#543 The Cows- Lydia Davis
These are some meditative thoughts while watching cows:
-Their attention is complete, as they look across the road:
They are still and face us. Just because they are so still, their attitude
seems philosophical.
-Because there are three, one of them can watch what the
other two are doing together.
-I see only one cow, by the fence. As I walk up to the
fence, I see part of a second cow: one ear sticking sideways out the door of
the barn. Soon, I know, her whole face will appear, looking at me.”
Reading this I am reminded of a book I once found in a “Free
Book” pile on a lower Manhattan sidewalk called Thoughts While Tending Sheep.
This W.G Ilefeldt work was a meditative look inside the mind of the narrator as
he went about living a pastoral existence. It was a philosophical story about
feeling connected to the world around him, and he had these thoughts while
tending sheep. It was a fun book, and it has stuck with me for the last few
decades, at least enough to remember it now.
This story is nothing like that. It is just observations of
cows, with little to no insight into what these observations mean to the
observer or why we should care about it now. I have no doubt that sitting on a
farm and watching cows can be a peaceful, spiritual experience, but reading
about it in such a dry, step-by-step manner is not meditative, or
minimalist—its boring.
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