The Magic Tealight

It’s Saturday, November 9th.
It’s my best friend Courtney’s birthday.
Tomorrow is my Michael’s birthday.

It’s 5:07 a.m.
I’m drinking that third cup of coffee.
The one that will turn my stomach, that I won’t finish and it will get cold.
Soon, I will switch to mouthwash, and then water.


But now, I want the warmth and the energy and coffee is my friend, so we spend just a little more time together.
This morning, it’s Kona blend, which isn’t my favorite but Michael likes it, so I buy it and I make it, and apparently I drink it, when he is asleep.


I have so much in my mind that needs to come out.
Two weeks ago, I was at Allume in Greenville, South Carolina.
I really couldn’t afford to go this year. But my mom, and a perfectly placed pay day made it possible.

I think I will look back on that weekend and I will remember it as a turning point.
The weekend I began to really feel like a writer.

One of the things we received in our gift bags was a little lantern. It’s tin, painted a cream-color, and it holds a tealight. It has a handle that took me three tries and two weeks to figure out, but it’s on there now.

I put it on my desk.
I’ve decided I will light this little candle when I am writing.
Because that will be the magic that turns me into writer Dana.
Author Dana.
Filling up blank pages with words that are perfect Dana.
Or, maybe it will just be a tealight in a little lantern but if nothing else, it smells good and looks cute.

I’m always drawn to these lanterns. At Target. At Ikea. I think I’ve probably bought a half dozen of them over the last 10 years and I’ve decorated with them, then eventually put them in plastic bins and either taken them to the Goodwill, or to my mother’s house, where she is perpetually preparing for yet another yard sale.

I bet you anything at least three of them are on display somewhere in her house. That’s where all my old stuff goes to die. Or, live on, rather. Because when I go to my mother’s house, and I see my old stuff, I regret putting it in plastic bins in the first place. I regret getting rid of it. Replacing it.

Maybe I miss that hawaiian bedspread from Pottery Barn I got 10 years ago. Or, maybe I miss my life 10 years ago.
Either way, it is nice to visit and see that quilt and want it back.
One of these days, I will drive back home with it in the back of my car.

I didn’t plan this morning to write about memories and old bedspreads, at all.

See? Maybe the magic tealight is working.
I smile, and take another sip of Kona.
This is where I want to be.
I am a writer.