The Reassignment of the Lamp

There are nights of course, when the mind races, buzzes and hums without any notion of stopping. Not too much has been different. Good conversation with a brother from back home. A friend, dear to me, for whom I’ll pray in the days ahead. Some heavy lifting, once the important things had been laid to rest. 

The reassignment of the lamp. There will be those, who may remark, that one’s life was filled with a quaint series of odd, symbolic gestures that pointed towards an intent of sorts. One will be the lamp which mysteriously appeared on the desk. Colourful, quaint, charming. The lamp, I mean. What on earth was it doing there? Alas, the lamp speaks of so much. It speaks of intent. It speaks of a cognitive trigger that sparks that ineffable, untraceable, unknowable impulse to punch keys with fingers, to bring shape and form to words and ideas. Like so. You see? 

The lamp of course, carries that same terrible burden as the innumerable guitar picks in pockets, inevitably cast away in the foamy tempest of the family washing machine, failing on many days, to draw him any closer to his guitars. Or the mug, to prompt the weekly post on that thing that he made some years ago, pledging publicly (yet silently, you see), to say something that mattered. At least once a week. A mug will fix this, you see. 

And yet, there are a number of processes and routines that he tends to without even trying. His beleaguered, long suffering spouse (no, really) can attest to an array of such, so on and so forth. There was this, and that and the other, of which he had to admit a peculiar effortlessness. They were wonderful, baffling blind spots that coalesced into something of a life, of some joy, meaning, purpose and oriented, tending, closer, somehow, he prayed, to God. 

Then, at home, they may wonder of course. The lamp? Where on earth is the lamp? There may be sone friction, some factions, some fruitless frustration, but alas, in the end, the lamp will be there to be lit, some mornings, some afternoons, when one sees fit to fumble with the written word, against one’s better judgement. 

And the evenings. Rest easy, evenings. It’s going to be fine. The pressure is off, per se. Hence the rhythm and the flow. Hence the buzzing, the racing, the humming. 

To prayer.