the dead leaves on a tree just below the balcony, and we can hear each individual leaf rustle. We live in such a loud world, a constantly humming and thumping sea of human activity, that a place this quiet calls one up short. You truly can hear the silence.

I'll work a little this Good Friday while Peg and Dio play in town at Home Goods. It took me a minute when we first arrived in Corning, but I realize now that the point of this part of the Easter weekend journey was for her to have someone to share decorating ideas and excitement over choosing light fixtures. She must get lonely with me and my lack of interest in all that, although I'm happy enough to live in the end result. My excitement, to the extent I'm capable of excitement at this point in my life, lies in the thrill of Opening Day, Braves at Phillies with Spencer Strider on the mound for the Bravos. I'll need to find a place to listen this afternoon--first pitch is at 3:05, and I can't think of a better place to listen than our broad front porch at Tara. Of course, this could complicate playing golf later.

These are uptown problems indeed.