Number 17: contemplation
Perhaps I'll make a cup of coffee.
Or perhaps tea, pale green in a pale green cup. Steam and quiet, smooth hot surface under my fingers, still green waters like a lagoon under leaves.
Or I could polish the mirrors, just to see how light burnishes the room.
Or pick up a book; there are so many. I love the paperbacks best. Hardbacks can be beautiful but a paperback is democratic, and as mine are largely second-or-more-hand, very friendly creations. There are my creases and the creases of other people who loved, loathed, didn't understand, couldn't get into, were completely absorbed, made notes in the margins, never did read, didn't want to part from them. The continuing conversation of book and reader is not always a one-on-one chat.
I could pick up my sewing. Perhaps I should pick up my sewing, I have a skirt half-made, but should decreases the pleasure of sewing for oneself. The material is from a dress I wore as a child, thin grey patterned with small cream and maroon flowers. It will become a little grey skirt, pretty and demure, and light enough for the summer. But the summer is long enough away, for now, to leave should to one side.
I could perhaps go outside, where the sun has come out for the first time today like a spotlight through the clouds, splashing warm syrup-light across all the back garden. I could close my eyes and raise my face to it and feel it burn neon against my eyelids. I could taste the warmth on my skin like raindrops. I could be sunblessed in a cold January garden.
Or I could keep contemplating it. But for now, I think I'll step outside, before the sun winks her blessing away again, and sets on us behind the cloud, and leaves me no option but contemplation alone.
Or perhaps tea, pale green in a pale green cup. Steam and quiet, smooth hot surface under my fingers, still green waters like a lagoon under leaves.
Or I could polish the mirrors, just to see how light burnishes the room.
Or pick up a book; there are so many. I love the paperbacks best. Hardbacks can be beautiful but a paperback is democratic, and as mine are largely second-or-more-hand, very friendly creations. There are my creases and the creases of other people who loved, loathed, didn't understand, couldn't get into, were completely absorbed, made notes in the margins, never did read, didn't want to part from them. The continuing conversation of book and reader is not always a one-on-one chat.
I could pick up my sewing. Perhaps I should pick up my sewing, I have a skirt half-made, but should decreases the pleasure of sewing for oneself. The material is from a dress I wore as a child, thin grey patterned with small cream and maroon flowers. It will become a little grey skirt, pretty and demure, and light enough for the summer. But the summer is long enough away, for now, to leave should to one side.
I could perhaps go outside, where the sun has come out for the first time today like a spotlight through the clouds, splashing warm syrup-light across all the back garden. I could close my eyes and raise my face to it and feel it burn neon against my eyelids. I could taste the warmth on my skin like raindrops. I could be sunblessed in a cold January garden.
Or I could keep contemplating it. But for now, I think I'll step outside, before the sun winks her blessing away again, and sets on us behind the cloud, and leaves me no option but contemplation alone.