Talking Big

Moreover, to go back to my thesis that life has a varying offensive, the realization of having cracked was not simultaneous with a blow, but with a reprieve.

Fitzgerald, The Crack-up

Listening to the rain dripping from trees. The later at night the better. Or sometimes my mother will post something about gratitude, nothing witty or original, but it is enough for a little nudge. Nudged towards what? Reflection, I guess. What Walter Benjamin called the sober rooms of our later reflections. The background image on my laptop is of Mont Saint-Michel. The tide must be high. The water looks still. You must negotiate with things to get that stillness when you’re not made of stone. Things. A reprieve. In a few days time, it will be twenty years since my father died. I came across a bit of Auden that feels like it fits this December.

In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance.