do over

if i had to write yestserday's post today, it would go something like this:

i can hear vince's exhales from the romper room, his stretching regimen on the fuzzy lake of wool rug. someone's taking his snow blower for a slow walk. garbage truck backing up. again. forward. backup. forward. gone. furnace rumbling in decision. the always there buzz of this laptop, hp.

a gray-green wool sock plays dead on the desk next to me. vince just toss/layed it there. it got mixed up with his laundry a few weeks ago. its mate is in my sock drawer. vin will put my clothes in the closet where they belong but he prefers not to go in my drawers--doesn't understand my organization. so the sock will wait here until i pull open the bottom drawer of the dresser i refinished myself.

the same dresser sat in my childhood home's basement, wrapped inside thick brown paint. the one that held darts, books, silverware for parties. the dresser that got moved to the garage when paula moved her bedroom into the basement, privacy for everybody. the dresser that held greasy car parts, heavy metal instruments for lawn and garden torture. the dresser that fell under the ministrations of handsander and chisel for two weeks that hot summer in 1994 or '95 when i discovered without knowing that to change the world i must change my perspective. uncover things. follow through. it's a hard lesson. i usually fall on my face trying to remember it.

and the dresser...one knob doesn't quite fit...a memory of an oversized mismatched screw, the seed of its previous life. westerly light though my bedroom window barely covered in rice paper, dust unhurriedly building a life on dresser top. vin's heavy watch there wasting time next to scattered change, all of it winking in the light.