Make Sure Your Home Is In Order

Currently Reading:

Brandon Sanderson, Way of Kings

Currently Listening To:

Little Dragon - New Me, Same Us

Blogging’s tough.

I wonder if I chalk it up to being a writer. When it comes time to write I first have to get my sillies out, so to speak: surf the web, listen to music, basically waste time until I feel guilty for being distracted. But once I start writing, I am hyperfocused on intention. If I want someone to read the words I’m writing, I want to make sure that I’m not wasting their time. Of course when it comes to stories, we have our editing processes that can make sure the work is tidied and tightened up enough. It seems to flow over into blog writing as well. I want to create a blog post heading that screams HOW TO BE A WRITER or HOW I LEARNED BY FAILING. But sometimes I just want to… ramble. I cannot tell you just how good I am at rambling. Enough so that some people will look at me and say, “Can you hurry up and get to the good part?” Or “Is there going to be a point to all this?” 

The answer to both of these questions is “Probably not”.

All that being said, this is going to be an example of the rambling. Why? Because sometimes we just have things to say and don’t want to worry about the long tail of those things. Sometimes I just want to write some paragraphs without a through-line or what some people call a “point”. I just want to take a moment to put a bookmark in my life and see what page it has landed on.

Currently there are fires on the other side of the mountain. I can see the plumes of smoke from it. I feel guilty that they seem beautiful to me. If I saw the flames would I still say the same? It reminds me of a few years ago when I drove home from work one night. The mountains behind my apartment were aflame, rising tendrils of orange against a black night. Even though it looked apocalyptic I was taken aback by the power of it. How something that feeds on air could be so 1) beautiful and 2) vicious. There is something scary about the things that are beautiful and dangerous. 

No transitions here.

Quarantine can be a state of mind. When I shut my blinds and rely on the recessed lighting, I see things I’ve never noticed before. It feels like an accomplishment when I take a leveler to that picture frame. Sweep an unsweepable spot. This is the time for—finally—a rug at the front door. A pantry shelving unit! Candles, oil dispensers, circular cuts of wood to put under things! When we cannot live outside we live within. The small blessings we receive when the world becomes a literal hellfire. We hibernate and create a home that was less warm before. Now it is full of love. Do we curse or thank a virus? I don’t know.

The point to a pointless blog post is that sometimes we lose our structure and we forget how a house is built. We expect that they all stand up of their own volition, as if the house gods went here you go and from the heavens we get a pre-fabricated home.Then we remain in them long enough to notice the foundation. Every morning now we wake up and knock on the floor as a reminder. We lay our cheeks against the wall and feel the stucco there. We pull a dusty ladder from the patio and reach to the popcorn ceiling, bits of it falling into our mouths. Our days go on like a river with no end but we look around for any semblance of structure. Sometimes I have to put a hand on my own chest to feel the heartbeat there. I remember that it goes on no matter what happens beyond the closed blinds. 

Any sickness rattles us. Be it of the mind or the body, we are left thinking of how fragile these bone bags are. When the fires rage and engulf another’s home we think of our own. Do we have a to-go bag ready? We look to those around us and make sure that those we love are within arm’s length. It’s time to make sure our home is in order.