Oven Birds And The Like

There is nothing (and I mean nothing!) like being freshly showered and sitting here on my bed in jammies...listening to James Taylor singing he wishes he had a river he could skate away on.

The day turned out unexpected in a number of ways. For starters, the grand dinner planned for tomorrow took place today...a glass of wine, a book of verse, and thou beside me singing in the (sort of) wilderness (and the wilderness is paradise enow). You know who you are. Nuff said.

So tomorrow has opened up, yawning like the Grand Canyon and all the things I didn't get around to doing today I will do tomorrow. That's what it's there for. Not like I was really procrastinating (perish the thought). But I woke up late and did my moving through amniotic fluid impression.

But it's not too bad if you look at it. I secured some more work, fixed two interviews (heck, I will be filing stories from Saturday), set up a meeting for possible work, wrote to people, connected, called Elba to come look at my oven (they are, oh joy, they are!)...and a friend asked me for lemon curd cake. Sigh. It warms the cockles to have someone ask me for cake. Just like ole times. Num saying?

I have been filling books with thoughts but so far, there is no plot, no coherence, no storyline. Everything is disjointed but then, we have to start somewhere don't we?

The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
(The Oven Bird, Robert Frost)

So here I am, learning what to make of diminished things. It's not so bad. Looking at what I consider diminished things in other lights, they sparkle, they glow, they break out into song.

There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It's the great, big broad land 'way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace.
(The Spell of the Yukon, Robert Service)

And so to bed.