Writing Alone and With Others - Quarantine Style

Pickle, Emily (aka Peanut) and mongoose friend

​My office is a jumble of books, magazines, craft supplies and whatnot. The literary detritus of a decade. I sit beside a window, notebook in my lap, prepared to write - alone and with others. A Sunday writing group, via Zoom, instead of in the loft at the Poetry Center. 

The dogs, one at my feet, the other wedged beside me on a stuffy beige chair - her sleek faun's body a tightly coiled cinnamon bun - sigh their deep puppy dog sighs, harbor their inchoate puppy dog grievances, wait for the human to do something for them, with them, about them.

A rare rain has left a blur on the windows. The world beyond - my small slice of suburbia - leafy branches, tiled roofs, snatches of palest gray sky, damp, smudged, dulled.

This limbo. So much of life suspended.

A swing that fails to fall. Contents that shift, yet it's impossible to pinpoint where, to what end. Goals, to-do-lists, plans that once shimmered, now refuse to animate, refuse to speak the language of forward movement, of climbing ladders, clearing spider webs from dusty corners, of leaving any discernible mark.

What mark? What lists? What goals?

Scribbled on the back of an envelope, in a journal, on the days in a calendar. Days that come and go, flip the page, another week gone. 

The doldrums, the Mariana Trench, the Bermuda Triangle. Ground Hog Day without falling in love. 

The day plays itself. Comes the sun, then the moon. Push replay and the cycle repeats.

How, why, does the inevitability of days, the sameness of nature's response to time's passing, feel so different?

The strings that have been snipped, leave me dangling, awkward, ineffective as a puppet, as a loose-limbed girl made of wood.

Still, the puppy dogs doze and sigh. Both russet girls up on my chair now. Two cinnamon buns, one wrapped round the other, dreaming their puppy dog dreams. While beyond the blurred window, leaves bob and flicker, green and brown, backlit with mottled gray.

Soon, there will be lunch.
Soon, the puppy dogs will reanimate. 
Soon, I will have to pay them some attention.

written on a Sunday with Jan Haag and friends (human and canine) - check out  Jan's wonderful blog

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