O Lord, You Know

People give me blank books. Beautiful covers, heavy paper stock -- lovely, lovely books. On the shelf closest to my desk I have soft Italian red leather, an imprinted Klimt, embossed calfskin, raw pressed pulp, classic black, and whimsical quotation adornment. And I, an ardent devotee of the written word, thrill each time someone who loves me makes a gift of such a treasure.
I look the giver in the eye and state, "It's perfect." Because it is.
I align it with others, shuffle the order a bit -- by color this time instead of size. Occasionally, I pull one from the pile and put it closer to the upholstered easy chair so it is within reach. I never leave the arrangement without a last look and an inward nod of assent. 
And there they remain, blank and perfect. 

Although I scribble everywhere on everything (two weeks ago I used the back side of a paycheck), tucking similes, meditations and fragments of observation into every available pocket of my life, I don't even mar the perfection of those tomes with my name on a flyleaf. I am waiting for contents worthy of such an elegant embrace. They will come. And I will use one of my many precisely tailored pens on those pristine pages -- filling them with the handwriting I so prefer over any font from a keyboard. 
I am waiting to write my fairytale. 

It's an attitude that flows from my heart as I often find myself expecting unicorns and rainbows just around the river bend. As if joys were in a separate book from the sorrows.
Life contains many hard things, broken-hearted things, heavy things that the calendar doesn't bring to a satisfactory sitcom close before the credits roll. And this metaphor ushers conviction as I shamefacedly confess my bitterness with the producer and director who decreed "To Be Continued..." at the end of December. I want something that fits neatly between two embossed covers.
I want a happy ending, and like Veruca Salt -- I want it now.

Today brought a new perspective for those blank pages. Ezekiel's vision of bodies being clothed in muscle and tendon and flesh and animated with the breath of life is meaningless without his first glance at a dry valley filled with dead bones. Beauty out of ashes. Mourning into dancing. A shoot growing out of a dead stump -- bearing fruit. The story of life woven through the detritus of death is in fact worthy of the most extravagant of covers.

The basic black has a wraparound band and a silk ribbon bound into the spine. I think I'll begin there.

And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry.
And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”
Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”