January 2, 2018
Last night was the full moon in Cancer.
The first of two full moons in January.
The Sun is in Capricorn.
Saturn is back in his home in Capricorn – for the next three years.
And we are waiting – this year – for Uranus and Chiron to change signs.
∞
Calling myself a writer has never set me free. I might choose the words, I’m a person who writes, instead. Sometimes, labeling or naming things, heals or draws us closer to that which we name. It can create intimacy or remembrance, a connection to a friend, a plant, a bird you’ve just known. Claudia, a rose named Gentle Hermione, the singing Vireo. And sometimes labels create boxes we can’t escape. A fish will grow to the size of its environment. A Bonsai tree will never be an Oak, forever labeled as small.
What is a writer outside of this box? I would like to think I am the very thing I’m writing about, a spring rose, the Vireo’s song, last night’s dream, the sounds from the kitchen, the way he chops and thinks and paces around the table as he cooks, distant cars, the low hum of the heater, this blanket, the way the sky grew dark so quick.
I’m a person who writes, but also a bit of an alchemist, a shape-shifter, a time traveler. I meet the other. I become that thing. The window becomes a mirror and then a door and I’m trying on clothes from another world. We laugh like kids in a wardrobe, becoming each other for a moment. I’m a person who writes… but there is so much more.
my inner voice – The voice that second guesses everything. Did I ask too many questions today? Did I stare too long? I only wanted to be sure of everything. I always want to know the story from every angle.
Mr. Cowbird has a mate. A Mrs. or a Miss or maybe a Ms. They’ve taken up with the hens and the peahen, mirroring them as if their dark brown feathers won’t stand out. But if the Cowbirds can find the hen’s nests it will truly be a miracle. There are clutches of eggs scattered about the yard, in the dark cover of leaves, beneath the outbuildings, hidden in places we’ve never seen.
I was deep in thought about wanting to write a book someone could open to any page. Start in the middle. Begin at the end… I was reading the description of Kimiko Hahn’s book of Zuihitsu, “The Narrow Road to the Interior,” when Mr. Cowbird crashed into the window. Urgently – flapping! I got up to make sure he was okay. He was and I added the book to my cart.
Now her book is beside me.
I’ve never had to struggle over questions of Motherhood. I’ve only ever had to be good enough for myself. Perhaps that demand grows wider when you are your own and only child. But I’m finding her maternal questioning intriguing. The way she witnesses another Mother on the train…
“Always, Mommy needs to – I need to –
I look up from this notebook and see a tiny island with the shell of a castle – what is that? Is that how I’ve been a mother?” – Kimiko Hahn
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my inner voice – Why don’t I ever ask questions? Why am I so quiet? What must they be thinking of me, this quiet one, just listening and taking it all in.
The naming of things is the first game we play. Mom, Dad, Bird, Train… Repeat the words and you win. Pencil, Cat, Cloud. I do love words, but I don’t love words that box me in. I am not a small fish. I am not a Bonsai tree. it’s the arrested development of putting a cloud in a jar. That cloud will always be the jar.
I like the way my dog’s feet hang off the couch as she sleeps. I’m wondering how the chicken house flooded in my dream, but not a drop of water in the yard, and how clever of me to store two red wheelbarrows in the chicken coop. One for you. One for me.
Yes, yes, yes… be a cloud. Be something that transforms.
Today the sky is gray but bright.
Looking at the window hurts my eyes.
The scaffolding. The ladder.
The squirrel taunting the dog.
I win. I’m good at this game.
– And you beside me listening to a football game through your earbuds. I can just make out the sound of a whistle blowing. A penalty? Someone crossed a line? Everyone should be following the rules.
But I want to draw my own lines.
I want to cross the lines I’ve drawn.
Pencil, Cloud, Bird…
Sometimes writing sets me free.
Nicole ~