Sick today with lungs and a cough that change my voice, suddenly deeper. It reminds me of all the other times being sick, the worst when I was twenty and had mono and a lump in my throat I named, so large it required steroids. I lay on my bed in my parents' house, listening to music, looking at spring out the window, the inch of sky overlooking the garage, thinking of all the things I swore I would do once I got better.
Only some of which I have done.
Winter feels like a state of stasis. Once it gets a little warmer...you'll start running again, or paint the kitchen table, or plant a flower box, or write that essay...just as soon as...
In college, I couldn't start writing a paper until the door room was clean, at least the circle surrounding my computer area (living with Erika, desks under our loft beds like caves). If that failed, there was the library, that fresh new space. There had to be some clean new space in the outer world before the inner world could start to be cluttered with thoughts and words.
Anne Haines wrote: "I don't think that viewing writing as part of your everyday life experience in any way diminishes its magic or importance."
Which is a good thing to think about. It doesn't have to be 75 degrees. The sun doesn't have to hit the hardwoods just right. The books don't have to be a neat stack, call numbers facing outward like a language. You don't have to feel like it.
That wearing skirts thing, though? That having a view and hardwoods? That would be nice.
