The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

by Beth Brower

How does one compete against a man with a wooden leg?

Emma M. Lion Not Equipped to Navigate Her Own Life

Then I arrived before the museum, and the pillars looked so smug I almost turned right around. A clear sign I was not quite myself. I usually adore a well-constructed pillar. I digress.

A year is such an odd packet of time. It seems so ordered: a dozen months, a handful of seasons. Deceptively even. Make no mistake, it will go awry every which way. Balance? Impossible. Control? Not worth mentioning the word. Some days cling and others run, many shifting just enough to incommode but give no great variety. And then out of the pedestrian blue comes an explosion which reduces all plans to smithereens. The reward for making it through? Getting to do it again.

I decided right then and there that, should my courage ever fail me, I would kidnap Hawkes, take him to a faraway place, and make him quote Shakespeare all the day long.

Life is not all disaster.

Determined not to embarrass myself, I did anyway.

Only, if arriving at a door unannounced is a shock to the world, I daresay I’d jolt them on the daily.

“I don’t wish to be kept awake at night by the sound of your journals weeping, Miss Lion.

This afternoon the bookstore felt cosy, darkened by grey clouds, but sunshine was trying to break through from the west, and when it did, all the book spines looked like gemstones.

This Season I’ll take care not to mind an inch of my own business. One learns as one grows older. Wisdom must be earned.

He has a studio, half a cat, and a grocer’s bill.

I gave him a death stare.

This was one of those moments where one might take the moral high road. I chose to dig a ditch.

I entered the hall with a heart burdened by the sin of wishing to push my relation out a window.

I pulled the bell cord and tried not to think how I despise bell cords—we would all be better to remain a nation of people with enough confidence to bang on a door—and waited.

This morning, on my way to the kitchen (i.e., sustenance),

Here’s hoping for reincarnation, where I will be reborn a mute.

I go with an expectation of goodwill. Later One can only feel so much goodwill when greeted with: “Did I do something in a former life to deserve this?”

Spring gives us more than we deserve.

I called towards the kitchen. As we heathens do.

My life’s current disaster required a good deal of philosophical consideration.

“There should be a subset of drama called a Calamity. That would account nicely for most of your life.” “Agreed.”

Numa Pompilius glanced up at me from the page, and I—thinking he should mind his own business—shut the book.