29 November 2012

"The Smell of Hospitals...

...in winter, and the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters but no pearls..."*

It's been a quiet November, writerly-wise, for me and the cool drought is showing no edges I can see. I don't know how to explain it, dear ones, other than to offer some faint excuses relating to the Stuff and the Things. I am lacking, for the nonce, a certain discipline.

Yesterday was a prime example. I had a long to-do list, most of it Have-To-Do and not Want-To-Do. I'm sure you know how that goes. But in the margins of that list, unwritten but visible to me, was this feeling that I should write something before everything atrophies.

I didn't get to it. That filled me with a cranky melancholy.

So...I took a deep breath of early winter air this morning, which carried a whiff of something I could not place, but knew that maybe I did not want to place. It had a scent of things lost, rounded out with leaf litter and wood smoke.

I am holding my place, for now. I sit at the table while the sun streams through the blinds, and I think maybe it won't be a long December. It won't, if you will join me in holding up a candle or two.

---
*Lyric from "A Long December" by the Counting Crows

8 comments:

  1. A candle or two -- and then a lovely libation or two and perhaps we can find a place that still serves jalapeno poppers?

    I've been craving them. :-)

    Hello, Irish!

    Pearl

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  2. I find the end of the year, is always a bit melancholy. I can't help reviewing my mental list of dids and didn'ts.

    And I'm with Pearl: let's light those candles, then head out for a drink or two...though does any place still serve poppers?? ;D

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    Replies
    1. Light 'em up, let them glow! Oh, and a drink, too, please. We must toast!

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  3. I've got some candles ready. So full of unwritten margins out here.
    Hang in there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think we might be able to turn the margins into the text! Light those candles, my dear...

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  4. Maybe it's time that you prepare an oyster gumbo. Who needs pearls when the oysters are in the gumbo?

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    Replies
    1. And in a small twist, I was contemplating a fine oyster stew for this year's Christmas dinner :)

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  5. Ahhh, I wish, I wish you could visit .. we could freckle together whenever we walk down the street to the fresh market to pick out limes for our gin and tonic :)
    Keep that thought ... until other sweeter ones push it out of the way .. besos. C

    ReplyDelete

"Let your laws come undone
Don't suffer your crimes
Let the love in your heart take control..."


-'The Hair Song', by Black Mountain

Tell me what is in your heart...