My year-long projects are continuing apace! Yesterday I listened to Mozart’s Missa Solemnis (well, one of them), which was cool. I managed to listen to a full opera (not a well known one – he wrote some obscure ones) while driving around in the car the day before. This is one sign that I spend a lot of time in the car.
I just spent some time in a virtual meeting with Sarah (podcast co-host) planning the upcoming Best Laid Plans Live retreat. We are planning a planning retreat! It’s very meta, but there is definitely an element of planning to plan in many situations. For instance, I’m trying to figure out the right time to book some upcoming travel. I have hotels + flights for most of my stuff for the next two months, but I have not booked one potential overnight (in NYC – but I hear the city has lots of hotel rooms so I’m not worried about that). I need to book my flights to Ft Lauderdale in November but I haven’t gotten that far yet. Our family vacation over Christmas is all booked (hotels, flights, etc – necessary with 7 people). A trip my husband and I are taking in February is booked in terms of flights, and one of the hotels. The rest we need to figure out.
I’m also trying to plan my September time-tracking challenge. I think this will involve people tracking their time for a week and paying special attention to evening hours. But I’m still sorting out the process.
In the meantime, here are two sonnets from my recent batch (I’m writing two lines in a sonnet a day, which comes out to one a week, and I have done this for 3.5 years now).
The first one is called “Before Breakfast”:
The light comes through my window, I awake
before I want to, all this half a dream.
Turn over, feel the covers — I will take
my time to rise. My thoughts will soon redeem
the time spent idling here. I go downstairs —
familiar steps, familiar mug. I know
how long the coffee takes, these kitchen chairs,
the pace of all this morning run of show.
Today there is a bit more space, and so
I go outside, sit by the lilies, feel
the early warmth, not yet so hot, I go
along the driveway, watch the trees, all real,
yet like another dream, this morning haze.
that slowly rubs the eyes of summer days.
The second is called “Nightfall”:
The stones that baked by day give up their heat.
Here on the plaza, shadows welcome night.
Refreshed, we gather by the bridge to greet
the last rays of these solstice days. The light
is gentle now. The waiter brings a glass
and pours my wine. Somewhere a child laughs.
We talk of how these journeys came to pass.
I ponder how I’ll write these paragraphs
somewhere off in the future, when the days
are nothing but a memory. I’ll think
about the way the nearby lovers gaze
upon each other, and I take a drink,
already missing this, this moment gone
before the end, before a stifled yawn.
