A quiet Wednesday night. We have a new furnace so we are warmer tonight. The old furnace has been here since 1972. It served us well. Everything in this house is old. I like old things, they are comforting.
No children here tonight. We wish they were all here.
I ate at Waffle House on Thursday. I was by myself and waffles and hashbrowns sounded like a good lunch. While I was waiting and eating I scribbled on a napkin. This is what I wrote:
My alone day
nails clipped, scuffed, made to shine
next to hair, clipped, flipped, curved around my neck, sheared off, the short hair that often bristles when the ghosts tread across my grave.
Practicing being alone, what if I'm the one left alone instead of leaving the others all alone.
Food - my comfort
chatter around the counter, everybody here eating alone, interacting with the waiters, or whatever they are called at Waffle House.
Do these people all live alone, who waits for them, what color are their sheets.
Solitude, lonliness, what is the difference?
I've been out watering the flowers and herbs. They all look good considering the heat they have endured. If not for all the watering most of them would be dead. Some of the herbs are going to seed, which makes them look scraggly, but is necessary if I want them to come back next spring. A few things will have to spend the winter in the house, I hope I'm up to that task. They will get lights and bows for Christmas, looking very festive. Maybe the Christmas cactus will bloom. Why did Christmas come to mind!!
A storm is brewing, more later. I love a storm!!
No sleep for me tonight, even with medicine. It's after 1 in the morning and my eyes just won't close.
I stay awake a lot, stay awake when I need sleep so badly.
Often I stay awake because I fight sleep, even when I want to go to sleep. Maybe I don't like my dreams. What are they trying to tell me? Sometimes I think the dreams are telling me to do things I know I should do and other times they are telling me to do things I am certain I want to ignore. Rarely can I remember enough of a dream to write anything. I guess I should just jot down the fragments and wait to see if they will come together and tell me a whole dream.
The best sleep I ever get is napping just after I get out of bed in the morning.
After a really long time, I'm back to this journal. The blog seems too much trouble this morning. It is much cooler outside so cooler in the house as well. I have plants that must go in the ground and a broken tomato plant that needs to be sadly discarded.
I loved last night's storm. I was in Owensboro on my was to Lowe's. All manner of debris was blowing over the parking lot, filling my eyes and nose full of dust and no telling what. I just got a few sprinkles before I got in the building. Every time the doors opened (which was every time a person walked near them) the wind blew light bulbs off the shelf where they met with quite a shock when they hit the floor. Store flyers were actually flying. The storm raged on outside as I ambled around. I love the sound of a storm, the way it makes the hair raise on the back of my neck. I'm not afraid of storms, in fact I love them. But there it a tiny element of the unknown. I imagined what it would be like if the building collapsed although I knew it wouldn't. I thought I would be among the plants if it happened, if the roof and walls suddenly fell toward me. Or in the chandeliers, their bulbs all dark with no electricity to give them light. If my shopping basket wasn't full of plants I could turn my basket upside down and get under it. It might protect me, it might not. I'll never know.
