From winter stars to jungle hostages
Jan. 25th, 2008 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeI know the winter sky best. Cassiopeia, a lazy W, reclines up and to the north, then Taurus extends eastward to Auriga. Orion rises in the east, though I don't know which of his bright stars is Rigel and which is Betelgeuse. His belt points north to Gemini, the recumbent twins beside Auriga. Procyon ("before the dog") rises next, followed by Sirius, the dog star, brightest in the sky.
Tonight's walk was brisk, because it was very cold (25F), but the sky was clear, and Mars was snug up against Auriga, which was distracting while I walked, slowing me down 'til I noticed the cold again. There are several dozen rather different walks in my immediate neighborhood. Tonight I headed north on Knob Hill, through the secret park (the frozen ground crunching), down Glen Oak with the lights of the city twinkling below on the north side, then back up Knob Hill and home again.
Not all of the neighborhood is well-lit, but one advantage of the cold is that obviously there are no lurking men waiting to pounce on the few passers-by. As I walk through the darker stretches, I think about this, how unlikely there would be danger among these homes of neighbors, and how the times I came closest to being assaulted were both in broad daylight, but still the association remains.
As I pass a laurel hedge, I remember the one time someone did leap out to frighten me in the dark. It was Halloween; I was probably on the verge of seven, and by myself was passing Kara Alford's house, the last house on Tamarack St. before the woods. Her older brother, a known bully, jumped out to startle the wits out of me. Then I remember when he was in the news a few years ago, his picture in the New York Times. He and coworkers had been kidnapped while working in Ecuador, then held hostage for five months in the Amazon jungle until a helicopter dropped $13 million in ransom money, in $100 bills, to buy their release. He came home, safe. And I came home safely too, as I always do.
Tonight's walk was brisk, because it was very cold (25F), but the sky was clear, and Mars was snug up against Auriga, which was distracting while I walked, slowing me down 'til I noticed the cold again. There are several dozen rather different walks in my immediate neighborhood. Tonight I headed north on Knob Hill, through the secret park (the frozen ground crunching), down Glen Oak with the lights of the city twinkling below on the north side, then back up Knob Hill and home again.
Not all of the neighborhood is well-lit, but one advantage of the cold is that obviously there are no lurking men waiting to pounce on the few passers-by. As I walk through the darker stretches, I think about this, how unlikely there would be danger among these homes of neighbors, and how the times I came closest to being assaulted were both in broad daylight, but still the association remains.
As I pass a laurel hedge, I remember the one time someone did leap out to frighten me in the dark. It was Halloween; I was probably on the verge of seven, and by myself was passing Kara Alford's house, the last house on Tamarack St. before the woods. Her older brother, a known bully, jumped out to startle the wits out of me. Then I remember when he was in the news a few years ago, his picture in the New York Times. He and coworkers had been kidnapped while working in Ecuador, then held hostage for five months in the Amazon jungle until a helicopter dropped $13 million in ransom money, in $100 bills, to buy their release. He came home, safe. And I came home safely too, as I always do.