Fog: an anonymous guest blog

Fogged in this morning.

From my window I can only see the homes and the trees in the next block and nothing beyond that. It's like a large white bath towel has been dropped from the skyscraper that stands over all of us to cover up what is otherwise naked.

How oddly reassuring and an underestimated stimulus to see that there's nothing beyond what I'm seeing, only a milky curtain of watery molecules draped over what I usually see from my window, what I know is there--the tall buildings along the boulevard are hidden but I can see the people out walking, going for coffee and bagels, performing exclusively for my imagination all the rituals of everyday life...

...nor is there anything behind what I'm seeing; that is, when I look to the west where the fog is coming from I see an even denser picture, one that demands even more of my imagination. I know the ocean's there, not far away, a mile or so, but I can't see it. The ocean only exists as a foghorn, and then as a painting I've seen somewhere by a mid-century American artist whose name I've forgotten but whose painting is completely vivid and outspoken to me this morning, consisting of three or four large cylindrical shapes in which he's painted centers of darker colors that look like eyes but are actually meant, I believe, to look like the sounds the foghorns are making.

I more or less enjoy being locked into this kind of nothingness, where everything I see is either right in front of me or is something I have to create out of things that have already been created. I'm going to sit here and look and listen to fog for awhile, knowing it won't last forever.