Stolen Minutes

UPDATE - Brimm Manor is not closed, though the light in the window may flicker a bit ... or may not always be on, should you happen by.


And what’s all this about? 


You may recall last week’s installment, in which I related an experience while at the keyboard. I believe it started with a ka-BOOM! during an electrical storm ... and, though I first thought it was the arrival of a great idea for another poem ... it turned out to be an electrical problem.


After a week or so of trying to fix the problem ... or at least track it to its source so somebody else could fix it ... we summoned help.


Help is not cheap these days ... a fact that you may already have noticed. Fortunately, we had something to lean on (each other) when we got the estimate. Now we’re just waiting for the real help to arrive.


Meanwhile, I’m enjoying a bit of evening darkness in a portion of the house. It sorta balances with the morning fog I’ve enjoyed for all these years.


And I may even get another installment of “Squiggles” pulled together. But WAIT! Did I hear thunder?


-S&G-


THE OTHER DAY I was tooling along in The Little Red Car ... minding my own business (and probably holding up impatient drivers behind me) ... when I suddenly came upon one of those school zones.


You know, those places where there are warning signs posted ... and sometimes a set of blinking amber lights, just in case you didn’t see the signs ... OR THE SCHOOL.


That’s usually the place at which other drivers go blasting around me like Little Red is planted in concrete. That’s because I always slow down to the posted speed limit ... 20 mph in these parts. 


I always slow down for school zones ... because I have long made it a practice to leave home ON TIME, and, therefore, I HAVE NO NEED TO SPEED.


As I entered the school zone, a most unusual thing happened. Everybody else was slowing down, too. 


My first reaction was a bit of puzzlement ... and then a touch of pride ... in these other drivers ... and myself. It appeared that my example ... infuriating though it may be to SOME drivers ... had worked a miracle with this group.


Then I looked a little farther ahead and saw him ... the motorcycle cop ... parked in the median ... pointing his radar gun at us. I’ll bet he was proud of us, too.


-S&G-

TODAY’S POEM: I write a lot about writing. It's not that I'm ... by any stretch of the imagination ... an expert on the subject. On the contrary, the process often baffles me.


Do we know all there is to know about Love? Or Nature? Or God? No! But we pursue these, and other subjects, with a passion, because we want to understand.




So it is with the subject of writing. I write wherever and whenever I can. Afterward, I don't always understand what I've written, or why I wrote it. But I write. I keep a scratchpad beside the bed, a pen ...  just in case I wake up with some thought bugging me, something that will be lost if I don't write it down right away.




Sometimes, even that isn't enough to preserve it. My scrawled writing, coupled with the morning mental fog that follows a restless night, can be a tough code to crack. 


Oh, well, there will be another time, another place, and maybe that same thought will pop up like a rabbit, go running across the clover field of my mind ... and maybe, just maybe, I'll grab it this time, tame it, make it mine, all mine.




Today’s offering:




STOLEN MINUTES


I steal minutes when I can,
take them for my own use,
sometimes to sit thinking
my own odd-angled thoughts,
sometimes watching as a pencil
searches its way across
the untracked page, sometimes
listening to that voice,
imperceptible except to that
part of the ear that feels,
more than it hears, what is said.


(originally published in The Christian Science Monitor)


-S&G-


COMMENT? Feel free ... below, if you like. 


Or if you prefer e-mail, that's fine, too ... especially for more detailed observations, to


 rbrimm@peoplepc.com




... and it helps if you put "Squiggles" or "S&G" ... something like that ... in the subject line (just remember, no religion or politics ... please!)


-S&G-


And if you’d like to see what’s up with my other, DAILY blog,  here’s a link to it:


http://rbrimm.blogspot.com/


Thanks for paying a visit.




-S&G-


UNTIL NEXT TIME ... take care ... see ya!


-S&G-


©  2010