I miss living in central Austin, except for the people
and the traffic, (fourth worst in the country according
to The New York Times, right behind Los Angeles
for Christ’s sake), and of course, all the noise from all
the people, who would have thought death had undone
so many, as Eliot cribbed from Dante, and the traffic
makes me want to scream like a Siamese in heat
desperate for a mate. But what can I do? I just want
to see the Monet to Turner exhibit downtown
at the Blanton before it leaves to some other artsy-fartsy
city much farther away than Austin, the only town in Texas
I can stomach, liberal oasis that it is. So I jump into
the Honda, hybrid of course, and head down the interstate
to take in a little culture, as the owner of Shakespeare
and Co. accused me of doing in Paris thirty years ago
when I didn’t respond fast enough to his overly interested
queries as to why a skinny Texas boy was wandering
around Europe for months looking at pictures
hanging in the Louvre and other fancy-pants
museums which seemed to be in every city
all across Europe no matter how small. But that
is neither here nor there now, the Blanton is
the Blanton and right here, and Paris is so
far away, that I gird my loins, so to speak,
and brave the lethargic interstate’s quandaries
in search of somewhere beautiful to be.
(July 31, 2014)
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