restless legs for no reason, without much chance to sleep, and although inconvenient, i'm remembering after the reaching cadences of Fall a nearly forgotten gift I've been given, a quite different obligation: the requirement to write straight out at you ... the ever-suspected and involving unknown reader ... the receiver of my own most inspired internal monologue.
How is it I'm able to do these things, and not. How long has it been since I've made an effort, since I've tried to do better at the thing that makes me most human. Yes, there are the private histories. Yes, there are phrases aimed at a topic ... there are directed correspondences. But when was the last time I've written a letter of no particularly consequence to the as-always unmet friend, the one I know but never know, the person who finds themselves in my words and is amazed, if only myself at a later time in life.
How is it I can live through days and not remark upon them, of the simple and quietly cherished sound of Paula coming home downstairs, or the sight of Chloe curled up with her paws outstretched, knowing her buzz-saw purr is there, although I cannot hear it. You can just see the sound. And yet, I remain silent about it.
How many impressions pass through my mind without act of forming cherished verse from them, how much life goes unwritten, how much is wasted, how much waits. Perhaps some early AM such as now the flood of all these years will drip slowly through these fingertips and build to a stream and then a flood. The unmolded clay will start to spin and the task will take me, and I will honor it.
Some distant day I'll have more to say than my only topic of recent years: my lack of words and why. Some other night I'll find a loose thread of a thought and I'll pull, unraveling it as it takes me along. I'm remain reverent of the task ... I'll follow through ... I'll wake in the morning after staying up too late and say, "Wow. I'm grateful. How did that happen."
But not tonight. But not tonight. Tonight is still touched by hazy mist of endless obligation, of the many more mundane and mind-consuming other tasks, the endless wheel of short-term accomplishment. And when I rest my eyes from work, my time is happily spent reveling in the silent wonders of my homelife, of wonderful Paula, of our cats, our family, our friends, our adventures, and now our fish. And someday kids. Yes, the largest of obligations, the strongest pull, the biggest need ... that too lies silent and waits for the day.
But not today.