Knowing when the thing is done

The Christmas trees are out on the streets again. Some of them lying inches from the front door, so they look as if they've been kicked out arse first like the disgraced cat at the end of every episode of Tom and Jerry.

They make me think, every January, of that Richard Brautigan poem about Christmas trees left in the street. The collective need for a fresh start is almost comical as we haplessly realise how hard it is to dispose of the body after the crime.

"Those sad and abandoned Christmas trees really got on my conscience. They had provided what they could for that assassinated Christmas and now they were just being tossed out to lie there in the street like bums. I saw dozens of them as I walked home through the beginning of the new year."

No real resolutions this year besides the ongoing aspirations I generally have regardless of what month it is. After all that lusty slicing through Beenleigh Blue over Christmas, I'd like to own a good bone handled cheese knife made of Sheffield steel like the one at home. I should bloody well learn to drive! I'd like to go to Rome. I'd like to get better at taming aspirations that involve always needing a bigger pile of money. I'd like to get better at knowing when the thing is done.

Knowing when the niggling thought ought to be put to bed. Knowing when the sentence is done, and the words are fit to stand without more fiddling. Writing is different, it's not always like the end of the meal or the end of a relationship when you can feel it coming. You get stronger in your convictions though, year by year, even if you might not realise it at the time.