[Previous entry: "Briefly"] [Next entry: "Fit"]

11/08/2004: "On Taste"

I believe that it will happen. That spring will come. I read once of a river: solid, cold, and dead -- a spine of ice though a frozen landscape. And one day a roar went up, the solid surface of the river began to buck and boil, and it started to flow with a chaotic yelp. Great chunks and cakes and foam and fury, and out of the icy waste came the torrents of spring.

I saw many of my friends at the Taste of the Hills. It's a little dressier than Rummage but it supports the same cause and we do clean up nice. I won't wear a tie but I do dress up; I think I looked pretty snazzy. There were too many delicacies, it wasn't possible to try them all; some of them were appalling and disgusting to taste, but this is high cuisine, one thinks, swallow it anyway, you won't die. Amazing what people will convince themselves is edible. Agnes gobbled up some odd confection, enthusiastic and with a gleam in her eye -- whatever she is, she's no poser, so it must have tasted better to her than it did to me. We are built by the pasts our lives have lived, so I guess our tastes are built by the pasts our mouths have tasted. I offered her the escargots I wouldn't touch but that wasn't for her. The chocolate fountain, though: she was giddy with delight.

Out of our three hours there, we only spent ten or fifteen minutes together. The Wickfields arrived together and left together. Spoke to Mr. Wickfield about the fire at St. Bernards, about our friend, his friend really, who will be the mayor. Skylark, the photographer: I sat down with her at the end of the evening, and passed the time. Church members wanted to know what was wrong with the sound system; I couldn't tell them but I made up a plausible speculation. One of our volunteers brought her sister. I kidded the nurse who was quoted in the New York Times.

I kept looking around until I saw her.