Wednesday 14 July 1999

Woke up in the middle of the night and there was thunder and lightning and a veritable waterfall from the skies. I stumbled out of bed, put on my swimming trunks (well, swimming briefs is probably a more apt description) and opened the front door. Wooa! Full shower. It was, like, totally cool!

Weather like that excites me. I'm fully on the Kate's side in Second chances. It's all fun and games as long as the roof stands. The arousal is not a sexual one, though, at least not for me. It's more, like, pentecostal or something. To be surrounded by seemingly inexhaustable energies, carelessly squandered as if there were no end to them ... it makes me high. I just want to be a part of it, to surround myself in it, an immersion of body and spirit. As if by opening myself to the storm, I can somehow partake in it, mystically, sharing in its energy, making it mine.

That's not exactly a side of me that my coworkers or clients get to see often. But I suspect my parents would recognize it.
I grew up on a farm at the foot of the mountains, and the river passing through our farm arrived through a series of waterfalls. Needless to say by now, I love waterfalls. During my first years, there were not many days that the sound of the falls were not in my ears, day and night, always there but always different depending on the weather. In the summer, the river would dry almost up, but never completely. I would bathe in the pool under one of the waterfalls, a natural shower. (This was before we had a shower indoors). The small stream of summer-warm water would throw itself out from the cliffs high above and splash down on the pool and on me, playfully massaging my shoulders and my back, not quite hard enough to hurt.
And when the autumn rains came, I would go to the falls again and look. The pools would be hidden in the frothing torrent of water, overflowing its limit, sending stones tumbling with the senseless power of its rage. Power that would kill a boy in a snap if I came in its way, unheeding, uncaring, unaware of anything but the power to destroy and create.
In a way, I guess, the duality of the waterfall became to me a deep symbol of both God and Man. And I always loved it more than I feared it.

Onward to the meta stuff, as real journallers derisively call it when one don't write about Real Life.

As of this writing, late in the evening, I once again don't get connected to many American sites. It seems that the Net has some serious growing pains over there ... it's the second time in less than a month. Too bad. I'd like to look a bit more on the website of a fellow journaller, Liz Brooks. She's set her Life Styles homepage up with a newspaper layout that looks really good. In my humble opinion. I may sooner or later plagiarize it.

I'm still not satisfied with my own index page. I think the title thing crowds too much. Perhaps I should ban the titles to a page of their own, and let those who love titles go there and see them? I could throw the latest calendar on that page too ... I've hesitated to put it on the index page. This sounds better the more I think of it. I would go back to a fixed index page covering all of me and have a "diary index page" for those interested only in my diary. If anyone is against the idea, let them speak now ...

The wind is picking up. The night is falling.