the ritual
Posted by ~ jamiegirlSitting by the gas fireplace, hot chocolate in a saucepan on the kitchen stove. I can feel this endeavor looming and beckoning, all the while knowing it has already begun.
Messy, elaborate schemes… strips of paper full of quotes …some mine, some not mine piled on my table. Pictures and messy paint tubes strewn color-coded trains of thought. Art is the only thing that allows me to feel like everything might be ok.
Holding together an unwieldy plan, convincing myself to do something I want to do but am afraid to do can require an inordinate amount of ritual. Anyone who’s ever tried to do anything difficult knows this. Reluctant, hopeful marathon runners depend on the right shorts, right weather, right water bottle. Novelists with coffee and a familiar glance out the window at a certain time of day, shoes on indoors, familiar chair, lucky pen.
…..Meanwhile country on the speakers in my living room: “You’re the one I love.”
There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; You only see a tenth of what is true…you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won’t know for twenty years. And you’ll never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. . .
and…after all of it…. We’re still here, he and I…still right here…
him… and me.
