I’ve been wearing the The Red Sweater since Monday night except to bathe and yesterday when I got hot when I was tugging off the sofa slipcovers so I could wash them. I suppose today I will have to wash The Red Sweater. As I walked out onto my deck to light my heater and smoke and drink coffee, the first drops of rain began to fall. I should have known. Yesterday was warm and lately when it’s warm there is rain the next day.
It’s too early to know how I feel. I haven't brushed my teeth yet but I found that writing when I first wake gives me a sort of forecast of my day’s feelings. I know I’m tired and sore from the house cleaning mania that overtook me yesterday. I get this way sometimes, insanely focused on ridding my house of dirt and dust that will just come back in a few days anyway. When I get a job, the first thing I'm going to buy is a Roomba so I can sic that little son of a bitch on my dusty floors every day. My Dead Husband wouldn’t give a shit about the dust. He would pat my side of the bed and say, “Climb back up here with me, Fat Girl. We’ll let it rain while we take a nap.”
When I have been out of town, I miss him more than usual and I have been to Savannah two weekends in a row. I declined an invitation to drive down to Amelia Island tomorrow for a Super Bowl weekend party because I want to stay home in my little clean (for now) house with my dogs.
I want to hide in The Red Sweater for few more days because it’s my soft place to fall, comfort against the chill but more than that it is Clint, his arms around me, his love stored up in the softness like one one of those time-released patches that dispenses nicotine or pain medicine or estrogen. I need his presence right now more than usual and as usual he won’t let me down. Well, he did let me down when he died but that is old news. I have to do the best I can.
After I brush my teeth and before I begin to stuff the sofa cushions back into their covers, I’m going to lie in bed and listen to Phyl's CDs and catch up on Hipstercrite and My Soul is a Butterfly, my two favorite blogs. (I wish some Zona Rosans would start blogs so I could follow them). They get me outside of myself and take me to New York and Austin and make me feel connected to the creative energy those talented women splash on their pages. And I’m going to read some poems. I have been reading poems in the morning - at least two. Yesterday I read James Dickey’s “The Shark’s Parlor” and “A Morning.”
I’ve started a list of some of my favorite poems and for a while showed them on all my blogs but I couldn't figure out how to link the titles to the poems so the reader to go directly to them. So, now the poems are only listed on my Poetry blog and anyone who wants to read them must Google the title. I guess that's not too much to ask.
PS: Yesterday I finished Noah's Compass. Don't bother.
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