Scrambled Words

Hmm, it looks like I have been “blessed” with the new block editor. We shall see how this goes.

A couple of days ago, I had words racing around my brain, stringing themselves into sentences, sometimes paragraphs, begging to be released onto digital paper. I played with them, silently, planning for heeding their pleas tomorrow. The eternal tomorrow. Which did not come. Or at least did not come for those strings of words.

Tonight, however, sitting in front of my fireplace, electric though it may be, with a glass of wine and darkness around me, the words have pushed and prodded and begged and I have decided to release them. Whether they form coherent, meaningful sentences remains to be seen.

As long as I can remember, I have always wanted in my dream home two things – a fireplace and a bay window. In this home I have my morning room, which is kind of a bay window in that it is curved and has a wall of windows. It works for me. But when we had this home put together, my husband and I opted for larger, extra windows – whoops! No place for a fireplace. Recently, I got an electric fireplace insert, set in in a space in an entertainment center below my TV, created a surround of a sort, purchased a little sound effects box to create the illusion of a crackling fire, and I am happy. Dreams fulfilled.

Okay, pretend this is a photo of my fireplace, which I want to include but have not yet figured out how to with this new block editor. Oh wait, maybe I did it!

I wonder why it is that I have a queen size bed, yet I seem to end up with a space smaller than a twin bed for my body to fit into. I have bedmates. My old girl Shasta, who is a yellow lab, and who seems to think sleeping horizontally on the bed is the best way. Then there is Nong Saoi, the cat from Thailand gifted me by my daughter, who believes the crook of my legs is her space. I should probably be glad that Queso, the cat from Korea also blessed to my by my daughter, keeps his distance, and fears too much contact with humans. We talk, Queso and I, but he tells me there was this experience in his past life that makes him distrust humans, and while I will be allowed a few pets when I serve him his wet food dinner, other contact is prohibited. Therefore, he does not care to share my bed. And while I regret that, I think also that I should be grateful because that is one less reason to reduce the space I am allowed.

Don’t get me wrong – I love my furry girls. In this time of Covid, when spending time with my adult children has been put on hold, and mingling with my neighbors and friends is infrequent, it would be very lonely without them. But somewhere along the line, I allowed them to become the bosses, and I their servant. My kids laugh, because my furry kids get away with so much more than they did when they were still home. Part of getting older, living alone, and being known in the neighborhood as eccentric. That statement is probably an exaggeration – while I am working on becoming the eccentric old lady of the neighborhood – the one that takes Jenny Jones’ (Joseph?)* words to heart, I have not yet refined it. The day will come, however, when I walk down the street with my cane in hand, dragging it along the metal fence posts, making my own kind of music, wearing my purple dress and red hat, spending my Social Security on brandy – no, not brandy – wine being my preferred guilty pleasure. This is the woman I want to become.

Fall is here, in a much warmer form than is normal. Perhaps making up for our spring, which didn’t happen. Fall is my favorite season, and I welcome it, and I wish for it to last for much longer than is the norm. I love the light, the smell of the fall air, the feel of the air, the moderate, maybe coolish, temperatures, the colors. The sense of things winding down, relaxation the standard. I am trying to convince myself to do some of the normal fall cleanup jobs outside – inside will make it up the list in winter. Discipline is sorely needed in my life. I truly believe this time of life should be focused on those things which give me pleasure, but I think I’ve taken that to the extreme. There are still responsibilities that need tending to. My preference is to follow my whims, ignore the “musts” or “shoulds” – but that needs to be moderated, Methinks. Working on it.

Sometimes darkness is my friend. Sometimes silence is my friend. Sometimes sitting in the darkness of my family room, with only my firelight and some candle light (LED, I can not be trusted with real candles that need to be put out anymore), the snores of Shasta, and the warmth of Nong on my lap – these are the times I gain balance, restore my soul in preparation for reality when the skies grow light again, linger with memories or plans for tomorrow, allow myself to feel the pleasure of having lived these many years with the hope for at least 20 more of those years, and appreciate the fact that beneath the chaos of reality in this time, below the surface is calm, enchantment, peace. It’s like I imagine diving in the ocean would be – discoveries, a capsule of beauty. Out of that darkness tonight, these words lodged into my brain (caveat – i do not ever claim to be a poet or to have poetic tendencies, but I do love words):

“the man on top will be

investigated

castigated

derided

worshipped

the rest of us will be

hidden

crushed by the chaos