`An Impenetrable Screen of Purest Sky'

“Life is a series of surprises, and would not be worth taking or keeping, if it were not. God delights to isolate every day, and hide from us the past and the future. We would look about us, but with grand politeness he draws down before us an impenetrable screen of purest sky, and another behind us of purest sky. `You will not remember,’ he seems to say, `and you will not expect.’’

First thing in the morning, Emerson and black coffee supply eye-opening and sustenance. He serves food for rumination. I’ve read “Experience” (Essays: Second Series, 1844) a hundred times but it’s always “a series of surprises” thanks largely to the unexpected metaphors. Past and future are conventionally likened to darkness. Emerson substitutes, with some charm, “an impenetrable screen of purest sky,” so all but the present is unblemished blue, which is somehow comforting. This thought came in handy later in the morning when I took my younger sons to the barber shop.

The woman who cut my hair and my 5-year-old’s was born in Thailand, grew up in Hawaii and settled in Seattle eight years ago. She was raised a Buddhist. When her parents and the rest of her family joined a Baptist church, she balked. “I’m not Buddhist. I’m not Baptist. I’m busy,” she said, and impressed me as smart, self-reliant and nobody’s fool. Approaching 30, she’s engaged to be married (“I’m in no hurry.“), and wants to get out of the hair-cutting business (back pains, squalling brats). She said she was interested in computer science and I asked if she had ever considered going to college. “You teacher?” she asked. No, but if you’re contemplating a new life, college might be a good start. Without mentioning him by name I laid some Emerson on her, suggesting she think of her future as a cloudless blue sky. “In Seattle?” she replied, and that‘s when I knew she had nothing to worry about. I remembered Karl Shapiro’s “Haircut” but kept it to myself:

“In mirrors of marble and silver I see us forever
Increasing, decreasing the puzzles of luminous spaces
As I turn, am revolved and am pumped in the air on a lever,
With the backs of my heads in chorus with all of my faces.”