NOVEMBER NONO SIX: its all in the details.

11/6/2020

whats going on around you?

What are the details of your very spot?

1. I’m looking out the window into a rhododendron, leaves happily unfurled, a web of green hiding spots for little birds of flutter. Below the window sits the one-winged angel, and the tall and lanky santa too big for the closet. He sits out all year, grey and gold and gently smiling in a Canadian way.
   
2. My feet in their old blue pumas are tucked under the chair, I’m ashamed to say I drove my kid to school in my pajamas, plus a sweater and sneakers. Camouflage?
   
3. I was going to treat myself to a Friday coffee and donut but realized I am rotund, and its birthday Christmas season and that makes me prioritize funds quite a bit. So. Fat and poor means make your own damn coffee, kate.
   
4. Coffee and phone next to me for text communication with the few friends I have. Realizing how fragile I am when it comes to hope. These are deeply planted seeds and there are miles of soil above me and I’m just not going for it. Tell me what the answer is when it is over and I will roll from there. I will wait for spring maybe? I wrote once, a great paragraph. Let me see if I can find it because it would be wonderful to share that one. Here it is:

You’ve watched and you’ve felt and you knelt down until these knees gave out and then you melted into the earth. And found a new root to take hold of, and I’m so thankful that you kept seeking, that the light in you sought root and stretch and painful growth through packed down soil. Because now we are here together at the cusp, the crust having broken enough to let the light down to us. We who will wait out the winter, letting leaves fall on our face, protecting us from the next storm, and the next, still catching all the filtered sun, and the warmth that soaks us. 

5. I’m all in grey, grey nightshirt and grey sweater, feet now on the charcoal black of the woodstove. Its so warm today that there is no fire, no smoke, no heat, no crackle. I might even open a window. Let some of this climate confusion blow through.

6. In the background I hear two different teachers teaching through screens. So much work these women and men have done, to entirely transfigure the way they communicate. When I think of how much I have lost by losing facial expressions on people I talk with, I think of classrooms and humor and the teaching done by socializing. I want them back in so badly, and I want it so badly to be safe for everyone. goddamnit.

7.One boy slouches on a sofa and the other rolls around in my old office chair. Back when I had an office.  I write now in the kitchen, central to the action all the time. I get visitors who need physical breaks and snack foods. I’m allright with that. Almost two teens and this is the best and last big expanse I might have with them. I’m sucking the marrow out of this while still in my pajamas and staying in the kitchen. The grease is good with me.

8.I have two friends who work in hospitals with covid patients and they are beyond stressed. Does anyone clap anymore? My phone flashes dread. I worry about them and am utterly powerless.

9.My book piles are a little out of control. There are three near me now. One towers on TOP of the woodpile. How does that make sense? Will I never build a fire again? There is one book that I am actively looking for (Hello Kerry Clare.) and the book piles seem daunting. Shift them? Everytime I look at one, I start a new book, causing more piles to pop up. Its like gremlins in water.

10. The mug that I bought myself when freshly separated is still the most beautiful one. Anthropologie ridiculous but its my initial, in flowers, and its possibly the prettiest thing I own. It sits next to my tarot cards on a table I retrieved from my sister in laws beach house. Delicate beauty and usefulness. I haven’t used the cards this month and rely on them for meditation when things go too quickly south. My mother thinks they have something to do with the devil. I don’t quite know how to address that. I just took a picture of my mug, with the phone that is flashing about elections and flirtations, and more dread. and here we have arrived at ten.

get down and give me ten.