DAISY, DAISY
Not that I currently have a job from which to take a break, but we are going on vacation. We have rented, the Killer and I, a tandem bicycle with a basket on the handlebars in which to put flowers, a wheel of brie and a loaf of bread while we tool around the vineyards of the Niagara-on-the-Lake region, slightly potted from wine samples and the hot Ontario sun beating down on our tender heads.
I have an old friend for whom a hot vacation has always produced the galvanizing moment in which the successes and failures, the slings and arrows, the portents and the omens of the past period are digested and new forms are synthesized, new directions selected, homing devices re-oriented. It is my intention, while wandering through rows of grape vines in the next few days, to receive messages from the gods and from my own medulla oblongata; messages that will tell me what to do next.
In my absence, I recommend you make fresh lemonade and listen again to Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way, if it’s hot where you are. One cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice, five sixths of a cup of sugar and five cups of cold cold water. Okay?
