Leanna and I were working together last night, late. In the modern sense of the word – she was at her house in front of the fire, and I was at my house laptop-clad in front of my fire. We were madly writing back and forth on the messenger as we each worked on our specific stories, throwing out ideas.
Our messages have taken on a unique shorthand, a result of years spent working together, high school debate team, grade school bus rides home. Often when we’re face to face, we don’t even have to say anything.
“Help me understand this NRS… “
“What does this federal regulation mean…”
“What is Tannerite?”
“What’s the difference between NRS and NAC?”
“Why is there no NAC with the number they cite…”
We speak often in those things that are initials for silly bureaucratic titles – acronyms. Why couldn’t I think of that. It’s funny too, sometimes she’s in some state agency and I’m on a federal and the initials are the same but have completely different meanings. So there’s a funny way we’ve come to translate, subconsciously, without realizing we do it.
A lot of life is that way too. We tend to get automatic. Ordinary. That poem my dad wrote about in his column this week laid me out cold. It was really beautiful but the ending was perfect…
“In the spent of one night
He wrote three propositions:
That Hell is the denial of the ordinary.
That nothing lasts.
That clean white paper waiting
under a pen
is the gift
beyond history
and hurt
and heaven.”
It’s called The Gift, by John Ciardi and it’s worth looking up.
I don’t know why I’m so emotional, but that idea, that concept, the thing that happens every week at the very end of putting the paper together – a messenger note to Leanna, “what do you need next?”
“Captain’s Log…”
And there you are, staring at this blank piece of “paper” the screen that is full of possibility. Magic. Such a gift. And while I sit here filling this paper, I’ll be, of course…
…keeping you Posted.
Rach
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