Mini-Essays : October 9, 2015

Grass Covering by Ashlee Craft
Mini-essays are going to be a new feature on my blog & I’m so excited! I came up with the idea earlier today & in this feature, I will write a small paragraph about a beautiful minutiae or moment or thing in life, or that I read about, etc.

// SURREAL SLEEP

I awoke, not yet halfway through the short sleep night that I knew I was going to have, & looked around at the darkness of my room, & the sheer lace curtains over my window, illuminated by moonlight. My blankets were too warm; I tried putting one leg in, one leg out, like I did when I was a kid, but it didn’t really help. I tried sleeping everywhere : on the end of my bed, curled into a c-shape, clutching a plush owl & laying on my “weird fish pillow”, as I call it. I thought about the sound of his voice; adrenaline coursing through the shot put athlete preparing to throw; feminism; tender moments between the two of us; pretending that he was there, brushing my hair back from my face to comfort me to sleep; funny TV shows, & the deep cloud that was hanging above me. Still, sleep would not come, & the assumed exhaustion followed.

 

// Goodbye, Tree

You were there, a steady friend of mine over many lonesome nights when I would stare out my empty window at the lake. “Goodnight, tree.”, I would say, thinking about Anne of Green Gables & how she named plants, so they could be her friends. The moon would shine down over the lake, & the water would sparkle like electricity was jolting through it, & you would be out there, a steady, sure companion of mine. & every morning, your branches outstretched to the sky, you would be greeting the day, ready to embrace it. Steady, rooted, certain. That was how I thought of you. Now you are crumpled & uprooted & lying there dead, & I can no longer say goodnight to you, but rather, farewell. “Goodbye, tree.”

 

// The Smell of Fresh Sweet Potatoes

They sat in my fruit bowl on the edge of the counter for quite a while – a white organic sweet potato, & a regular sweet potato. I used to use the fruit bowl all the time, but then the fruit in it slowly rotted, & after I washed the bowl, it got shunned to the pantry. I rediscovered it a few weeks ago, & the sweet potatoes ended up in the bowl. In an effort to rotate the fruits & veggies, I decided to cook the sweet potatoes today. It was one of those moods where I feel inspired to do everything, & make everything, & get everything done creatively & productively. I sliced them & made sweet potato chips. As I sliced off the ends, I took an appreciative sniff of raw sweet potato. I’d never actually sniffed one before & realized I didn’t know what they smelled like. It lacked much of the earthy smell of a regular potato, but had a faint hint of regular sweet potato smell. It smelled refreshing, surprisingly.

 

// Mindfulness, In a Weird Place

Three times it happened, same place, almost the same time. Lost in thought, with the soap on my hands & warm water washing it away. Lost in thoughts about where I was going, & the mere hatred of it all, & every other frustration bearing down upon me. Then, each time, caught up in what wasn’t even real yet, & probably never would be, & maybe wasn’t even important in the scheme of things, I stepped on the same broken acorn on the floor. It crunched under my foot, & the unexpected sound jolted me from my soliloquies, & suddenly I was there, fully & present. It was the alarm clock. WAKE UP. WAKE UP. WAKE UP. Then I felt the paper towels on my hands, & felt the crunch of the paper beneath my fingers. This happened two more times the same night, the exact same way.