#writinghabit

[jackielutzke]

Winter Forest

When the forest recedes because Mother Nature has asked for it—not in so many words, not in the way that people ask—but in the silence of shifting seasons, the cold that cues the trees to drop leaves, the flowers to fade away, all of it to renounce for a time its showy lushness in favor of…what? What are we to see instead?

The shape of the trees, perhaps. The underpinning of the forest. All her architectural ideas, unobscured, clarified.

Or perhaps the precarious aspects of the forest’s future. The overgrown limbs about to break. The impossible trajectories of two opposing trees.

Or maybe, so muted, just the joy of the moss, still green.

[tulisdulu]

Barangkali lebih banyak terlihat diam dari luar. Namun nyatanya riuh gaduh dalam fikirannya. Dipenuhi dengan bermuhasabah diri, atas apa-apa yang telah & tengah dilakukannya. Barangkali dari lisannya jarang terdengar racauannya. Namun nyatanya, dalam hatinya selalu dipenuhi dengan dzikir-dzikir untuk mengingat-Nya. Barangkali beritanya tak pernah beredar dilinimasa. Namun nyatanya, sungguh banyak bentuk kebermanfaatan dirinya bagi ummat.

Tak terlihat bukan berarti tak melakukan apa-apa bukan? @tulisdulu

[jackielutzke]

Peanut Allergy

We’re in the car and Oliver tells me that even if he could, he would never want to be in a trial to overcome his peanut allergy. Never, he says. Never, ever, ever.

Oliver has been allergic to peanuts the entirety of his existence; we discovered it shortly after he turned one. Probably before then I was harming him subtly by proxy, since I nursed him.

It strikes me as odd that Oliver would claim his allergy this vigorously until it doesn’t. We have defined so much of his life by it, out of necessity. Of course he would one day claim it, hold it close, refuse to consider letting it go. Say, in a way, if this is me, then let it be me.

[jackielutzke]

Wrong Time

I keep the clock in my living room set to the wrong time. And not just slightly wrong—though maybe that’s what’s more devilish, to be NEARLY accurate—but extremely wrong. At this moment I think it says it’s something like 5:30, which is either five hours behind or seven ahead of what’s true as I write this.

People look at the clock and do the expected double-take: That’s not the time, is it?? Not that they believe it but they can’t help but ask. No, I reassure them, and supply the correct time. The clock has made me a gatekeeper, an arbiter of distress or relief.

[jackielutzke]

Consistency; Change

At what point in our growing up do we (perhaps unconsciously) decide that we have reached the end of our ability to claim something new for ourselves? Or perhaps we still do, but the claim comes loudly, laboriously, with many words about why and the likely threshold of expected success, or it comes quietly until there are enough proof points to refer to, to validate the idea of evolution.

Consistency is a comfort to everyone. An established narrative is a sort of interpersonal shorthand, a we don’t have to ask because we know.

But I have a different favorite color now. For starters.

[jackielutzke]

Rereader

I received a book in the mail today, one I’ve previously read.

I don’t know what makes someone a rereader but it seems the concept of rereading is one either embraced or met with deep consternation and, often, vociferous protests, because unless it makes sense to you, it makes absolutely no sense.

I pulled the book from its packaging, felt something like a confirming sigh move through me—yes, this is the book from before. Not that that was in question—I knew what I was ordering—but more that I was a mere cover-flip away from going back to a place I’d once been to see if there was anything else there for me.

[jackielutzke]

The Borders of a Day

A much younger version of me knew it best, how the borders of a day can be pushed out beyond themselves. She would steal away to her room for hours to read, so entranced, so elsewhere that she would not move: a sort of waking hours REM sleep paralysis, stories in place of dreams. A disregarded clock radio tracked the time in red neon.

I still read but in much shorter bursts: it is harder to claim the time. It is harder to stay awake; something about my adult body is skeptical. Something about my adult brain asserts that it has enough fodder, stills me, concocts and offers me a dream of its own.

[jackielutzke]

Sick Day

Today I was home sick. Not wanting to languish the entire day in my bedroom, I set up camp in the living room. I watched a mind-numbing amount of Survivor: Philippines. I served as a cushion for my cat. A ball of dough for her to knead.

After a time even beneficial rest in sickness becomes something loathable, an undesirable state on top of an undesirable state. Nothing should go on too long.

I got up, started to undecorate my Christmas tree, get it ready to drag out of my house this weekend. Nothing should go on too long.