"the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissection table"

Artist unknown, and piece found in - of all places - the spa:

An impressive and bold choice, I think. A external representation of what goes through someone's head while receiving a facial. Something fragmented, happening in a faraway place, riddled with textures of trees, sand, and stone, while something winged passes by. And holes, both deep and shallow holes of thought and memory coming and going.

No kidding.

- F

Old Poem

I don't think
the world
always spins
in the direction
it chooses.
For moonlight
creeps up
and confuses
the shimmer
with the rays
until one's eyes
tire and cross,
and the mind
drifts to sleep.

- F

The Missing Ring

I was having a good day. I came home from work and ate a hot plate of chicken with caramelized onions, which my amazing good cook of a fiancé made for us. Our kitty Grigio was sitting on my lap, jumping on the table, laying on the kitchen floor as usual. We fed her hot chicken, she loved it. I don’t know what Dan and I were talking about, probably about the news and work and of course a little bit of nonsense. Because Dan cooks (I am not a cook at this point), I do the dishes. This particular night I decided to stick my engagement ring in my back pant pocket while I finished cleaning up. So I did. The next thing I did was clean out Grigio’s litter box which was particularly dirty, with my ring back in its proper place, on my finger. Then I vacuumed, then I went to wash my face, and then I looked for my ring (which I usually leave on the inside corner of the bathroom sink) and I couldn’t find it. I looked everywhere in the bathroom. Looked back in the kitchen. Looked back in the pants pocket. I couldn’t find it. I told Dan it was missing. I didn’t think I was going to get scared but then I did. My beautiful ring, my engagement ring, just a symbol of our love.  JUST A SYMBOL.  No, an object symbolizing our love. It's just an... where is it? Dan and I went from room to room, checking every table, every inch of the floor. I’m being punished I thought. Maybe I don’t deserve Dan. Dear St. Anthony, please come around, my ring is lost and it can’t be found. We checked the living room. Looked under tables, couches. We started wondering if Grigio did something to it. Hearts pounding, we started getting really, really nervous. Where could it be? It couldn’t have just disappeared! Tell me the order of events leading up to you realizing you didn’t have it, Dan says. I tell him. We double check my back jeans pocket. Nothing.

I open up my night-stand drawer. There it is, glistening on top of my eye-glasses case. I dropped it in there mindlessly, trying to keep it safe, but forgetting where the safe place was. This thing, this thing worth thousands. Dan yells that I should leave it on from now on. I tell him I can’t the soap will make it slip off. I cry. It’s found. Dan says we have it insured we could have gotten a replacement. NO not for this one, I said, not this one. Dan, I can see now, was scared and sad. My tears start coming down harder. We lay on the bed, Dan holds me tightly. My ring is in its right place, all is well with the world.

Never has there ever been an object so dear to me. Never will I lose it again.

When does a thing stop being a thing and start meaning something more? Once it's past a certain price point? No... can't be. I've lost jewels before.

With relief,
F

A Peaceful Afternoon

My magical, soft, curious, loving Grigio kitty, sitting next to the fairy garden, on the windowsill.

- F

OKNOTOK

A few days ago I read an article written by Amanda Petrusich from The New Yorker - The Whispered Warnings of Radiohead's "OK Computer" Have Come True. As a long-time fan of Radiohead, I read it, and Petrusich's insight about the album motivated me to listen to it once more, this time digitally remastered with b-sides and renamed OKNOTOK. Upon listening, though deeply moved, I kept my cool for most the opening tracks, but something about the track (I don't know if anyone would even really call it a song) Fitter Happier And More Productive tipped me just a little over the edge and down came the few but powerful tears.

Petrusich writes:

"The disparity between these two things—the idea that everyone has gone on believing that the record is about the rise of machines, when Yorke keeps telling us it’s about how much he hated touring the world in a dumb bus—is fascinating, and at least partially attributable to the record’s fretful instrumentation. (Its lyrics are abstract enough to suit just about any imagined narrative.)"

My own imagined narrative from this album is not so much about a fear of the rising machines, or being trapped, but instead about the mechanization of individuality. Having previously been a floundering, outgoing, free-spirited human being, this album's whispered warning to me was about the strangling pressure to conform. But conformity, for many, in it's distilled form, is necessary for survival. And this is what I had to do, this is why I'm still here. But that is the sad thought, the reality of that thought brought upon by listening to OKNOTOK, that made me cry. Radiohead's robot says:

fitter, happier, more productive

And I am.

While "OK Computer" was not subversive for me in those wild and carefree days (it was soothing art which I could interpret but not feel), it is so much more so now. It is because of the very fact of self-reflection, of self-examination in the 21st century, which is apparent in both the musicality and lyrics. Petrusich writes:

"Radiohead wasn’t a grunge band (if anything, it was in danger of being rolled into Britpop), but its insistence on a kind of brainy largesse—on bringing in unexpected instrumentation, approaching rock from an unapologetically cerebral place—felt almost countercultural."

I will listen to OKNOTOK again, and will probably focus on the second half of it, which is a bit more uplifting. 

I'll just leave this lyric-less rendition of "Let Down" by the pianist Christopher O'Riley right here.

Easy, easy.

The Poets House has left quote inscriptions throughout the zoo, and placed this message from Neruda right at the entryway:

But that humans are animals is easy to forget - yet easy to remember when the wilderness within still knows fear.

"So many things were forbidden—like taking anything seriously..."

The Paris Review published an insightful interview for The Art Of Fiction with Alice Munro in 1994, and recently shared it again. She is one of my favorite writers for many reasons (see my review of Too Much Happiness), though most everyone knows her for the unique and skillful way she crafts stories, each time with a twist, each time unexpected.

In one part of the interview she talks about living in a place, a very particular place, which was excruciatingly suffocating because of its inability to allow, or accept, actual, meaningful conversation. Conversation was kept to niceties. The imposition of this kind of culture was so horrible that Munro deemed the experience unwritable. The rest of the article is fascinating as well. 

The Paris Review, The Art Of Fiction with Alice Munro

The difficulty in attempting earnest, important discussions despite seemingly inflexible mores is vexing, and is something worth some pondering, though it may, ironically, leave us silent. 

Shaking with excitement, nerves, and hope,

- F 

Something New

I'm starting this blog primarily to change my frame of mind from Facebook and other social media posts to something with more depth, and perhaps more honesty, that not everyone might feel obligated to see. I'm hoping to become more intentional in my daily (and nightly) activities - I am never without something to do - by keeping the knowledge that I aim to write about these activities, and other thoughts I may have - without the same discretion as I would normally. I'm very much looking forward to this. I already keep a journal, which is sometimes left forgotten for weeks. Some of my written journal entries I will share here. I promise you this is nothing special. For now, it is merely a way for me to practice a skill that I love; writing.

Sincerely,
F