I've kept a daily writing log for years. One year I wrote about clouds. Another year, the tree and bird life I was privy to from my work window. Another, emotional turmoil and angst disguised as metaphor, (I suppose the clouds, trees, birds were all masks, really). And then I stopped. I don't know why. I decided this morning to start up again and write what's happening as it happens. The important thing is to get myself up and writing again. Instead of writing log, I'm calling this exercise this moment. Here goes:
The sky is opening for business, propelling the morning into a new day. A Vermeer blue on mottled white. Yesterday, flakes fell intermittently like moths from a streetlight. And just this moment, the sun has crested the Rockies and limned my bedroom window in a halo of yellow light. A solitary magpie hops one, two, three times, then flits away to settle in the branches of the cedar pine and caw dissatisfaction. A pony-tailed woman bent forward in concentration, walks her teacup-sized dog, it's small legs running the sidewalk sixteen beats per square foot. My own small dog growls from his perch on the corner of the bed, then turns his attention back to licking his paw. Leaves are strewn about the wide expanse of my lawn and I see the perennials have worked their way up through the hard ground and are preparing to unfurl. My father pulls into the driveway, drops my mother for her walk, then speeds away. She walks quickly west without looking at the house. She is seventy-four. My father eighty-two. No matter what I tell myself, I know the light is shortening for both. A spandexed runner covers my sidewalk in seven long strides. Cars are rolling past now in greater frequency. A dog barks. And now silence, save for starlings' quarrel.
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