Sometimes

Yesterday began as a magnificent day and continued along that course. I joined three friends in a jaunt to North Little Rock, where we had lunch at Brood & Barley, an extraordinary restaurant. The menu is remarkable; everything on it was appealing. In spite of the wonderful menu, I opted for a daily burger special, which was beyond wonderful. The four of us shared appetizers of fried olives (absolutely addictive), octopus, “shush strings” (asiago-slathered thin fries), and seared tuna. I desperately wanted to have one (or all) of  three different presentations of mussels, but I decided I will have to return, repeatedly, to continue wading through the menu. I had a stout with hints of chocolate and jalapeño, as well as a light IPA tinged with the flavor of tamarind. After lunch, we went across the street to Flyway Brewery, where I had another spectacular light and crisp brew, a farmhouse ale called Saison Avifaune. Though the food and the beer were exceptional, the most delightful aspect of the day was the company. I continue to be enormously grateful that, among the congregation of my church, I have found what one of the congregants have called “my people.” I look forward to getting together with another of “my people,” another favorite, in the coming days. If I could just convince “my people” who live upstate and elsewhere to join me here, I might be deliriously happy. Even in the shadow of profound sadness, I am finding something I thought was gone forever.

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The outdoor temperature is roughly 68°F and the humidity is inching upward toward ninety percent. Yet it feels a tad cooler, thanks to a wind strong enough to strip leaves and twigs from the oak trees encroaching on my deck. The day is grey and wet. Depending on which weather forecast I might believe, the day will involve fierce, windy, rainy weather or intermittent sun and clouds with rainy periods interspersed with almost clear skies. The forecasts agree, though, that the temperature will drop late in the day and this evening and into Monday, bringing much cooler temperatures tomorrow. At least that’s what they’re saying now. This afternoon, my church is hosting a “Ladies’ Day” celebration at a local covered pavilion, where if everyone shows almost 100 people will be present. That will be the largest gathering of the church since the pandemic began, I think. Everyone, I assume, will have received their full vaccinations, so it should be a pretty “safe” event. But the weather may scare some people off. We shall see.

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I woke quite early this morning and wandered through some old, unfinished electronic files, drafts that have never seen daylight. And I viewed a few hastily scribbled notes that I had recorded in the small spiral-bound notepads I tend to carry in my shirt pocket. Those notepads serve as  my memory when I know the real thing will fail me; when I have an idea that intrigues me. My intent was to try to find something that snares my interest and attention…something that might spur me to write something, anything, of personal interest. Mostly, I encountered dull drivel, stuff that could suffocate me if I let it. But a couple of snippets seemed to have some “shock” potential, though probably not as fodder for blog posts—yet here they are:

I stumble through transparent darkness until opaque light washes over me. I wipe away tears of ecstasy, replacing them with the incomparable joys of despair.

             and

She urged him to fondle the hinge of her thighs, her cannabis mood eliciting sighs.

There was plenty more, of course, but those two thought fragments seemed to capture two ends of a wide spectrum. How can two such divergent thoughts exist in the same brain (though, admittedly, not at the same time)? I should hasten to add that neither snippet was based on actual experience; like much of my writing, both were based on my imagination and, I learned, memory. The first one has no discernible history, as far as I can tell. I wrote it, I think, with the idea of using a provocative oxymoron (or two) to make a point.

The second one, though, includes “the hinge of her thighs,” a phrase I must have stolen from the lyrics of the Leonard Cohen song, A Singer Must Die. The string of words from which the phrase was lifted goes like this: “In the rings of her silk, in the hinge of her thighs. Where I have to go begging in beauty’s disguise.” My use, obviously, does not carry the poetic weight of Cohen’s lyrics. My notes revealed that “he” was a character about whom I have written many times: James Kneeblood. One day, he or his offspring/cousin/ nephew/whatever  (Calypso Kneeblood) will make it into a completed story.

I have literally hundreds of snippets, ranging in length from phrases a few words long to vignettes three or four thousand words long, waiting for me to do something with them. The tough part remains clearing away the detritus and debris and cleaning up the usable syllables that remain. The two examples above are unlikely to make the first cut, but if they did they would require more than a little cleaning.

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After yesterday, I should not be hungry for several days. Weeks, even. But I am a little peckish. So, I may go foraging in the kitchen, seeking something that will sustain me until this afternoon, when I will consume BBQ from Clampitt’s, courtesy of the church. Or, because I got up so early, I may go back to bed for a while. Nap a while until I feel my energy has been adequately replenished. That is always a good idea. At least sometimes it is.