january rain

Let me tell you what my home is right now- first, the light. The light is blue, grey, dove, but clear, clean, not muddled. The light is still. It does not move over the objects but has penetrated them, so that every blade of grass carries exactly the same illumination as Hagrid, our large striped grey cat, moving over those grass blades toward Bellatrix, our minxy grey cat. Then, without warning, the light dims, just a shade, and the wind picks up in the may trees around my home, the ones that despite living in San Diego since 3 years old, I cannot spell- uca-lip-tus. The trees are tall and stalk like in trunk, and the leaves smallish, and right now the wind is moving and shaking them all toward the east, and they are making a loud rushing brushing hushing sound, like this:

hurshhhhhshhhchhsshhhh

The sound fills me and I am lifted beyond my emotional state and suddenly clear of it, like a bird- forgive the tired metaphor but it is so right!- just like a bird, lifted by the wind underneath my wings and into the sky and far beyond the exctractions, demands and concerns of the life still rooted firmly to this planet. Just now the rain started! It is pouring on the rooftop like a tapdancer, like this:

rrrttttttrattatrattatrattatratrattttrrr

at a speed only a jazz scatter or tapper like Sammy Davis Jr. could keep up. Mr. Weasley, our large, almost adult orange cat, is curled up next to me with Karate Chop, one of our two adolescent kitties, who is a fantastic coloring of grey stripes with orange/brown cheetah like stripes. Mr. Weasley licked her fur round the nose, eyes and mouth until she fell asleep. Doesn't that sound wonderful? I think I will ask Mr. Curry to do that for me.

I am in the sunroom, where the computer is, and there are only windows here on all walls, so that I am looking directly out at all times to our backyard, which has sprung up with the most deliciously crisp shade of green, thick grass. The rain is having a ball on our roof! The trees are still swaying but I can't hear them as well now. Lola is laying on the floor on her large red heartshaped pillow that she bought at Target with a gift certificate. Dakota is recovering from the stomach flu and lying wrapped in blankets on the couch. I lit a log in the fireplace, and they are watching the first Harry Potter. Mr. Curry is reading. Probably Robert Parker. I gave him two shelves and organized them for him, and you know what those two shelves hold? Robert Parker novels. He has scrounged through and re-read them so many times that the books are in dissaray and piles and that makes me happy every time I look at it, so that I smile. It makes me happy that I married a man who reads books so many times they are a mess. Even though I have bought him 4 books that I know he would love over the last few months and they sit, unread, because he is obsessed with two series: Robert Parker Spencer novels, and Harry Potter novels. The last two holidays we bought him a copy of a hardback HP because we only had paperback and with all of our entire family reading them, they are literally falling apart. The first one has no cover, I believe, and the second is beginning to miss pages and come apart at the binding. Mr. Curry is reading Lola the first one, at night, in bed. She struggles a bit with reading so he reads them to her.

The rain is pouring. I wrote 2 pages on my novel yesterday and it is coming along really well now. My writing has gained authority and I keep going back and editing from the beginning to make the book have that cohesive, authorative voice. I began submitting yesterday, inspired by Collin Kelley's post that he also began for 2010. Poems, that is. ( swimming pools, movie stars ) I just finished reading Philip Roth's Patrimony and wrote a short review on Goodreads. I highly recommend it. It's wonderful. Here are links to bloggers who have books that I recommend:

Collin Kelley, Conquering Venus

Vicky Forman, This Lovely Life

Rachel King, Magpie Hall

xo