Our first winter Out West was accompanied by domestic tensions. As I noted:
Sucking, swirling blaze
fire in here, snow on the roof
faintly false smell of burning tea
candy on the table
bulbs in the box
tears on my wife’s cheeks
Also:
inner silence in contrast to the newsmen made of gossip,
bitching, down the drain to sorrow
Kitty’s down: “I don’t belong anywhere!”
Also unhappy with my Chinook “paraphrases” (her term): “write your own stuff.”
When I go back over the Chinook pieces, add my own smart-aleck comments: the evil thing at the door “must be the cops” or Indian agents … BIA … or go free-wheelin’ into myths and texts … go back over the economy thing I’ve been trying to develop, “we’ll all be tent makers.”
Beer as cheap as Pepsi.
RITUALS, especially on a day free of the office:
- Rising early, when silence is strong. Or, more lazily, sleeping in, hopefully late.
- Making coffee, to sip all day using a special mug
- Reading sacred texts. Followed with the morning paper
- Cooking. Breakfast. A dinner wine. Candles.
- Shower.
- Planting, Weeding. Harvesting. Canning in old glass jars.
- Washing dishes, cleaning tools.
- Watering the houseplants.
- Cleaning the toilet.
- Returning to a favorite book.
- Split and stack firewood. Or bring it indoors.
- Making love, especially when the moon is full.
- Letting the cat in. And out.
At odds with self: static, knot in lower back.
How dead this living room is without a wood fire.
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
Jnana's Red Barn 