Dear Reader,
It did not start out an auspicious morning. Nothing dramatic, nothing tragic, anyway, but Word Raccoon had already informed me yesterday that there was NO WAY, with the shape our hands were in after multiple days of cutting ceiling tile, that we were cutting any more today.
So I gathered my café things last night and, even though I had just reminded that scamp August was going to be all novel, all month, somehow A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry by Gregory Orr found its way into the basket because “It’s not August yet.”
I didn’t argue. It does no good.
This morning, the forecast admitted that it was going to be too chilly to write on the café porch. Ordinarily that wouldn’t matter much, except the porch is covered. Wonderful when the sun is blazing, but on a cool morning it can stay cold.
So I made an executive decision.
Jeans.
WR protested.
Then I reached for a comfortable black long-sleeved shirt with white lettering.
“It’s too big,” she complained. “And it’s ugly.”
Poor thing nearly expired altogether when I announced we weren’t wearing earrings.
“But…”
“No. We’re wearing our hair down because it’s cold.”
She looked genuinely wounded.
(For the record, normally wearing long hair down in July is rather like wearing a fur coat, which is why she usually spends the summer snapping, “Why is my hair touching me?“)
She rummaged hopefully through the jewelry drawer anyway.
“Studs?”
“They’ll be hidden by the hair.”
“But…”
“WR,” I said, “If someone compliments the earrings, they’ll want to talk and normally I’d love that, but I don’t think we’ve got it in us today. Let’s just get in, claim a table, and stick our AirPods in, shall we? We won’t be rude, we’ll just mind our business.”
She sighed.
She understood.
She tried instead to be grateful that we were writing rather than wrestling ceiling tiles and that I wasn’t dragging her to the gym.
She was right: my hands were furious after yesterday’s combination of tile work and typing, and it was taking forever for my arthritis medicine to kick in.
Oh, and before we left the house one leg fell right off the dining room table while I was moving furniture around, leaving the poor thing in a position no respectable table should ever find itself. That is not ideal for eating off it!
The house is still upside down from the ongoing ceiling tile saga, and I hate that.
My desk is in the living room.
The dining room chairs are sleeping in the kitchen.
My beautifully staged bookshelves are dismantled, my pretties scattered throughout the house as if they are in time out. That’s perhaps the biggest insult.
At a little after seven, I somehow found myself sitting in the café parking lot. Nine o’clock is supposed to be writing time. Apparently WR cannot tell time. She neglected to have caffeine before going, which did not help her mood. I sat in the car for ten minutes trying to decide whether to go inside at all.
If I did, should I brave the chilly indoors or gamble on the porch? The decision seemed too huge and I almost flipped a coin.
I mentally reviewed the usual cast of regulars. Normally, as I mentioned, I’m happy to see them and enjoy chatting.
This morning, though, WR was very close to tears at just the idea of going in and I wasn’t terribly far behind. How would I explain if I just started weeping for what seemed no good reason?
I’ve seen people cry in cafés. I’ve cried along with them when they needed it, not thinking any less of them. Being a writer means, maybe, having access to a wide range of emotions and learning to be comfortable with them.
But today, even breakfast felt impossibly, unnecessarily complicated. Stupid freaking breakfast.
Hot tea or Coke Zero?
Banana berry bowl or bacon, egg, and cheese bagel?
Simple decisions rarely feel simple on mornings like this.
So we took a breath and went inside, hoping for the quiet, steady barista.
It was her.
The manager called hello from the kitchen while we admitted we weren’t fully operational until caffeine.
The barista smiled and said everyone has mornings like that.
It was exactly the right thing to say.
None of the regulars had arrived yet, and if they wandered in later I never noticed.
By then we were reading with AirPods conspicuously on display. (Which caused WR to say, See, our ears are showing after all, and they’re naked!)
Breakfast came and I permitted us a decluttering video, followed by classical music to replace the café playlist (lovely people, questionable taste in music), and gradually we felt more like ourselves.
Then, gasp…we began reading and writing poetry.
Later the porch finally warmed enough for us to claim a spot. I finished reading the second chapter in the Orr book, scribbled notes with one of the tiny comment card pencils the cafe had because neither I nor WR had grabbed a pen on our way out the door, being too busy mourning the fall of our table.
“Now don’t get angry,” I told WR after the chapter reading, “But when we get home, we’re demoing the remaining tiles. I’m not making you cut anything. We’re just pulling them down and disposing of them.”
So we climbed the ladder over and over.
Made another glorious mess.
Were showered by bits of plaster.
Swept.
Vacuumed.
Coughed.
Turned on the air purifier.
We received an assist on one defiant tile.
Tomorrow the tin snips should arrive, and if all goes according to plan we’ll finally finish this project. (Friday at the latest; depends on the delivery time.) It has not been my favorite DIY adventure. But I have to admit that I’m rather proud that I learned how to do it.
And it looks awesome!
(I’ve also officially forbidden WR from attempting anything involving water or electricity, so yesterday I arranged for someone recommended to us to install the new ceiling fan and replace the upstairs bathroom faucet next month. YouTube University has its limits.)
WR, meanwhile, has begun lobbying to paint the kitchen ceiling tiles instead of replacing them. This was, you might recall, not on the original list at all. I think I’m going to make her wait a couple of months at least before we even discuss it.
As for today’s writing? We wrote the pert yet sympathetic “Lord Help a Man,” “Three Strange Angels (after D. H. Lawrence),” and “From This Side.” (That first really wants to be a song; we’ll see.)
There are also a couple of half-poems lurking. One line especially lingers: “I will never stop inviting you to the party.”
And I won’t.
Drema