Why is the muffled sound of a distant lawnmower sleepy and relaxing? In this case the lawnmower is operated by my neighbor, who has scoliosis and may be struggling, but still loves her lawnmower as a deep and somehow important part of who she is. She’s muffled by walls and at least some distance. Through the walls, at a backyard’s distance, the sound of her effort is a relaxation. Why is that?
And relaxation is at odds with the rest of the world.
Autumn is on display out my back window (see picture below). It’s a cool, clean, peppy day, leaves not only on the ground but also in the air, with local winds, according to the weather app on my phone, of about 12 knots. Near the corners of buildings where the wind is concentrated, though, it felt more like 18 knots sometimes. I had to hold onto my hat when I walked through Kensington.
The effect isn’t as pronounced in my neighborhood as it would be in a downtown area, where the air is channeled between buildings so tall that the sky is a wedge overhead; Kensington is more like a village. Nearly all the buildings are two stories high. Even more: one side of the street where I was walking is buildings, and the other is a green space with a train track beyond the green and more green after that. But the walk through downtown this morning was fresh, it was light jacket weather, and the wind was lively. No, the wind was life. I’ll revert to my old thoughts, from my sailing days: wind is life.
The book? Hm. The book is—umm—well, to be upbeat let’s blindly claim it’s surging: Amazon says I made ninety-seven cents so far today, which is up from seventy-five cents yesterday. Ok, maybe “surging” is a little over the top for ninety-seven cents. Still, it’s a start, right? That it’s making anything at all is good.
Income in cents is clearly from Kindle Unlimited, where members can read the book for free, and which pays authors by the number of pages read: so today’s ninety seven cents means that someone out there, somewhere, is reading pages in my book. To whoever that is: thank you. Keep reading, read everything including the archeological afterword, and when you finish, tell me what you think. Really. I want to know.
