The Bridge

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"This bridge will only take you halfway there

To those mysterious lands you long to see:

Through gypsy camps and swirling Arab fairs

And moonlit woods where unicorns run free.

So come and walk awhile with me and share

The twisting trails and wondrous worlds I've known.

But this bridge will only take you halfway there--

The last few steps you'll have to take alone." Shel Silverstein

A Light in the Attic is perfect reading material for a cold (I'm becoming a West Coast softie) nostalgic weekday night complete with hot toddies and hot lulu's and a hot heater and a hot (as in sexy) Christmas tree. Indeed it is sexy. 

This evening (minus the bourbon spiked hot beverage of course) reminds me of my 2nd/3rd grade self reading poems, dreaming about quests, and castles, and talking animals, and magical tree houses, and living life in run on sentences, and  informing my classmates that it is was totally cool for me to dress as peter pan for Halloween because Mary Martin played him in the live musical version. DUH.

This reading material also reminds me of how I have to return my library book to the library.

The Next Sound You Hear and What Caused It

I write on a porch in honest sunlight; hot iron chair and table stamping my skin. I listen for the right sound because behind me and in front of me and even, it seems, above me surrounds: The Construction. I capitalize it because it really is an event. Long lasting and rowdy. Sounds that have just become sound that have really just become silence. And when you listen through the silence that is when you certainly hear the right sounds.

A dull shoow shoow shoowwwsh.

I listen longer eyes closed. Hot iron stamping my skin.

A pulley creaks.

Shoowshes grow heavy.

Sharp snaps of fabric puncture the air

preceding every

shoow shoow shoowsh.

Then it stops. And the silence becomes sound and the sound becomes sounds. And I open my eyes and I see all colored fabric. Wet and wrinkled and pinned on two ropes pulleyed together. Fluttering, rippling. T-shirts and pants and underwear and blouses all flags just waiting to dry in the honest sunlight.

What Can Happen In a Second

Flakes melting to clear outlines where they landed

Solid

Gripping

Ledges, legs, and torsos.

Refusing to let go unless they are blessed

Which of course they are

Of course the sun diffuses their unparalleled bodies

Brushing their sinews with grace

Soothing their fight to just drippings

In fact,

every last flake eventually

Drips.

Drips.

Drips.

Returning with thanks and landing into overflowing pools heavy with infinity drips

Until again flakes forget and this miracle we see again.

Write down the interior monologue you experience when you sit down to write:

Writing, writing, writing. More coffee before I start writing. Black, strong in owl mug. Now be Ernest Hemmingway, No. Be witty yet profound. Look at that snow falling up. Daylight brewed with wind carrying that frozen water up up up. Snow just. Everywhere.

Wait, lukewarm coffee blank page. More coffee before I start writing. Brewed black, strong, so windy. Now think of something, anything: Dinosaur and Jesus coffee mugs. Okay. Something. Now be articulate and meaningful.

“But I guess the point is that cold coffee is rather foul yet it’s worth it when you know that if Jesus shaves the mistake is reversible. Kicking someone in the face is not reversible”

Well, that is something? That one word, no, all of the words need to be just. Better. Come on. Words stuck in my head. Mewling Mewling Mewling. Stuck. Stop it. There seem to be crumbs everywhere. Wait, cold coffee scanty words. Mewling. More coffee before I start writing.

642 Things To Write About

“The writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of his thoughts; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success”.

- W. Somerset Maughan

642 posts to come of amateur snippets of creative writing!
Or more like 6 posts... because let us be real I am a very non-disciplined individual and a [very skilled] procrastinator who rebels against all resolutions and to-do lists.

What happens when graduate school ends?

True, I thought my procrastination during grad school was particularly bad.
But I had not yet experienced procrastination from real life.

So begins my new life transition into adulthood. A transition, I expect, will be quite long.

Yesterday I spent my morning watching  Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On while drinking coffee and exclaiming to Wes how I did not anticipate Bette to be so sassy and agile.

I spent the next hour having a somewhat of an emotional interaction with a wasp.
You see, this wasp, Mortimer, got into my room and the little man (although quite large in wasp size)  was just crawling calmly all over my window. So, I watched him for 30 minutes all the while urging him to crawl back outside. I did not want to upset him; but he was just so stubborn. He REFUSED to exit back out the window in which he entered despite my most proficient persuasion. I had to take action.

So, I placed a glass cup over him. Little Mortimer did not appreciate this and consequently I panicked.

I spent the next 30 minutes holding the glass cup over the glass window and watched Mortimer angrily buzz around. What was I to do. If I slipped a piece of paper over the cup surely he would sting me through the fine parchment. If I slid the cup down to the open window he would most definitely turn right back around and dive bomb my face. Finally, I managed to get a CD between the glass window and the opening of the glass cup.

The wasp was officially contained. As I took Mortimer outside to set him free, I realized that I could not do it. He had my scent. He would return for me. So now, Mortimer sits still in the glass on my porch; I imagine he is quite livid and bewildered.

After hanging out with Mortimer I was exhausted. So I made more coffee and researched wasps. Turns out although they have an expert memory when it comes to wasp faces, they do not recognize familiar human faces. Mortimer and I spent a lot of time together however, and he is quite intelligent. So for now I will leave him in the cup.

Saturday Brunch.

I'm no spring chicken. In the beginnings of my quarter of a centaur (century) I've learned a very important lesson: Saturday Brunch is divine even without a mimosa. In fact, Saturday Brunch is everything my imagination envisioned it to be.

You see, since living out here on this east coast I have had to work nearly every Saturday for the past three years. I would drive around at work with my brain injured clients and I would mutter,
"I bet they're laughing loudly right now. That's right. LAUGHING."
And my client would say, "Eff all these white trash people in this town."
And I would reply, "How DARE they sip mimosas. How DARE they laugh."
And he would yell, "No money, no honey. This is business."

Pretty much the same conversation. Every. Saturday.
Until this fall when I turned 25 and started working every other Saturday and began indulging in the luxury of brunch.
What I have learned about Saturday Brunch:
1. That's right. There is loud laughing.
2. The light is just more illuminating during Saturday Brunch.
3. It isn't Saturday Brunch without the fire alarm.
4. Mimosas are not necessary for the morning to feel luxurious.
5. Coffee tastes better during Saturday Brunch. Even stale coffee regains it's life.

So, I am thankful to sip lifefull cups of coffee while luxuriously laughing loudly under the illumination of Saturday light and the chimes of the fire alarm.

Thank you Saturday Brunch.