Landmarks

Rhythm eludes me.

My days are whirlwinds of responsibilities, self-imposed deadlines, and rituals that simultaneously keep me afloat and keep me away from what is imperative.  Like treading water.  In the deluge of days, certain things stick out like memories (promises?) of dry land.

I got a package in the mail from a friend with a ceramic mug (the color of the peacock feather enclosed in the letter) and herbal tea, both homemade.

Writing exercises give and take energy.  It's become my rhythm, or at least a centering spiral like that inside my pretty new mug.  (I'm smug about my mug and not because it rimes.)

I've been attending a creative writing class taught by an old friend, and it is doing me worlds of good.

We were asked to write something modeled on Jamaica Kincaid's short fiction piece Girl, and you can see how my landmarks have made their way into it mine:

For My Son

This is how you hold a book; this is how you turn the page; this is how you rub your thumb on the moth-eaten corner to release the scent of last century's sunshine; this is how you press a peacock feather between the forty-sixth and forty-seventh pages; stories bear talismans, even when you haven't put them there; this is how you read one sentence over and over and over, until it is flesh, and stone, and bread; this is how you avoid spotting the margins with coffee; this is how you write in the margins--but you said you shouldn't write in a book--you shouldn't, but if you have to, you should write with small hands; this is the way to read poetry; this is the way to read Shakespeare; this is the way to read a fairy tale: out loud, with an eye cast over your shoulder, a pocket-full of bread crumbs, and a litany of saints behind your lips; this is how you digest a book you don't like; leave it in the trunk of the car for three years and read it again.  Then you will be better able to feed on the cherries and spit out the pits.