The plate that fumbles from your fingers, pauses mid-leap, before dashing into a thousand porcelain commas on the kitchen tile. That brief moment of sadness for the plate that is no longer a plate. The additional moment of sadness on realizing that you will now be on your hands and knees squinting for tiny white sharp fragments for half an hour.
Looking up from the broken aura of plate through the kitchen window to see a wren alight onto the dancing winter branch of a Mimosa tree.
The sock the dog chewed because she was lonely when you left the house. Her happy face on your return. Your holey sock in rigor mortis on the couch.
The awareness that blooms behind your sternum like a slow fire— she missed you so much that she wanted to remember your scent, to ingest the memory of you. You hug your dog. You throw away the sock.
The dinner that burned due to the overlong phone conversation. Involuntarily charred food spreads a sad old smell throughout the house. Then you chance upon a thought: The person on the phone needed to hear a familiar voice, and you were that voice today.
Another thought follows: One truth of all everyday cooking— there is nothing burned that cannot be covered by some delightful bottled sauce. That’s why you keep these items on hand. The deep gloop as the sauce leaves the bottle.
The coffee table that jumped out and bit you on the shin in the dark. Pain red and spreading in a maroon vine throughout your extremities.
The momentary anger which is dulled by jumping around on one foot while holding the bruising leg, while simultaneously shouting fake profanities in the voice of Yosemite Sam.
The car that won’t start; the remote that escaped your fingers; the toaster that refuses to toast— all these appliances were faithful to you, for years.
These work horses put up with your nonsense without complaining all the time. Even electronics have an off day.
The shrunken shroud of one of your sweaters in the dryer— again. You now have five socks (your dog chewed one today) and two sweaters left (you keep murdering wool).
It was your favorite sweater. Now it will make a charmingly off-kilter tea cozy.
The days where nothing seems to go quite right. You boil your tongue with the coffee and dash late to the meeting. Your voice is too sharp and your mind distracted. Broken things break again. Beloved things go missing. And worse, much worse.
You stop to look at your hands. Old calluses and new abrasions decorate your palms. Smudges of drawing charcoal visit the grooves of your knuckles. You wiggle your thumbs. You roll your wrists outward; your fingers touch imaginary skies.
The tongue will heal. Your voice will gentle. The beloved will arrive. The broken will be twined together to toast another day.
What cannot be healed, nor gentled, nor found, nor fixed is now out of your hands and into the flame.
What is bright often burns, and what burns, transforms. Your hands know this; they keep trying to tell you. On the worst days, look to me, I can tame fire.
The Bluebird Pillow Book is a series of lists based on the writings of Sei Shōnagon.
Bluebird Blvd. is currently holding an open invitation to any blogger who might want to take a crack at writing a pillow book list for Friday, February 10th.
Please contact me by email (listed in my About section) for additional details!
*This image provided free of charge by award-winning photographer Luc Viatour.
Sugar/Sweet, Cracking Up/Choking Up. Sizzle/Steak.
Happy/Happy! I’m so, so thrilled you think this works as it stands. I worried my head off over this list— I keep trying to push farther and farther out with the conventions without breaking the form. (But did you notice I learned how to make the text different sizes? I’m so excited.)
Your optimism is breathtaking. Me, I start getting paranoid that the world is out to get me.
*Laughs loudly and happily* You know… I do have those days where I just want to shout at the capital “U” Universe– “What? WHAT? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? What’d I do to DESERVE blurbity-blah-blah-BLAH!”
Besides my own aptitude for spectacular mistakes, the fact is, I did nothing to cause anything. Crummy stuff just happens. (And the first time that occurred to me, let me tell you, that was a scary thought.)
Here’s the deal: A few years ago I was going through some really rough stuff, unusually so, and when the dust cleared, I had this thought: I want to be more optimistic. Because if standard-issue disasters are going to keep happening in my life, as they do in everybody’s life, then I need to find a way to reframe the little stuff.
So, that’s what I’ve been trying to do ever since. I fail terribly and loudly at optimism all the time. But, I try.
And this tidbit about me may make you rethink my optimism: I yell terrible things from the inside of my car (windows closed) at drivers who are texting while operating a motor vehicle. (This is one of my upcoming essays actually. You’re gonna get to see the bad Bluebird!)
I love the surprises in your writing. And I think that perhaps the plate loved you and was willing to give its life so that you would see the bird in the mimosa tree. What if that was they only way you would have seen it!
I didn’t have a chance to respond to your gorgeous comment yesterday, but I have to tell you I spent the evening contemplating the beauty of your statement.
Your comment made me stop and reframe, in a new way, last Saturday’s moment with the plate (from a set of vintage white pieces) and the crash, the mimosa and the wren.
The way you think surprises me in such a delightful way. Thank you for adding a layer of new depth to my own thinking about the plate and the wren. You say so much in three sentences, I am awed. You are so very lovely, Yearstricken!
This made my whole hapless day better, because it felt less isolated, as a day, than it had previously. Thank you immeasurably. Less loneliness is a precious gift, and that a stranger’s writing can give it, that’s a tiny miracle. Bless your (meta)pen.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am so elated that my list improved your bad day. In fact, I’m awed and humbled by the beauty and honesty of your comment. You’ve given me an immeasurable feeling of gratitude, and for that, a thousand, alliterative words of appreciation would not be enough on my part. Thank you so very much.