Happy Hour

This morning’s drink: chamomile tea.

I should not be writing this right now. It’s almost 7 a.m. and writing for pleasure should be strictly relegated to pre-dawn and post-sunset hours. The sunrise knows this and it’s hunting me down. Creeping into alleys, spotlighting certain buildings and gradually making it’s way to my southern-facing windows.

I should also not be writing because I’ve been reading young Hemmingway. Like Henry Miller and Anais Nin, Hemmingway puts me in this crazy, liquid writing state where every color is saturated and every emotion more dense. I like writing this way, but it’s made up of pieces that I’ve already digested. Which, in turn, makes it rather unappetizing to anyone else.

Still, I am writing this, and I’m mentally reclined in thoughts of Sedona. I took my one and only trip to Sedona about four years ago, and I’ve never been able to reclaim the part of myself I left there. The red rocks of sandstone cut so much against the sky that it seemed like a movie set, and in the back of my mind it was a scene that had been cut from Willy Wonka. I imagined I could swipe my hand along the side of those bluffs and return with cinnamon-spiced chocolate. I would imagine all the things the indigenous folks used to use it for.

But I’m not in Sedona — not even a little bit. My neighbors are audibly showering and I’m running out of tea. When the sun reaches my window it will already be hot, and the spider in my pane will have caught another fly.