where there's smoke, there's clementine

I tossed the peelings into the sink and turned the disposal on. I am not enamored of such devices. Is it because the one we had in The Projects broke? Didn't it break so often we gave up on having them repair it? Did its guttural grind scare me? As the disposal was gargling the skin of the clementine, I thought I saw a cloud of smoke puff up from the bottom of the sink hole to the right of the disposal. Smoke? Uh-oh. The next day, I kept an eye out for smoke. As I was uncurling my clementine at breakfast, I spotted -- and smelled -- a sudden burst of citrus spray escaping from the tender fruit.

Mystery solved. Mystery epiphanied.

Where there's smoke, there's not fire. Not necessarily.

And the day after that, steam uncurling heavenward from my hot tea with half and half no sugar. Swirling skyward. As if a genie were about to appear and offer to grant me wishes.

Wishes already granted.

Because in seventy years I had never seen my breakfast tea in quite that light.

walking with coffee

The deep, wide-brimmed ceramic cup wobbled. Not true. It didn't wobble, not that you could see. The coffee in it swayed. Medium roast. Half 'n' half. Swayed not even up to the alabaster brim, east or west, north or south. The birth of a wave. A false tsunami. No spillage.

He gets to the table, dry, slight swirl subsiding.  

"They say it's easier if you don't look at it."

"I've heard that."

"It's true."

"I don't doubt it."

He looks across the table, studiously avoiding a glance at the cup as he lifts it toward his lips. He recoils from the hot coffee, flinches, spills a dollop onto the table.

"See? I didn't look but look what happened."

"I see."

"So unlooking only steadies you if you're walking?"

"Something like that. Maybe. I don't know."

"Some kind of crazy metaphor?"

"Who knows, right? For what, I couldn't say."

He reached for the cup again, looked straight at it, lifted it, coffee waltzing, and leaned forward, trying to meet the cup halfway. His lips found the brim; he sipped.

"Ah. Success."

"I see that. Congratulations."

"Thanks. This time." 

bumps in the road

Have you seen it? A car swerves to avoid a slightly raised manhole or a pothole or a bump in the road. Actually, it is not typically a bump but rather a depression, a recess, an emptiness where asphalt or concrete should be and once was. More accurately, the car does not swerve by itself. The driver swerves it to avoid the offending disturbance. I've done it. Haven't you? Why do we do this? To save wear and tear on our tires? To achieve a less-rocky ride, avoiding In-Vehicle Beverage Spillage (IVBS) or CD skippage? Do we perform this evasive driving maneuver to keep the driver from losing his or her train of thought? (Maybe it should be "car of thought" in this case.)

Can you as a reader apply any metaphorical value to this phenomenon? 

Comments invited.

Report From The Observatory

"The observer is the observed." -- Krishnamurti

What a paradigm for bloggers.

We observe, we watch, we report -- on matters external and internal. And others observe these observations and watch and report. It's a loop.

The very act of observing changes me.

If I observe my own thoughts and actions, especially in writing, the act provides objectivity, and that objectivity reduces the "I" factor, enabling serenity.

But do we change what we observe, as the observer effect in physics states (often confused with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle)?

You tell me, dear reader.