Episode XIII: In Which Caprice Is Blended With Virtuosity
Have a bike now. I rode for an hour on the road adjacent to the ocean, stopped my bike, and jumped off a pier with my snorkle and mask on. Swam for about forty minutes, biked into the capital, picked up lunch, then headed over to the radio station to chill with M. while she threw down some hot tracks on the weekly radio show (it's good even when I'm not on).
Christmas was supposedly a few days ago, but I didn't believe the hype. It was 85 with tropical thunderstorms.
I was talking with M. the other day about being young. You know, when we come back to America we'll be a little older but still feeling very young. One of my favorite memories from this past year was taking a day off from work to drive into West Virginia to go snowboarding--random weekday, no one there, rode for about ten hours.
"There were all brimming over with the exuberance that youth so urgently needs to expend that even when it is unhappy or unwell, obedient rather to the necessities of age than to the mood of the day, it can never let pass an opportunity to jump or to slide without interrupting and interspersing even the slowest walk--as Chopin his most melancholy phrase--with graceful deviations in which caprice is blended with virtuosity."
-Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove
Christmas was supposedly a few days ago, but I didn't believe the hype. It was 85 with tropical thunderstorms.
I was talking with M. the other day about being young. You know, when we come back to America we'll be a little older but still feeling very young. One of my favorite memories from this past year was taking a day off from work to drive into West Virginia to go snowboarding--random weekday, no one there, rode for about ten hours.
"There were all brimming over with the exuberance that youth so urgently needs to expend that even when it is unhappy or unwell, obedient rather to the necessities of age than to the mood of the day, it can never let pass an opportunity to jump or to slide without interrupting and interspersing even the slowest walk--as Chopin his most melancholy phrase--with graceful deviations in which caprice is blended with virtuosity."
-Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove
posted by rjs at 12:31 AM
5 Comments:
just remember: don't ride with a hatchet.
obedience to the youth in all of us is refreshing and joyful. thx for the reminder and example.
#1 cardinal fan
Thank goodness for the freedom of a bike. I'm with Liz on the not riding with a hatchet thing.
Mom
Can Santa's sleigh get through tropical thunderstorms?
Well, would'ya look at that- Proust (or the characters he's writing about, anyway) understands the necessity of skipping off curbs and hopping down steps. That's beautiful.
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