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Live Your Life for Love
I don’t need another reminder of my eventual death
Tokens and talismans surround my desk.
My army of desk guardians forms ranks on the credenza, making a defensive line against writer’s block; ready to storm the accounting department of any client who unwisely dithers in the payment of my invoices.
On the main part of my desk are a handful of knick-knacks, each waiting for a turn to be fiddled with. I never fiddle with them while writing. They are only there for the editing process, and to keep me from gouging my eyes out on business calls.
Lately, I’ve taken to rolling the Hawaiian poker chip that mysteriously turned up in a box of bookshelves we ordered online several years ago through my fingers. I love turning the smooth edges in my fingers. I imagine this poker chip would be my marker if I were to find myself in the same black-market dream-hopping business as Leonard DiCaprio’s character in the movie Inception.
Next to the poker chip, there are two unusual seashells I found on the beach near Depoe Bay, a piece of petrified wood I bought in a fossil and rock shop in Lincoln City on a family trip, some rocks my kids have given me, and a horse chestnut half that my child found on a long-ago Valentine’s Day that is in the shape of a heart.
