I am back in the living room again, and I don’t know that my computer will ever return to my studio. A very large freezer has annexed its spot. I should stand and pull the shade up higher, but at the moment, I’m too lazy for even that, so I crouch like a vulture to get my head low enough to keep the sun from blazing into my right eye. The wind roughing up the trees outside makes me nervous. I was hoping to start writing earlier, but decided that getting in a shower while we still have electricity would be in my best interest.
A small, ivory colored, folded piece of paper sits next to my keyboard. It was torn from a larger piece at some point in its existence, and I recently found it among the conglomeration of paper-based memories in a red drawer in my studio. I don’t quite know why I’m keeping it or what I plan to do with it, other than write something on in with a fountain pen, which will lay down its ink in a sort of wiggly way. Letters will flow from the nib like they flow from my mind: either in a gush that will leave an unwanted mark or a hesitant line that skips over the paper’s texture. What words will I write, and what will become of the paper once its been called into service? I guess I imagine tucking it into a book or drawer, so I can find it years from now and wonder why it exists.
Would it be interesting or eye-roll inducing for me to use that last sentence as a segue into questions about existence? Don’t worry, I won’t go there. This is not the place for such cogitations. Then again, it might be. I am trying hard to leave my compartments and concerns about how things are supposed to work buried in the past.
Bah. I am still bending forward like a vulture, and it will serve me right if my upper back cries out in protest later today.
“Read with a red-filtered flashlight at night.” Those words just caught my attention. They reside at the top of a plastic, rotating “Planisphere” that I bought or got from Bridget to accompany the H.A. Rey books on what I’m supposed to look for on a clear night. The Planisphere, which I’ve barely touched (don’t even ask about the H.A. Rey books) is sharing space in a basket on my desk with The Relevance of the Stars by Lorenzo Albacete. Isn’t that wonderful? Thus far, I’ve found Albacete’s advice about heavenly bodies more compelling than Rey’s. Unlike his, I’ve actually read Albacete’s: at least twice.
The relevance of words and images: have you noticed that sounds mean very little to me? I have. Dennis and a number of my kids are the auditory ones. Not I. In fact, I’ve taken to substituting hiss-like sounds for words when I’m talking to Dennis or the kids (sometimes to others, which gets interesting). I think I know why I do it, and there are two reasons: first, because I can’t think of the words, and second, because I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. My family (and Henry’s and Luke’s girlfriends) generally get the gist of what I’m saying, especially when I point and gesture (visual, you see)—no harm, no foul. Besides, it amuses Stella greatly and annoys Bridget almost as much. There’s something to be said for each.