The milky fog enfolds the city as it has been most of the summer. It is Sunday morning. Outside my kitchen window Felton Street lies soggy from the moisture. I am preparing breakfast, cutting an orange and peeling a banana and missing something. It is the absence of sound.
Felton Street is a bus route. When the number 54 makes its way up the hill it usually gives a good grunt at the stop sign before taking on the next climb. At this moment—and it has been a long moment—not a car has come into view. Not one person is walking in the street. The birds outside and my three cats snuggling in bed are still in dreamland. The day has begun with biblical significance.
The chill in the air, the smell of yesterday’s cooking and the sound of my knife separating the fruits on the chopping board, I think about what I read in a booklet: When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Or, when the teacher appears, the student is ready. With all things great and small it has been a continuous lesson.
Photo by Andy Stock.
