Postcard 11

My dining room table, 4:30 pm

Recently, I've become enamored with liquid. Drinking it, I mean. This is a surprising change: anyone who knows me has remarked at how little liquid I usually drink. Previously, I would drink maybe one cup of something a day--coffee, water, juice, whatever--but primarily I preferred to absorb my liquid through other, non-direct means. Liquid never satisfied me the way food did.

In front of me now sits a half-empty glass of wine, and a full cup of tea. Other beverages I also had today: One glass of cider, one glass of San Pellegrino. Beverages from yesterday include three glasses of wine, one chai latte, one cup of tea. Beverages from last Tuesday? None. You see the difference.

For the past few days, sitting doesn't feel right without a glass in hand. I can't explain the reasons behind the change, but I'm not complaining. And, all of this fuss about liquid seems trivial except that I feel more whole; never mind that the body is composed of 60% water, I feel more spiritually whole when I'm drinking.

Or, maybe, that isn't right, either.

One of my old master teachers taught this lesson on subtext. On the board she wrote, "What is the story about?" and underneath that she wrote, "What is the story ABOUT?" In other words, meaning is created through the balance of the said and unsaid. This, too, is how I operate in my life: always uncovering the unsaid in my own thoughts, always wondering, "What was that really ABOUT? What am I really feeling?" If you peeked into my brain during any conversation which I'm conducting with another human, the same type of monologue is going through my head: what aren't they saying? What are their words really ABOUT?

So, yes, I sat down to write about liquid today, but what is that ABOUT?

I tried to answer and then deleted it all--too much navel gazing. Who knows.

Wish you were here (to tell me what it's about).