I AM Writing.

I’m sitting here, alone with my thoughts.  To my left is a vodka orange juice in a whiskey sipping glass – a gift to him I wrapped in red tissue paper and stuffed in his Christmas stocking along with beef jerky, electric blue shoelaces, and white tip tea leaves, months ago.  I’m using his desk.  Behind his large computer screen are three small, square paintings of horrible creatures, men and women contorted into ugly, hunched shapes.  To my right is his camera, the battery dead.

I just closed the blinds and turned off The Iron Chef.  I am trying to write a book.

I can’t sit still.  I reject writing and it rejects me over and over again. But if I were locked away forever in prison with no family, no money, no friends, nothing, if I had nothing left I’d have it.  I am it.

I made brown rice with chopped kale and an anchovy vinaigrette tonight, and sat perched on the edge of his brown faux leather sofa, eating it and sopping up the juice with Kroger’s Take-n-Bake ciabatta bread.

I wish I did things so I’d have something to tell you.  What would you like to hear?  Would you like me to write a book telling you how to be happy in 10 digestible chapters?  Or a modern-day story about a young politician’s wife who finds herself alone, yet considerably wealthy, after a public scandal and subsequent divorce settlement?

I might write a story from a dog’s perspective.  He’d observe his owners’ antics, and when you were done, you’d feel compelled to grab your own pet and hold him close to you, or consider him closely as though he might comprehend a great deal more than you originally thought.

I could write about food.  But I’m not so sure whether we are all glutens, or if I’m so close to food I think more people obsess about it than actually do.

If I look up from where I’m sitting, I see on the wall a large, navy and yellow antique sign that reads “Johnston Top Quality Paints. Lander HDWE. CO.  Ly Fayette, Ky.”  It’s so big it is almost as wide as his desk, which is the size of a small rectangular dining room table.  My own desk is on its side in a storage bin, its silver aluminum legs propped in the corner, waiting for an apartment with a space just for it.

This morning I slipped a blue fern on my finger before I walked out the door.

We’d yelled at each other, before I ran out the door before.

He wore a new electric blue shirt and apologized before he let me climb the stairs.

I scrubbed my hair in the shower, hard.

5 minutes

I’d like to write something in just 5 minutes, that’s all I have.  I want to sleep in bed with a sleeping baby in soft footie pajamas, her tiny hand holding my pinky, her sleeping face peaceful like only a baby’s can be, her hair super soft like little babies’ hair, smelling like baby powder.  I do not have baby fever, but I am surrounded by babies and sometime soon I should have a baby, but my life is not set up to have a baby.  I don’t feel like I’m moving decidedly towards anything.

the new bookshelf

good morning! sweet world as I sit here eating strawberries for lunch at two-thirty in the afternoon.  I slept for 14 hours and upon waking, lazily walked to the coffee shop with Meeks, tied his leash to the bike rack, told him “Stay!” and walked inside and bought three shots of espresso on ice with a splash of soymilk.  Then I went home and began unpacking my treasures.

I pulled them one by one from their boxes, where they’d stayed unappreciated for two years.  As I did my chest filled with a familiar excited flutter.  It reminds me each time of my true passion and who I am at the very core, and I think oh how I want to create something so wonderful as this, or this, but I don’t think I can because who in her right mind could think of being Dahl or Blume or Chappell.  How do they write things so beautiful we cry?

natural light

There always seems to be a sunnier place except when I’m in it, by the ocean in my swimsuit, standing with my toes in the water looking out over the waves at how far and forever the grey-blue goes, clutching my styrofoam cup with its premade margarita mixture, I feel like all is okay because the sea is perfect and is not going away, though other things may.

Otherwise I can’t stop thinking about places that exist in my periphery, their sunshine squeezing through every crack until it bursts like water through a dam, spilling as fast as light over everything, warming us all under it.  People like Ina Garten live there, serving seafood salad and lemonade to people at picnic tables.  They grill lobster tails, sit in anorak chairs, sip cocktails and talk happily.

If I lived there, I’d wear worn tennis shoes and run every single day along grassy cliffs that look down to the water.  I’d run with my dogs for protection.  I’d stoop to tie my shoe then keep going.  I’m eternally running home to a loving husband with a blurry face.

Surely I can’t be alone.

I like a good skylight in my bathroom.  My toothbrush looks pinker, my pedestal sink whiter, the hairs on the tile floor don’t seem so daunting, even the soap looks cleaner.

When we lived alone, my little dog and I snuggled in the morning. The quiet sun shone through the blinds and made a soft pattern on the sheets. He pounced on me, happy to be alive like always in the morning. We are both morning people (beings?), and require sunshine to thrive.

Some people don’t understand and I find that discouraging. My boyfriend and I fight about the blinds; he doesn’t like them open because they highlight the dust and he can see the parking lot outside our apartment.  I understand how he must feel, but I don’t think he sees how happy I am when the sun shines through to the inside, and how when it doesn’t, I feel sad, like something is missing.

I didn’t invent this. When I was little I didn’t understand why my room wasn’t as bright as my sister’s, and it was because my sister had two windows which faced the sun.  I ripped the blinds and curtains from my own window to let in as much light as possible but I never got a direct hit.

I am like basil.   I want the sun to pound down on me.  I absorb it, I lap it up eagerly.  I strain towards it.  I need it to live.

Except when it’s dark and time for bed anyway, or there’s a big, dark, scary storm coming our way… then, I think, a little darkness is okay.

contrast

Ellen isn’t perfect. But she’s close. Not only does she lay her red washcloth carefully over the rim of the snow-white bathtub, but she does it so that the red cloth catches the red cardinal and the bright holly berries carved into the thick white candle, and it all contrasts so nicely with the green holly leaves of wax, and the delicate green soap dish, with its sky blue bar of scented Dial. White and red and green and blue, like a stark, beautiful winter day.

alone for seven days

He will be gone for seven days.

Tonight, I will completely organize the closet.  He’ll come home to find a beautiful, organized closet with matching hangers and stacked boxes and a color-coded shoe line-up.  I’ll replace his old broken ironing board with a brand new one.

If you knew him, you would understand the meaningfulness of my gift.  I can not wait!

hey sheep

hey beautiful day. hey sheep, grazing in the field. I hope you love the way the sun feels on your fluffy backs, and the way the grass tastes on your animal tongues. hey stranger, walking down that long, tree-lined path.  I hope your coat keeps you warm. I hope you can see how pretty the whole path is, from your little square yard.

fall

In a few minutes, I will be walking out the door to get in my car, put on my headphones (because my car radio is broken), and drive the relaxing drive home.  I will walk in the door, kick off my heels, throw off my stuffy suit, and slip into a comfy tee and jeans.  I will pour myself a nice vodka and cranberry juice.  I will go outside with my cocktail, and watch Meeks run through the leaves, the chilly wind blowing through his fur.

Eventually, Meeks and I will get hungry, and we’ll miss Chris, so we’ll go inside and prepare the butternut squash, roasting it, then mashing it up with caramelized leeks and garlic and sage and thyme and butter and salt and pepper until it’s sweet and salty all at once.  Then we will spoon pats of velvety squash onto wonton wrappers, seal each tiny pocket closed with wet fingers, and lower them gently into a big pot of boiling water.

I’ll have made a reduction, while the squash roasted.  It will be made in the same pan as the caramelized leeks, with a white wine deglaze.  I’ll add tamari, apple cider vinegar, pepper, more thyme, reduce it, then add some butter and toss the ravioli in the succulent sauce so the flavor cooks in a little.

I’m so in love with things sometimes.

big fights

What’s hard about big fights is they bring you closer to the person who hurts you.

I have no one else.  My parents are getting older, my sister has her own family, my baby sister has a life of her own to tend to, at college.

Our fights are so bad, they send me reeling.  I’ve been stabbed in the heart; I’m distraught beyond comforting. The only person who can take away the pain is he who inflicted it.

We go through it.  I fight the urge to run away, mainly because I know I have nowhere to go.  And if I did run away, I’d come back, desperately drawn to him.  He hurt me, and he’s the only one who can take it back.

He hugs me.  He’s sorry.  I sniffle… make a drink.

We bond.