My second cup of coffee. The space heater is already turned on, but I don’t remember doing it. And once again those last twenty minutes having slipped by accounted for – not as in black outs, or anything concerning – just a matter of inattention.
Birds sleep half-a-brain at a time. I am awake this way – half of my brain occupied and ruminating. I am a bird-cow. Functioning with half-a-brain.
I had a difficult time falling asleep last night. I was trying to make sense of a difficult day. Trying to fill in the gaps to create a storyline I can deal with. I wake to find myself still occupied with loose facts.
Already I am wanting a third cup of coffee, and the timer has chimed to mark half my writing time elapsed.
Calm is a moving target.
Like the idea of a dove.
Ideas don’t come with the grit and the smells that cling to real things as they move through the world.
Maybe one thing I never learned well enough was how a novelist leaves out just the right details.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
I graded essays yesterday and remarked over and over how they lacked transitions. Transitions are where we create. Where we sew facts into a perspective – into a story. Even in an academic essay. Even in our lives.
It is all in the choosing.
Some days it’s overwhelming: all the details.
Ruminating bird cows lie down in the shade from time to time. They don’t mind with half a mind.
That would explain my desire for afternoon naps these days.