Good morning, it's 9:59 a.m.—late. I was able to wake up naturally since the cat decided to take a day off from breathing in my face. I rolled out of bed and moved into the doorway for a yawn and a stretch, and the cat came trotting from somewhere unknown. He let out a blood-curdling meow, which was his way of telling me that he was extremely unhappy about his breakfast being late. After feeding the cat, I started the coffee and the fire. The fire refused to catch again with balled up newspaper and torn cardboard from the packaging from a new duvet cover, so I gave up in defeat and used a fire starter. It's still cold in the house and I'm sitting at the end of dining room table, which is even closer to the wood stove than the end of the couch.
So begins my mundane day.
In A Box of Matches
- "What I saw, instead, was a middle-sized, yellow-leafed sugar maple tree. It was behaving oddly: all of its leaves were dropping off at the same time. It wasn't the wind—there was no wind. I stood there for a while, watching the tree denude itself at this unusual pace, and I came up with a theory to explain the simultaneity of the unleaving (p. 35)."
- "Yesterday my son and I got haircuts from Sheila in town. I like her because she's fast and she doesn't care that I have what Claire calls a 'roundabout,' meaning that I'm well on my way to being bald. Nor does she want to give my son a shelf haircut. She's a person who just likes cutting people's hair (p. 55)."
- "I just laid a Quaker Oats container on the fire, which had burned down to a dim red glow. The cylinder flamed, blindingly, and the Quaker in the black hat, smiling, was engulfed (p. 106)."
- "While on the subject of fuel—I think I know why I'm feeling especially lucky this morning. It's because yesterday I hit sixteen dollars exactly when I filled the car with gas (p. 145)."
Leaves falling from a tree, getting a haircut, starting a fire, filling the car up with gas. These things happen all the time, often without barely a thought. For Emmett, such regular events become food for thought and a jumping off point for more thoughts. Eddie feels that the journal-like presentation is "effective." Is it effective for you? Did you find yourself interested in the mundane goings-on from Emmett's life? Do you ever muse on the goings-on in your own life?
