Asakiyume mita

There's a chair beside the path in the woods. Some leaves have collected on it.

Would you sit on it?



I sent the photo to my Tikuna tutor. She said maybe it's the seat of Madre Monte, a guardian of the forest and the animals in it, a terror to hunters, clearcutters, and fishers. She appears in the deep forest when there are storms, is responsible for water-borne ailments, and her screams are louder than thunder (says Spanish-language Wikipedia).

But maybe in her quieter moments, she appreciates a good place to sit down.

It takes temerity to sit in a seat that has "reserved" written all over it, but one of the fairies at my christening blessed me with temerity, so I gave it a try--and then jumped up, because when I sat, I sank riiiiiiiiight in, and I didn't want to find out deep the sinking would go.

* * *

In my dad's front yard there are a sugar maple and a Norway maple. The Norway maple was shedding maps the other day.



Where would you like to go?

Each map is unique--you take it and follow it as you see fit. You could do this with ordinary maps, too. A map of London is great for navigating London, but what if you try using it in Osaka or Kota Kinabalu or Cairo? It could be interesting.

One amusing thing I noticed earlier in the pandemic was that chairs were popping up in odd places. First an office chair appeared in the middle of the neighborhood common. A little later a metal chair with a vinyl cushion on the seat and for back support appeared wedged below the railway bridge. "I'd like to get my picture taken there when I'm just finishing a run," I thought--it would be just perfect because it's often right around that spot that I end a run, and I'm tired.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the chairs, so have some drawings from memory. Not to scale! The chairs are larger than they should be--and the office chair looks kind of like a monster.





And the most incongruously placed chair was a wooden chair perched atop the roof of what's called the Swift River Pavilion--Swift River because the school it's next to is called Swift River, and pavilion? I don't now: it's a roof supported by pillars, and underneath it are picnic tables and things. Sometimes little performances happen there.



Some of the chairs lingered longer than others. The one on the common was gone after a day or two, but the one by the railway bridge was there for over a month--but I never got my picture taken there!

So when I noticed that two chairs had appeared underneath the illuminated business sign at a busy (well, by B-town standards ... not that busy, really) T-junction, I vowed not to miss my chance. And the other evening Wakanomori obliged me. I still wish I could have sat in the other ones.