Tonight I finished knitting a mitten, and listening to an audio recording of Gaudy Night, by Dorothy L. Sayers. One of these two endeavors ended considerably better than the other. Together, their amiable and domestic progression flavored a delightful little epoch in my life. Now, it is done.
Fortunately, I have a least one (probably two) more mitten(s) to knit, and more Lord Peter novels to read. And after that there are other things, I suppose... other things to put my hand and ear to, things that will find room for themselves in my malleable affections next to other simple things like these.
How attached I get to happy routines. Usually when I finish a good book there's a pretty painful gap in my middle. But the exquisite solidity of this one, and the surety I have that there is more to be got out of it in future, along with the quiet thrill of the Potential for Future Mittens, have like a clean snowfall covered the usual sadness-- lessened the melancholy and amplified the lingering savory.
Hmm. Things. I've bought quite a few books in the past few weeks, which has got me thinking about things. I mean physical things-- objects, like a book. What part do they have in the life of a spirit-animal hybrid like me? In the life of one who was made from dust and for eternity? The dark blue mug I bought at an art fair on Father's Day, solid and copper-toned underneath the dark watery glaze and the elegant handle, the one that makes me feel like a patron of The Green Dragon when I drink from it... The homely copy of Paradise Lost I got from a used bookstore and re-covered with cut-out letters and patches of color... Rocks small and striped, white, grey, black, and sparkling, smooth and razor-edged...
And the splintery timbers of an old rugged cross, and the bread, and the wine in a cup... These things, I think, are more than mere playthings of an omnipotent intelligence who spoke matter into being as a cog in the story. He became flesh, to die to redeem it.
Hmm.
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| I call it Luminaries Amidst Junk. |
