On My Couch

I spent something like 90% of my waking hours on this couch today. With those pillows and blankets. And with soup. And during those hours, I abandoned all attempts to read, or think deep thoughts, or work on my to-do lists, or anything of the sort. I watched episode after episode of Gilmore Girls and worked on mending, thimbled finger and all. I also drank vast quantities of ginger ale and ate soup and yogurt with those delicious blueberry preserves.

I spend a lot of time on this couch. Typically, I read on it. Sometimes I accidentally fall asleep. Occasionally I rope Josh into watching an old movie with me, and we sit on the couch together. More often, our shared couch time is something like this, our legs competing for space and our book covers flirting with one another:

But today I was on my own. Just me and those Connecticut crazies. Watching Gilmore Girls made me think about the kind of girl I was in high school and college and the kind of person I figured I'd grow up to be. That's a question to ponder. I will ponder it as I meander into the kitchen to spoon out some more yogurt. Then I will probably go to bed.

I forgot people got up this early + five-sense Friday

The light is creeping up on me; a few moments ago, all I could see through the gauzy dining room curtains was black, but now I see a sort of hazy distinction between bricks and window frames on the next building's walls. A glow seeps down into the alley, filling the (maybe) three yards of space between my windows and the neighbor's, reminding me that other people are alive and perhaps even awake mere feet away.

Josh is off on a marvelous journey, and I am nursing a sinus infection in my PJs and his sweatshirt. Apart from calling the mechanic about our wonky car that keeps stalling out while we're driving it (a problem, I suppose) and trekking to the market to buy yogurt to replenish the good bacteria that's supposed to live inside me, I have cancelled all of today's appointments. I will wear the comfiest socks in my sock drawer and listen to the classical radio station and eat soup. And read books. Oh, the books.

So rather early, here we have it:

seeing: that stealthy morning light competing with my lamps. Also, the untidy wreck of a week's end, which is somehow comforting.

smelling: not much. My sniffer's not working so well right now.

tasting: tea. Wishing for the taste of anther cornmeal scone, but we finished them yesterday. Perhaps I will make more. And blueberry preserves, which are life-changingly delicious

feeling: soft couch cushions.

hearing: water in the pipes for downstairs neighbors' morning showers. Old buildings are cozy like that, reminding one that there's no such thing as alone.

five-sense friday

seeing: emails from students asking for help with their papers! lots of emails! lots of question marks! lots of theory-driven panic! Also, the delight of larger print than usual in the book I'm currently reading, which is not so much a treat for my eyes as it is a relief that fewer words per page = less time spent! Yesterday, the magic moments of autumn dusk in the city, when warm incandescent lights switch on before the sky is fully dark, and the golden electric glow illuminates and is illuminated by the lingering blue around it.

hearing: a Ray LaMontagne CD I had in college--his smoky voice makes me nostalgic for Ohio's wooded back roads and the kitchen windowsill in my first apartment, with its stubborn (if pitiful) pot of chives. Also, earlier today, R's loud and sudden laughter, the sign of a 19-month-old's unabashed delight at the noise and force of windblown leaves racing and bouncing over the sand at the beach.

smelling: popcorn. Of course. A Friday night alone means popcorn for dinner.

tasting: tea. Also, anticipating the taste of pumpkin-spice waffles tomorrow.

feeling: cold, the chill that is beautiful when fall lets us have some sunshine along with its breezes.

72

When my grandma planted things, she cared for them, and they grew.

When my grandma wrote love in a letter, she underlined it at least three times.

When my grandma filled her dinner plate, she piled it high, and she peppered it well, and she raised the food to her red lips with a fork held elegantly in crooked fingers. When the plate was empty, she filled it again.

the now of now

I walked into the dining room this morning and stopped at the sight of this light on the table, sunlight illuminating a candle that was my grandmother's, a saucer that belonged to some mysterious but loving caretaker for many years before I found it in a box of china in a thrift shop, a book (on my comps list) that arrived last week and surprised me with its maple-leaf cover almost as much as it surprised me with the beauty of many of its essays. The sunshine comes in brief rectangles these days, and we take what we can get.

Here is a bit from one of those surprisingly lovely essays:

In contrast to the temporality that Heidegger derived from Pauline apocalypticism, [the temporality of the kingdom Jesus preached] is not a futurally oriented temporality, full of anxiety about what is coming next, of fear and trembling at the uncertainty of the time. On the contrary, the coming of the kingdom lays anxiety to rest, for the rule of God, which is in the midst of us, sustains us. Rather than something futural, this is a presential time, a time of presencing, which lets today be today. By trusting oneself to God's rule, the day is not drained of its time. Today is not sacrificed to tomorrow, spent in making onself safe and secure against tomorrow. It is a temporality of trust, of trusting oneself to God's rule, and in so doing to time and the day.

John D. Caputo, "Reason, History, and a Little Madness"

five-sense friday (on saturday)

Yesterday was full and not very computer-oriented; I was busy doing the sensing!

Today, though, after a five-hour bout of dates and errands, I am home, and pausing to breathe and little and think about the week. So here we have it:

feeling/touching: the chill after a few days of warmer weather. Yesterday, all day I felt the damp bottoms of my jeans around my ankles--as soon as they'd dry, I'd be out in the rain and puddles again. Today they are dry, and I notice the dryness and am thankful.

tasting: the burning heat of salsa from my taco salad lunch (that's also feeling, I suppose). Soon: cinnamon tea.

smelling: the ghost of last night's dinner: roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing, brown sugar carrots, green beans, pumpkin cookies.

hearing: my fingernails on computer keys and the refrigerator's shudder.

seeing: condensation on all the windows from all of last night's cooking; small children on the streets in costume, earlier; the tiny yellow-brown leaves we track into the apartment with our shoes, inevitably.

also:

A woman after my own heart.