All day I work at my computer or sometimes other places in my house and mentally collect bits of things I think might be something I could write about. And then I don't write until so very late that remembering anything is hard. Today would have been the same, but I only slept about three hours last night and ended up falling asleep for a while and now my state of consciousness is a bit upset. So here I am.
I remember I wanted to write about Grace Hopper. You may not know who Grace Hopper is, in the front of your brain, but if I tell you it is better to ask forgiveness than permission, you will know who she is. Or debugging computers. Or my favorite of late,"a ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for."
Sometimes I feel like a ship. Or the harbor. I think if I wanted to focus on that phrase I could write a whole essay about being a harbor. This week for example, my husband is in Cuba. Nice, yes. And I'm home. Agoraphobic a little bit, and sort of challenging myself to see if I can get through the week without leaving the house. Hunker down with my writing, my work, and let my sons run what errands need to be run.... there is a kind of magnetism to the idea. Showering and bras, optional. (Not really, sadly, both would drive me insane to go without.)
But my daughter wants to meet up and write on Wednesday. I've signed up for a law class on Friday. And the week I had laid out in my head to be so productive and ... quiet... seems to be slipping away.
But it's only a week. I'm reading Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked, and the characters in the book are faced with 15 or 20 years of life which they feel has slipped away from them. I am glad I don't feel like them, but then I'm only half way through the book, so I don't know if I will keep that sentiment. Here is a description I bookmarked, thinking when I did so that I wanted to collect quotes describing the sea. It is delightful to find one that is original: "The sea was hurling itself at the beach over and over again, like a nasty and particularly stupid pit bull..." Charming, yes?
My son is upstairs playing a mournful melody on his guitar. He learned to play classical guitar in college... something I encouraged right along with bribing him to take literature courses. (I do believe in Liberal Arts.) We've bought so many musical instruments for the four of them over the years, it is nice to hear one. Though the melody makes me feel sad... until his phone rings and I hear him laughing.
Laughter of my children is like a buoy in the harbor.
