BootsnAll Travel Network



Continuing

Points of clarity arrive. Last night a great sea-fog enveloped Houston, and swirling mists in the urban sky arranged themselves in auras around pink-orange spotlights towering over Highway 59. I gazed out the glass wall between my living room and the balcony, gazed into the night in wonder. Fog! If I could draw or paint, I would. Writing is another way to meet the moment. It has its ironies–by the time I find words for this moment, another has arrived. Now it is Saturday morning, the sky is thick with curling grays and whites and smudges of blue; the spotlights over the expressway are merely chrome against the sky, and the magic has passed. The Friday night sky-scape disappeared before I found words for it. However words are the medium I have reveled in since I was six; writing is part of how I breathe and be. Writing gives me focus, slows me down, concentrates my attention, allows me to meet the moment and savor it. Fog. Inner and out fog are miraculous. Maybe there will be a time for me to let writing go, but that time hasn’t come yet. So I continue. Why blog? Blogging is how I connect with other people, known and unknown, who happen to be on the planet with me in this dot of time. The comments from David, Lynda, Christopher, and Constance gave me joy and were a comfort, much as Pooh’s friends’ hanging their clothes over his legs consoled him when he was in a tight place. My community of good friends and like-minded beings is flung wide over the globe, and I note with some surprise that I have become a solitaire. When did that happen? I see students every day, of course, but I’m happy with the boundaries around our relations. I see John once a week when we go to the prison together, though we will now take a break till mid-January. Other than John, there is no peer or comrade I see or talk to as often as once a week. That comes as a surprise to me and is, I know, unusual in American culture. I don’t have a cell-phone, seldom use a LAN phone, don’t in the course of my day announce my whereabouts to anyone. The quiet in my life suits me. I have time to read, watch movies, walk, and go my quiet way without having to explain myself to anyone. That has not been easy to arrange for myself, and I cherish the odd life I’ve created. But there is something in human connection that is nourishing, warming, consoling. The blog feeds that sense of connection. And so here I am. Continuing.



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