THROUGH A LENS, DARKLY

     Oh, my Lord, I've gone two whole weeks without blogging, and even longer without really blogging.  I'm aware that my "canine geniuses" post doesn't actually count.  It's just that this writing life is so hard, you know?  I'm squinting into a dream through the lens of a microscope, seeing only shapes and shadows moving continuously.  Once in a while a shape swims into focus for a second, and I feel I can almost decipher it, but then it slips back into the shadows again.  Tiny snippets of this miniaturized world coalesce here and there, long enough for me to catch them in my net and dredge them up into the light.  But of course, they look so different once they're captives.  They're damaged, inert.  Maybe I can transplant life back into them, maybe not.  The only way it can possibly work is if I wield the scalpel deep into my own life and sacrifice some cells.
     It's always worth it, even if the transplant doesn't take.  But it's exhausting to perform surgery on yourself day after day.  And sometimes I don't have the energy left to talk about it, but I can't think about anything else.  And so a week or two can go by without my blogging.  I hope you understand.

 

 

p.s.  I actually have a very important public service announcement - can't believe I forgot this before.  Here goes: "rutabaga" is not just a silly made-up word.  It is the name of a real live vegetable, also known as a "waxy turnip."  It doesn't taste half bad in a vegetable soup, either.  And, because I want you to be able to recognize it in the produce section instead of having to embarrass yourself by reading the labels on anything that looks like it might be a rutabaga:

 

 

     Sort of majestic, in its own crude, aggressive way.  If Beethoven had been a vegetable, I think the odds are at least 50-50 he would have been a rutabaga.  Rutabagas don't take no shit, I can tell you that.  If you want to cut one up and eat it, you'd best sneak up behind it and make your move before it knows you're there.  Don't say I didn't warn you.