The quiet calm of composition
Without any direct experience, I imagine that our house, today, is akin to a scriptorium. No ink spills, or vellum. This is the Modern Age. Instead of the scratching of quill pens, there’s the muffled clicking of a laptop keyboard, and an even lower mechanical chatter of two hard drives, busily exchanging a terabyte of data on a table.
This weekend is one of intense composition. No background laugh track or din of commercials. No radio hosts berating the callers. Quiet concentration. No whistling allowed. I can’t handle conversation when I’m writing; others want even less mindless interrupts. So be it. I’m able to handle the quiet hiss of my tinnitus, or the occasional yelp of a sleeping hound. It’s home, in all its glory.
With no greater expectation, I reduced the personal laundry pile and spent some more time working on the never-ending search for ancestors. Not even my own; ancestors of anyone that I know in more than a peripheral sense. Great for the detective skills (or Googling, as we now refer to it).
The pool has been shocked. That’s where you overdose on chlorine granules, and watch the water change from green-brown to a dishwater gray, before clearing some hours later. The only way to get to swimming quality before the next freeze. I didn’t buy two years worth of chemistry this time out, so I’m more willing to measure. Hate to run out before “the end of the season”.
There’s always that pail of pucks, I guess. I don’t like them, but they’re as toxic as anything else. With that in mind, I may redose the pond tomorrow.
