Knowing where to look
Hump day, wake up and at my desk before Tin wakes up, so I don’t get to see his smiling face in the morning. At one point I found myself curled in a ball from being on the phone and staring at my computer and so I just got up and started pacing and pacing and pacing and realized I have cabin fever. I had about an hour in the mix that I could maybe get outside when my brother called and an opportunity to see him and have lunch presented itself. Two birds in one. We went over to Parkway and it was Cuban sandwich day – which was a great segue from a day where Cuba seemed to be top of mind, a friend had stopped by earlier to talk about what to do about replanting the yard and he is off to Cuba in Spring.
One word on the Parkway Cuban sandwiches – yum. My brother and I caught up and were talking about a wide assortment of check lists – how is this one and how is that one – at one point we were talking about my mom and tears welled in my eyes but I looked outside for a moment – we had just switched seats as the guy manning the grill outside the window was distracting and I looked up at a telephone pole across the street where someone had nailed a 3 inch by 3 inch wood block painted turquoise with a red happy face drawn on it.
Postscript: I kept a sign on my desk for years when I was writing fiction that said “The habit of art” which is a quote from Flannery O’Connor about making your art a habit otherwise the inspiration might come when you aren’t sitting there with your tools in hand. In a similar vein, keeping your eyes open and looking around is another habit I try to keep in my practice. When I saw the happy face, it was a moment I remembered that life is full of joy but you have to be aware to receive it.