A Writer’s Eye

I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this story. But it’s been long enough now. I guess I can tell you. One cool March day in the early Spring of 1991, something happened to me that changed my life. It didn’t seem like a particularly momentous thing at the time, really.  

As a small child, I used to sit on my father’s lap on cold winter evenings and watch the fire as it danced in the fireplace.  He would rock me in that saggy, cane-bottom chair we used to have; a rocker so worn and tired that every time someone sat down, the joints creaked and complained like an old man with lumbago. Back and forth.  Back and forth we would nod together, my father and I, as we listened to that rocker sing its squeaky song. 

A Word About Maps … As I looked into my bathroom mirror this morning, (and combed what few hairs I have left on my head) … a curious thought came to me: I’m not sure when I discovered it, really. How difficult it is to re-fold a map, I mean. I’ve probably got fifty different maps in my car, or stuck away in junk drawers I never open; And none of those maps are folded like they were when I first got them.

I’ve never been troubled much with it before, but this morning as I sat, pondering ‘the way things are,’ a bothersome thought crossed my mind. The more I dwelt on it, the more it nagged at me . . . something I think I forgot. I’m not sure there’s much I can do about it now. Maybe that’s the reason I was troubled. It has to do with ‘talk.’