Thursday 16 November 2000 01:00 I've got most of my mental equilibrium back, but there's still a need to "walk it out" because there's still something wrong. So tonight, again, I walked. Bright gibbous moon tonight at it's highest latitude. Moonlight sparkled as I watched the river from the River Street Bridge (WPA 1937). Unless the moon is as far north in latitude as it can go, you won't see moonlight on that stretch of water. Things were quiet at Dev's Café. Only the bartender and a solitary beer drinker could I see through the open window on the Foster Street side as I passed. I've never set foot in Dev's, not even when it was Dev's Patriot Tavern. The place has just never appealed to me- though if I didn't have a washer and dryer, I probably would have spent many an hour in there by now. You see, in what is now a room out on what used to be the front porch, there are installed three coin-op washers and three coin-op dryers. Very clean and well maintained they look, all shiny white in the hard light. If I had laundry to do, well, Dev's Suds and Duds might be the place to go, but otherwise, it's just another dingy bar. The clouds made the sky very interesting tonight. Moon on the clouds, then moon behind the clouds, an ever-changing show with bright stars twinkling all around. Sometimes a rainbow 'round the moon- nothing as spectacular as the three rings of the other night, but very pretty still. I visited the two fine old oaks up the far end of Railroad Street. When I was a kid, the only oaks I was acquainted with were ones that had grown up crowded together. All of them were very tall, with stubby branches that began only high up the trunks. I thought that was the way oaks grew. I liked the oaks then, but I like them even more now that I've seen them in their natural, spreading habit. The ones on Railroad Street have branches that spread beautifully against the moonlit sky, symmetrical, with just a few leaves left whispering in the wind. I love their thick trunks and the way their roots dig deep and solid into the ground tapping into the earth's chi, drawing it skyward to mingle with the heaven's chi… beautiful. I still haven't found any answers.   Copyright © 2000 New Moon Please feel free to comment at: The Madwoman's Message Board