journeys lying in the sun being rained on

fernando pessoa, somewhere in the book of disquiet compares human beings with cats lying around in the sun, he's not within reach just now so i can't quote it, but it's a notion i like, and i've been thinking about it a little recently because i've been lying around in the sun... not normally something i like, a shy away from direct sunlight usually, but cycling around has got my skin a little used to the glare and somehow i feel a little more bold these days, (just in time to get skin cancer, sensible)...

anyway, i've been teaching the past two days, doing improvisation workshops which i love, i left work yesterday and cycled down by the river, happy because of the beautiful summer's day and because of the work i'd done, i'm good at it, and it's pleasing to do things you're good at.

i crossed the river and cycled slowly up to russell square where i lay down under the tree i've come to love in the past month... actually brunswick square, the one directly outside the renoir cinema...

gazing up at the sky through the many and varied branches of this huge, huge tree, having worked well, having cycled through the early evening streets, not bad at all...

then today i cycled into work and realised that i'd left my lights at home and i was doing a recording session tonight after work, and so returning home after dark, i also had to pick up a heavy load of marking which i couoldn't fit onto my bike so in the end i left the bike there and came home by tube, after the session, (which was groovy, another improvised thing set up by G),

on the tube i chatted with M, ex-student, now fellow teacher, lovely guitarist, lives in crouch end, when we got off at finsbury park he got on a bus, i started walking home...

i saw a flash of lightning followed by thunder a while afterwards, the storm a long way off, i found myself sad that the storm wasn't right on top of me, some odd desire to be consumed by it... then after the next flash the big raindrops started to fall, all at once, the rain getting harder and harder within moments, i walked down the middle of the streets so as not to be sheltered, as i got to my door the worst of it was over and it was easing off...

i was very wet...

sometimes i just love being rained on x