The Leaning Period

Twenty-three days. I counted this morning while the kettle was heating, which tells you something about where my head is. The two prints from the framing shop are still against the kitchen wall, not on the wall, not on the shelf, not anywhere intentional. Just leaning.

I have moved around them every day for three weeks. I step to the left to get to the cabinet. I notice them when I come in from a run. I have thought, more than once, about picking them up and holding them against different sections of wall to see how they read in the light. I have not done this. What I have done is write one sentence in the draft folder that says: the not-placing might be the answer, the same way the gap on the windowsill was the answer, and I am waiting to find out if that is true or if I am just being slow.

The cord is on the windowsill. The collapsed bowl is on the shelf. The letterpress card and the photographs and Carol's small object are all where they landed and then stayed. Every one of those things found its place by being worked around long enough that the place became obvious. I know this. I have written about it.

Still studying. Still not deciding.

And still. Twenty-three days. The prints are leaning and the draft folder has one sentence and the kettle is done and I am going to make my coffee and walk past them again on the way to the window, and maybe that is exactly what is supposed to happen next.

Twenty-three days. The prints are holding their ground.