Distant Thoughts, s/f
When I have guests over, I try to be a good hostess.
That is, be mindful that they feel comfortable, that their drinks are always full, that the food is abundant and delicious.
In short, let them feel at home and leave mine with a “full belly and a happy heart”.
I thought my life was bucolic and solitary, but suddenly I started to do the math and the truth is I get more visitors than I thought.
My guests show up spontaneously, without much plan and I appreciate that. The truth is I am an enemy of excessive planning, I think that people’s habit of controlling everything cancels out magic; one have to leave space, for the magic to manifest.
My most appreciated guests have the license to show up whenever they want and that’s the charm.
My mom taught me a “maxima” that I practice daily: in this house, whatever we have, is shared.
The truth is that these daily guests do not consume much.
They sit in the living room with me, I invite them to make themselves comfortable.
I connect with his presence, sometimes without saying much.
At other times, we have a much more eloquent exchange.
We engage in deep, passionate discussions.
These guests move me, captivate me; I contradict them, they contradict me; I interrupt them, they interrupt me.
They ruin me, they enrich me…as a poet said.
I end up exhausted but full; ready for a lonely glass of wine when I see them walking out the door.
I confess, my visitors are not flesh and blood, but they accompany me a lot.
My guests are my ideas.
There can be good and bad. I receive them both with the same hospitality. I also learn a lot from bad ideas.
Though the good ones sting like a scorpion, filling me with their sweet poison.
The one of creation.
When one of these luxury guests come to share my table, a hungry idea, a new obsession, I surrender to the arms of reverie, and I feel that I fall in love…
Again…
Leonor Henríquez (Caracas, Venezuela) Civil Engineer by training (UCAB 1985), writer and apprentice poet by vocation. From her time in engineering emerged her Office Stories (1997), another way of seeing the corporate world. Her latest publications include reflections on grief, Hopecrumbs (2020) (www.hopecrumbs.com) and “The Adventures of Chispita” (2021) (www.chispita.ca) an allegory of life inside Mom’s belly.
Today she shares her “impulsive meditations” from Calgary, Canada, where she lives.
leonorcanada@gmail.com