It was the candle that did it

I use my office as an office. I work at my desk. Until this week, I piled junk on the table.

I did not choose to write in that room. In the room I painted in the basement.

The table was ready. It waited for me.

In our previous house, I wrote at the table. It sat next to a bright window in the kitchen. I drank coffee there. Flowers brightened vases there. I spread composition books there and read novels there.

Here, the table sat alone in the corner under a small dark window in my key lime office. Until this week, I wrote upstairs. Until this week, the table gathered dust instead of words.

The candle changed everything.

At the beginning of the soccer season, my son and I carpooled with a friend to Winston Salem, NC, for a tournament. The boys warmed up. Lisa and I sought a Krispy Kreme. The donut king is headquartered in Winston Salem. Lisa told me about donuts in L.A. About how the neighborhood Krispy Kreme staff knew her family.

I told her about swerving across lanes of traffic in Savannah for the neon red “Hot Donuts Now” sign. About how I owned Krispy Kreme stock.

Lisa and I bonded over donuts. We bought two dozen. We delivered them to parents on the team sidelines.

Last weekend, at a different soccer game, Lisa said, “I have something for you.” She pulled a small cellophane package from her bag. In it was a green and white polka-dotted box marked “KK.” The box was a bit smaller than a Rubik’s cube. In it was a donut-scented candle from Krispy Kreme.

Back at home, in my office, I cleaned the café table. I removed the candle from its box and placed the candle in the table’s center. During the week, the donut candle burned. I worked. The candle flickered on the round table.

It made me want to write there.

The candle transformed the room. Now, each morning, I sit at my writing table. The candle flickers there. I drink coffee there. I spread composition books there and scratch words across the page there.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, The tension between sentences, for this post I attempted to write only in simple sentences or fragments. A compound or complex sentence may have snuck in. Simple sentences are hard!