In spite of the weather

But if you hold a blunt blade to a grindstone long enough, something spurts--a jagged edge of fire; so held to lack of reason, aimlessness, the usual, all massed together, out spurted in one flame hatred, contempt. I took my mind, my being, the old dejected, almost inanimate object and lashed it about among these odds and ends, sticks and straws, detestable little bits of wreckage, flotsam and jetsam, floating on the oily surface. I jumped up, I said, "Fight". "Fight", I repeated. It is the effort and the struggle, it is the perpetual warfare, it is the shattering and piecing together--this is the daily battle, defeat or victory, the absorbing pursuit. The trees, scattered, put on order; the thick green of the leaves thinned itself to a dancing light. I netted them under with a sudden phrase. I retrieved them from formlessness with words.
~ Bernard in The Waves by Virginia Woolf


Patty Griffin is singing of "Useless Desires" and I'm gazing out the kitchen window, watching the snow fall. These lines of Virginia's encapsulate my small life. I don't know what will happen, but it is time to delve deeper into the mystery of words and the ways and means of humanity's outpouring on the printed page.

So I'm sweeping together a little pile of thoughts for a grand "Statement of Purpose," wondering how to help this love shine through formal necessity and sifting through the 27-years worth of pages touched and words held snug inside my skull.

May the spirit move over the face of these troubled waters.