Mostly harmless.

Finally, I was able to read again today. It's like finally being able to breathe after a fit of coughing. I still feel like the pinata after the party, but at least I can read once more.

Time muddies, sweat and tears will ruffle these sheets, covered with seashells - fitting, to wallow in this briny fever? Corral these sheep into pens of sleep, so they might bounce out again. There is no thinking deep, deep thinking in this bathypelagic dream-scape.
I can see the angler fish, taunting me with lures, it burns behind the shutters even when I shut my eyes. And the fever, the phlegm, the fatigue and stomach aches, the nausea and dizziness, the crescendo of illness-tides rising with the night fill this shipwrecked shell with the ocean sounds of far and distant waves.


I feel like this week is a Simic story: a poem whose satirical description ends in a twist, a smirk, and the hint of sardonicism.

Creation

There are writers and philosophers who say that nothing new is ever created, nothing new has been made since the beginning. And they are right, in a fashion, and wrong. But me? I believe nothing new is ever not created, and that creation happens constantly. If someone asked me to read Alice in Wonderland and write it from memory a  year later, making it creative as possible, the end result might possess a bit of the plot and setting of the same story, but the flavor would differ.
I am not Lewis Carroll, and, try as I might, my writing (save what I may have memorized) will never contain the dreamy, chaotic, mythical, fae, fanciful swirl that his writing so easily assumes in a way that states, clearly, "I am Lewis Carroll". My writing will never do that because I am not, in fact, him.
My creation may not actually construct any new matter, or invent any motifs that have never before been introduced, but that does not mean its arabesque of imagery, flavor, and artistic aroma are not, in a fashion, unique. There is an old joke regarding creation and God.
A man says to God: man has ascended, and can create just as God can. See all of our cities and how we've molded metal to our will, and how we've set the world beneath our feet and at our fingertips?
The man and God proceed to set up a contest of creation, where they will each try and grow crops and bring a plant to fruition. God starts, and grows an apple tree instantly, and takes an apple, sitting back to watch the man. The man smiles and stoops to the earth with a seed in hand, and starts digging a hole, until God leans forward and says, "no, no, no, no. You have to use your own dirt."
In this fashion, the philosophers and artists are correct, but I think that creation itself is a major portion of imago dei. What do we know about God in Genesis 1, when we are created in his image, save that God loves what is good, and creates? So writers, artists of every design, may not create new matter, new dirt and plants, but we can still plant and harvest and create, utilizing those tools we have been given. One of my favorite Neil Gaiman talks was his "Make Good Art" speech, in which he tells an audience of students to tackle the world and create something that only they can create, not because they are better than everyone else, but because each person has that potential.
Gaiman also said: "There are better writers than me out there, there are smarter writers, there are people who can plot better - there are all those kinds of things, but there’s nobody who can write a Neil Gaiman story like I can."
I really appreciate that sentiment.



What, on that first morn, did Eve say?
fashioned from that which captures
the heart, those ivory tusks that shut
man's dreams away in careful prison
know they, then, the secret trail back in?

--1-

is it only words crawling
up and down my spine?
you may surrender only so many ribs
before there's nothing left to give

--2.5--

i'm a glass dove
here's my broken cage around a weeping heart
fragile as feathers of rain in this hurricane
whose violent winds, shush, shush -
//--1--
what words did she say?

Christmas Eve

I'd rather be sick at my parent's house than anywhere else, though the timing is certainly inconvenient.

My parent's backyard (what you can see if it - I'm no photographer, apologies) was beautiful in the sun rising over the hills this morning. When the sun finally crested the rolling waves of earth and pierced through the trees, it gleamed through the mercurial fog like an alchemical magic, golden strands of sunlight streaming down like heavenly tinsel.
It's Christmas (soon), ladies and gentlemen, thought not a white one, I'm afraid. Merry Christmas.

I had nightmares about art history last night, and could not sleep more than twenty minutes at a time. I woke up sweating and exhausted every twenty minutes or so until morning, whereupon I surrendered and walked outside. Rarely do I experience a surrealism when ambling down city, or small-town, streets, yet here, cupped like a dove in the palms of the mountains, the clouds crashed and made frothy the waves of the earth. Here, the earth and sky battled, and the mists lingered long before, bruised and beaten, they lifted with despair. In summer, the maple's splindly arms don't seem so defeated, condemned to bear ice and lichen until spring resurrects them again.
As I walk through the forest, hearing the distant trickling of water hidden in the shroud transports me into the fae, and every shifting form, then, might be faun or unicorn, fairy or pixie, sliding between the silvery branches with slippery grace.

When I see such a world, it captures me. Does grace redeem these trees, flowers, hills and mountains, doe and falcon, as surely as for me? I inhale beauty, and it is very good indeed. It is, I think, more than truth.

------

I won super-giant boggle tonight, against the family. I remember as a little child, the parents always allowed me to use two letter words in the original boggle, and I still lost. My parents are quite talented when words come into play. But I managed to eke out victories in quiddler yesterday (up and down) and boggle today, which might be nothing but a miracle (though I think I won boggle by 30 points - so maybe I was on fire).
I'm glad I'm not a child, anymore, for the simple fact that I'll be getting sleep tonight. Santa, keep it down. If you deliver gifts, remember that not even the mice are stirring, please and thank you. I didn't sleep well last night, and I need to get better before a wedding this weekend, a drive back to oregon, and a visit to A and S in california.
Merry Christmas eve, everyone. I pray everyone has safe travels and a relaxing, peaceful time holding friends, family, and Christ close to heart.