Thought-Drive

Distracted thinking saw me contemplating book titles like The Virus Season and invented colloquialisms like 'the 19 in 20.' Working from home has been jarring, also feeling a little trapped. This morning I woke up with a story in my head, so, without a great deal of fanfare, I wrote it down. I don't like the ending. So, there we were, standing on opposite sides of the lot with an audience of parked cars ordered neatly into their spaces, watching us do a little dance. One dog and walker went left, while another went right, one back, another forward. All the while holding tight to the leashes of our family pets who didn’t know a thing about social distance. In the beginning, Dad took Yorker out mostly. I think he needed something to do, wanted anything to control. He never said if he was taking time off, or if he’d have a job to go back to, if he was working, or if he was looking for work. Then, some time later, I guess Mom wanted in on the activity. She was working fr...

I like to tell my students when they fail that an error only becomes a mistake when they neglect to learn from it. It's largely semantics, but there is a certain difference in permanence between the two. Make a wrong turn on a new commute, that's an error, that's an opportunity. Make the same wrong turn six months later, that's a mistake, that's a flatly wrong decision. Like an exhausted mine, it's settled and resigned in what it is, and what it isn't. So, the cover art is almost done for the third book, but I finished the edits yesterday. There is still a dull whine like I've forgotten something, but before I left the office I was able to read the last line on the last page, be satisfied with the sum total, and sigh. The conversations about Covid 19 in earshot have been escalating, but in the midst of all that the only thing I felt was gratitude. I'm a bit in awe, really, of the transformation I was able to enact, from the little changes, like wh...