Moss, Rust, Poetry

Obsessed with moss lately.

I’ve been obsessed with the #Mosstodon hashtag lately. It helps that I live in the PNW, where moss is…well, let’s just call it a given. It’s everywhere, what with all the rain. Trees wear it, rocks wear it, bare earth and concrete wear it, even houses can develop a green coat if left to themselves long enough. In summer it’s dry loofah, in winter it’s juicy velvet.

This particular photo even provoked a poem. Most of my poetry is kept for home consumption, but every once in a while I commit an act out in the open. It’s good to sometimes show one’s colors, send your ghost ship into battle with all pennants flying.

It’s been a long week, full of strange things. I finished reading Nin’s Cities of the Interior in bed this morning, with Boxnoggin snoring into my armpit. He really likes morning read/snuggle sessions, and was only rousted from the warm nest with some difficulty. Half of me is still living in Nin’s words, thinking about the different selves contained in each of us and how we chase–blindly, often–after the ones stunted by neglect.

Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea is next. I haven’t read it in easily a decade, so I’m looking forward to the rediscovery. If I’m not careful it will lead to a Jane Eyre reread, but then again, what doesn’t? I return to Jane more often than I go back to Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, or Sajer’s Forgotten Soldier. My moss is not rust but words.

We’ve survived another week of 2023, my beloveds. Good for us, gold star, grand effort. It feels like even keeping one’s head above water these days is an achievement deserving of parade and pension. We’ve all done very well; let’s hope the weekend provides a little rest.