A quote from Hamlet's Ophelia: "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts."

Grammar notwithstanding in the above quote, it's the thought that counts or in this case, the thoughts. Therefore, I keep a bowl of rosemary in a pansy-painted bowl on my desk for those close to me who have passed and for the times I think of them.

My Bose radio/CD player tuned to the classical station resides to my right atop my oak and pine island.

A MacBook sits in the middle of my desk bathed in diffused sunlight that spills through sheer drapes from the window behind it. Three smiley faces stuck to the top frame of my computer greet me.

Behind my Mac sits my Westminster chime mantle clock. I can't see its face, so it keeps me from being a clock-watcher. Still, I can see its rounded edges peeping out reminding me that writing time is all too fleeting.

A Yorkshire terrier Avon bottle once filled with Topaz perfume whose scent can still be detected after 25 years or so. Topaz is my birthstone and I love dogs of all breeds, except perhaps the bull terrier (I can't quite get used to that look).

A Lenox flower vase at my left holds sundry pens, pencils and hi-liters. I stumbled into it at a yard sale when I lived in Texas. I paid one dollar, a find that I treasure to this day.

A wicker basket filled with notepads, Christmas CDs, classical CDs and, of all things, a phone or appliance recharger (not sure which). Leslie Sansone's Woman's Walk from my NutriSystem phase sits in front of the notepads taunting me to tone up to the tune of at least a mile or two a day all in the comfort of my own home. She's been ignored far too long.

In front of my basket sits an envelope holder with a picture of a sparrow sitting on a snow-covered berry bush. A stack of submission guidelines and works-in-progress at my left elbow keeps growing in exponential fashion, a comfort and a caution. Good to know it's growing, a caution because if I'm not careful it will fall and bury me like leaves on a windy fall day. "Get the rake!" I'll holler in muffled tones from beneath the heap and hope my husband hears that this isn't just one of my everyday dilemmas. This is far more serious, perhaps even life threatening.

In desperation some papers and books jumped off my desk onto the floor, my wing chair, ottoman and adjunct table at my elbow. But I won't go into that. That's another story unto itself, perhaps titled "What's on your floor, chairs, ottoman?"

"Don't forget us!" call the Roget's and Merriam-Webster. I wouldn't dare.

After all, that's where all this started.

Elizabeth lives in western Pennsylvania with her husband in a 100-year-old house situated next to a quarter-horse farm. She is an avid reader who has had her work published in flashquake, Crime and Suspense, the Long Ridge Writer's newsletter and The VERB. When she is not writing she enjoys classic films, gardening, travel, baking and listening to Mozart's sonatas. She is currently working on a novel in the mystery genre.

SAY WHAT? Misused Words

Wreak - to inflict vengeance or punishment; to bring about.
    "That girl's hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex."

Reek - to give off or become permeated by something unpleasant.
    "Their clothes and their letters reek with the fetid secretion of the musk deer."

The Hours
(2002)

Written by:
David Hare

Starring:
Meryl Streep
Julianne Moore
Nicole Kidman

Virginia Woolf's novel,
Mrs. Dalloway, affects three generations of women,
all who deal with suicide.