And So...

Today is a day I could write forever, which necessitates another blog this morning. The other blog, "Christmas and Valentines" came to it's own end a minute ago. There is no use in reviving it. When a work decides that it is finished, it is simply finished, whether the author would or no. And that is the secret of writing. The author, so I have been told, and in my own experience, is simply the medium for the work, which cannot write itself. But once started on, just like a journey, it takes a life of it's own, leading the author down paths previously unseen and unknown.

And so, this morning, the story that is me on the page, is still traveling past the holidays, past Christmas and New Year and Valentine's Day, and moves onto a contemplation of the Now, and the past, and the future.

So I sit here with my unfaded Christmas flowers, and once again, 3, count'em, three unicorn meat eating cats, and a dog. And that one of the unicorn meat eating cats looks different than the one she is replacing...and the dog is not the service animal, but he does 'winter' well; makes little difference in the scheme of things. That my heart knows the difference is of no matter and will die when I do. But two of the cats are the same, some continuity exists from the past, which we all must have or go mad. Because that is the way we have constructed time for ourselves.

And the wind is blowing mightily this morning, as I sit happily in bed, sniffling and sneezing, listening to it blow. For as another writer once said, it is not so much the experience of winter we savor, but the experience of having shelter against the winter that we find cozy.*

I wouldn't be able to thumb my dripping nose at the wind, if I had a cold and was trying to stay warm by sleeping on a heating grate set in concrete.

My therapist has warned me against this kind of thinking, "Stay rooted in the Now, the present." A wise man once told me that all of humankind has nights where we lie awake, and go over our past and alternatives until the sun rises.

And so...I will bring myself back to Today. There is no other day for my body, and it is better for my mind if I keep it in Today. And so, I meditate on the whorls of fur adorning each animal surrounding me, and I luxuriate in their comfort and company. And so, I appreciate that I have the time this morning, and the inclination to reach out to you, those of you with computers; and I appreciate the coffee steaming in my cup...and yet, I appreciate the appearances and love lost of sitting in the dark, rubbed, mahogany of the bed my mother and father bought me. And I sip from a cup that tells me, "Merry Christmas," and I light my ceramic tree...


*Harry Golden