The struggle of today’s teenage boy is real: how to obsess and drench oneself in cologne while maintaining the most offensively odiferous feet at the same time. These two things, seemingly and reasonably at complete odds with one another, inform the daily existence of the male teenager. Studies should commence on how to hold two such ideas and modes of living in one head at the exact same time.
How does this happen? I need to know. Because my head cannot wrap itself two mildly-opposing ideas without hurting itself – and I have to start learning, for my own ease.
Our Japanese maple has been aflame for a few days now, wind and rain and snow be damned. I’m dangerously operating on autopilot, at least on this blog, while the circumstances of life swirl madly around – all of which will be addressed at some point – perhaps here, perhaps not. The dangers of having a writer in the family include being exposed at any moment for the wretched truth of one’s actions, without sentiment or scorn. The court of public opinion is sometimes the most powerful court in all the land, and in the words of Taylor Swift, “I protect the family.”
My meditations have been bracketing the days – either at the very beginning, before the sun is up, or at the very end, long after the sun has gone down. Candlelight is the only light in the room at such times – a comforting glow that cuts through the darkest times. The power of a single candle has always proven immense – there is comfort in that, in the single light we can each conjure.
The days are growing shorter and darker – the nights elongate, and the darkness expands – in service and invitation to the light, I sit lotus-style and breathe slowly in and out. One can still the world at such times, quelling the doubts and worry that creep into the dark times, and in the slowed breath, the measured exhalation, there is an expanse of peace – an inner light that pushes the noise and night aside.
This is the first time I’ve fixed my car clock in under one minute flat upon the arrival of Daylight Savings Time. Previously it’s been known to have taken over 6 months, and then it was like, why bother?
My reputation occasionally precedes me. I feel it in the anticipatory tension of a room of people I know well, usually and most often family, but a few friends as well – and certainly in less-close acquaintances. Carrying that knowledge with me is its own albatross, and it rebounds on itself – one of those nasty little interminable cycles that spins round and round, only gaining momentum and surety. At this point in the story, it’s impossible to completely eradicate or erase the unease, so I turn to humor and quips to give myself and my image a fighting chance.
Occasionally I’ll walk in and say something like “Darth Vader has entered the building” in a disarming and silly attempt at relaying some sense of self-deprecation. It doesn’t negate the fact that, yes, Darth Vader is in the room, but Darth Vader is Darth Vader because the people in that room likely helped contribute to making him Darth Vader.
We are all complicit in who we become around each other.
Cradled between the palms of both hands, the cup of tea warms from the outside in.
Cradled within the throat and stomach, the cup of tea warms from the inside out.
Cradled within the confines of the mind, the cup of tea warms from abstract ideation.
This evening’s post is being written first thing in the morning – before the work day begins, before the sun has come out, before the house and husband are awake.
In this still and silent moment that begins the day, that you come to when it has already ended, I find calm and quiet, and a Zen-like start and finish at once.
Fire falls from the branches, as dripping flames drift to the forest floor, and not even the night can extinguish the fiery licks because the moon gives fuel to the burn below. Ablaze with the splendor of the season, the ground is covered in leaves of beauty, leaves of temporal splendor, leaves of fire. Fall peppers the air with its pungency – half life, half death, a dash of fungus, a pinch of decay, a solemn unlasting sweetness, and a smoky hint of burn. All the senses are fed at once.
My latest helpful habit is taking my glasses off – for no reason whatsoever – putting them down somewhere, and forgetting where I put them while also being unable to see anything because – wait for it – I just took my glasses off.
This enormous stand of fountain grass has been the semi-bane of our backyard existence for a few years now. It’s grown beyond the point of easy control, and my body, in particular my back, no longer possesses the ability to properly tackle it. That would require some incredibly deep digging and physical exertion – and as I recently explained in a text defining a sweet invitation to a ‘Bingo Loco’ rave, “Gurl, I’m fifty.”
The days of whacking and hacking away at an enormous entanglement of roots are in the past – I can manage some surface digging and superficial pruning above ground, and that’s about it. That said, I’ll endeavor to get in slightly better shape before spring arrives and we start the growing season again. Is it sad to already be talking and daydreaming about the when we haven’t even started winter yet? Not a good sign, perhaps, but there’s hope in it – faraway and distant hope – the sort that will have to see us through the winter when it arrives next month.
The brilliance of this outside scene will swiftly diminish, as harder frosts will snatch the color from the leaves, and the leaves from the trees. Our focus will shift to the interior – where the attic exudes a rustic, tranquil white and gray scene, lit by candlelight and cushioned by piles of heavy blankets. The cozy season, blazingly at hand.
“I’m not surprised anymore by anything,” the woman sitting nearby said to her companion. I wasn’t closely following their conversation – this was the single stand-alone sentence that came to my ears over the drone of a song by the Carpenters (‘Close To You’).
Cafe culture is sometimes just a snippet of conversation that floats above the general noise and din, asserting itself as wisdom and truth and the declarative genius of the universe wishing you to hear those words in that moment. You can bring your own reading and baggage to it, or choose to ignore it entirely, assuming you’ve even accurately heard what was said.
Nobody really listens to anything anymore. That’s my dismal spin on the original quote I thought I heard – perhaps a more cynical take and view, but at least there’s some passion behind it. Anything is better than apathy. Apathy kills all. And to lack the ability to be surprised by anything speaks to a deadness of the soul I hope to never approach.
