The Right Write Rite

Cooking.

Anything really.

That's what brings us together.

The silent being who has become a very close friend.

We stand in the kitchen on Saturday. Trying to decide what will be the dish for the day. Well hopefully.

I really am in the mood for soup, but he is dead set on desert. We pour over a couple of cookbooks that really need to be replaced. We have completed most of the recipes and are fighting for our favorites. Goulash. Chicken Soup. Pecan Pie. Double Chocolate Fudge Brownies.

"How about we just do one of each?"

I was tired of fighting with him. It all sounded so good and we had to start cooking soon. There was a nod of the crazy punk hair that sat on his head. I was told Arman used to be refined. Before his sister died of cancer and before his parents lost custody ...

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Ugly.

Us two.

I don't think he knows.

When we sit in silence in the group home kitchen.

Especially on a night like tonight. He has not actually seen my face yet, but I know he has heard.

It was another bad placement. They took me away like always, and it pissed the guys off. I would always kick and scream and hope that they would just leave me alone, but its always the same. I would eventually come back, either rejected or taken away in an ambulance.

He was reading like always. I didn't have to turn around to know that his pale hands would be angrily clenched around the faded, yellow pages of For Whom the Bell Tolls. He always read Hemingway after an episode. Concentration on him was hard when I tried to get the lemon pepper crust to stick on the steaks. I ached ...

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Carlotta

had gone

missing.
"How long has she been absent?"

The sisters looked at their fingers. They weren't counting; they were admiring their delicate skin.

Vella finally looked at Sabine. "Two days?"

"I don't know. I was distracted by father's ball which he insists on holding in spite of my birthday and I want to go to the seashore..." The sisters were not much help in a crisis. Carlotta could count on them for a few things, but not an overabundance of concern for things outside their sphere. Vella's sphere extended as far as her reach, and Sabine's was smaller than that. They had their generous moments, let it be said. This wasn't one of them. Not yet. After Carlotta had been gone say, a week, they would begin to worry. As it was, the task of worrying fell to their governess, Miss Hengepen ...

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Impatient.

So impatient.

Time forgot its coffee today.

Delayed rhythmic beats murmur. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

But I, I don't miss a single beat. Anxiously my fingers tap in sixteenths to try and enable warp speed.

I long for the future. This idle waiting must come to an end. I try to fill my thoughts with to-do lists and schedules, but my mind always comes back to the future. While trying to ignore the clock, temptation abounds and I find myself looking at her status again.

"Time is of the essence," they've been known to say. Yet, why is time travel such an attractive ability? The future is what gives hope. Its unpredictability, mystery, and sense of wonder gives way to the idea of a better time. I could entertain thoughts of travel and adventure which contrast with my current status; sitting, waiting, mediocrity.

I'm ...

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   We drove. 

Not only did we drive, we did it in the dead of winter and we took three cats with us.  I wasn't nervous, much.  I think that made everyone who knew us and knew we were going even more nervous.  Somehow, when people are nervous, I get less nervous.  There was a time on the border of Russia when I was stuck on a bus with a lot of people who were very nervous.  I think that moment was the calmest I've ever been. 

    We sent our things (some boxes, two desks, entertainment center, bed, dresser and a small round table) ahead with a moving company.  It's the type of moving company that lets you pack and unpack, and just drives it there and drops it off for you.  That left only us, the cats, some boxes of china and other sundry items like a ...

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On

the cusp

of the moment, that second before pen touches paper

I think my heart is so full I can't possibly choose one word

out of the massed crowd with which to begin. So, ultimately, I begin by observing the occasion. The word of choice? 'On.'
Maybe I should try harder in the future.

In the morning my sentences come out backward at first and half of the words are misspelled. That's why I have Morning Pages, to get the waste and tangle of language that's built up overnight out of the way and away from the real writing I must do. Like a

test paper or scratch paper. Some ideas that escape the morning tangle are good, wholesome thoughts or plans. I highlight those and return to file them later. The benefits of Morning Pages multiply the longer I write about them.

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Morning

pages are

rather late today. I'm in a funk over idiots.

I should have started morning pages as soon as I

woke up. Oh well. Better late than never. It always shocks me--and this goes on a lot of

late--that I can be so incredibly happy one moment, then bashing my head on a counter in frustration the next. People make me so mad, but inside I'm happy regardless. It's weird to feel every emotion at once, and so deeply.

childhood, stepping along barefoot, hot blacktop burning my toes. The ice cream man is outside my house. Faded t-shirts, sandals, everything dusty because it's the desert. But in the city there are trees, and a river that sometimes rises over its bed of skipper stones. Everything by the gray water smells like trout, everywhere else ...

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too

many words

exit stance is explained slowly

don't continue to blow up martians unless they smell bad

uncertain is something that ive never been anything but lost in. dont hate coming up short. theres fifty million words

i dont wanna sound like an idiot. i want to sound stupid but not too dumb. take a hit. that would be really great. are you ready. it's bending so hold it up. for some reason it didn't really work. wait it did. monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday SUNDAY!!

don't say poop. thats bad. look you weigh more than me. do you. come here. i don't eat that much though. you probably eat healthier than me cuz you work all thee time. and then working out at the gym and on the tramoline all tha time. we could do this like everyday. for some reason the ...

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Frustration

Little voices

Big voices still talking loudly

Please, leave me alone to my book, let it be

It's okay. I'll make the tea, I'll pick up the room. I don't need silence. I don't need the quite.

The pew pew's and the laughter. The loud booming from the back room. The sound of the washer, the click of the keyboard. It's okay. They are my symphony. The pounding feet my cresendo. The timer buzzes and the smell of freshness fills the kitchen. More running feet, some smiles.

My turn for smiles, my turn for frustration that cookies won't last, big eyes looking up at me won't last. I can't decide it if is frustration or fear. maybe both. As the clock ticks, I know I won't have THIS time back. I can't take out the battery. I ...

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Candles

drip, burning

dancing almost. Familiar patterns spark.

Worlds unknown. Steadily forgotten like empty subway stations, hollow people.

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