I didn’t write yesterday or the day before because everyone is getting older and we all talk in complete sentences. That’s what I tell myself, but really I was too shy to try, to give the insights, memories, current observations I may have found wandering among my thoughts. I glanced briefly into the mental matter before deciding it would be better to make another cup of coffee, put the clean laundry away, write a grocery list and stare out the dining room window at an emptying campgrounds.
We’re leaving the cold Midwest soon too, later this month or the first of December. Until then I’ve got a few things to get done. Like making a physical copy of the cookbook and getting it on the shelf at one or more local health food stores, paying the funeral home, retrieving our drums and guitar from David’s mom’s house, finding a foster parent for the plant my mom’s department gave us when she passed, and other matters here and there. Goodyear Arizona (our winter digs) is full of snowbirds. The ever-warm land of grandparents and swimming pools that stay open year round.
It’s all mundane at 3pm. The couch is covered in extra bits, some not intended to stay, others needing to be put away. When I do inhale the notion to bring what is deeper to the page my insides go quiet and say not just yet. I listen respectfully, aware that memories of my mother live there, hopes for my family, and a full canvas of present beauty I am observing rather than recording. But then… poetry gives me both, observation and the kind gift of reliving a moment even as it unfolds.