"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night."
Jul 29, 2019
Jul 27, 2019
I feel this very deeply.
“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
―
―
Jul 21, 2019
Jul 20, 2019
Choosing
“Left alone, no matter at what age or under what circumstance, you have to remake your life.”
―
Jul 16, 2019
Spaces
Human nature seems to abhor a blank space on a map. Where there are no human habitations, no towns, where villages dwindle into farms and farms into woods, mapping stops. Then the imagination rushes to fill the woods with something other than black darkness: nymphs, satyrs, elves, gnomes, pixies, fairies.
Diane Purkiss, At The Bottom of The Garden
Jul 15, 2019
It is what it is
Why do I desire the space?
I was mourning after you
I was lost and lost my shape
There was nothing I could do
I don't want to waste away
It was all I gave to you
Take me back and take my place
I will rise right up for you
from Silence by Manchester Orchestra
It was all I gave to you
Take me back and take my place
I will rise right up for you
from Silence by Manchester Orchestra
Jul 11, 2019
Vignette
The term vignette can be defined as a short literary sketch. The word originates from the French word 'vigne', which means 'little vine', as in a short description of an object or scene. An ideal vignette is supposed to be short, to the point, and should bring out the emotions of the writer. It normally appears as a stand-alone piece of literature, or as a part of long stories or stage plays.
from Penlighten
from Penlighten
Poetry by Louise Erdrich
“Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic - decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.”
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic - decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.”
Louise Erdrich, Original Fire
Jul 9, 2019
Stepping into the real life mix again....
It will get easier, your dreams are not dead.”
―
Jul 8, 2019
Truth and little lies everywhere....
Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest?”
― Angela Carter
― Angela Carter
Jul 7, 2019
On Widowhood
The most unsettling moment of that first year without John was when I went to Physical Therapy at Campbell's Clinic for two torn disks in my back and I had to fill out all these forms, and one had these little squares that you checked, it could be one or all. Like housewife, works outside the home, wife, married, divorced, and it kind of went on in a very modern way. There was none for widow. Laughing. And there were several for jobs. JOBS.
I didn't mark any of them and I wrote really big on the paper. NOTHING.
I am laughing now, but when the nurse came in she told me I could not put NOTHING on there. This was nearly half a year after John died. And I was still pretty bummed and depressed, and I told her, "You mark it, because I am not going to do it." It was a total act of rebellion that is so typical of me when I am stressed and find life absurd and just refuse to go along. You know that feeling. I said, "Right now, I am NOTHING and it stays."
Much later into my therapy my PT guy told me he laughed and laughed and said he would never forget me because no one had ever refused to check a square. I know it sounds petty and maybe even childish, but rebellion and anger were all I possessed at that time.
And it was true. I was nothing. I could not clean house, I could not cook. I could not paint. I could not write. I could not read. I could not watch TV. I could barely sit in a chair for 15 minutes. That was my limit at one time. I did nothing. I hardly had a thought in my head until the following October.
I look back on this as one of the darkest moments in my life. The fact that I survived is a little miracle. But I did. I never knew I was that strong, because I was not only grieving, I also had an ulcer, gastritis, and lower back problems.
And I was alone. Really alone.
Now, everything I do is just pure joy. The fact that I can do anything is a testament to my own willpower. Widowhood sucks. And as Joyce Carol Oates said, "It is our duty to survive."
Just survive.
I didn't mark any of them and I wrote really big on the paper. NOTHING.
I am laughing now, but when the nurse came in she told me I could not put NOTHING on there. This was nearly half a year after John died. And I was still pretty bummed and depressed, and I told her, "You mark it, because I am not going to do it." It was a total act of rebellion that is so typical of me when I am stressed and find life absurd and just refuse to go along. You know that feeling. I said, "Right now, I am NOTHING and it stays."
Much later into my therapy my PT guy told me he laughed and laughed and said he would never forget me because no one had ever refused to check a square. I know it sounds petty and maybe even childish, but rebellion and anger were all I possessed at that time.
And it was true. I was nothing. I could not clean house, I could not cook. I could not paint. I could not write. I could not read. I could not watch TV. I could barely sit in a chair for 15 minutes. That was my limit at one time. I did nothing. I hardly had a thought in my head until the following October.
I look back on this as one of the darkest moments in my life. The fact that I survived is a little miracle. But I did. I never knew I was that strong, because I was not only grieving, I also had an ulcer, gastritis, and lower back problems.
And I was alone. Really alone.
Now, everything I do is just pure joy. The fact that I can do anything is a testament to my own willpower. Widowhood sucks. And as Joyce Carol Oates said, "It is our duty to survive."
Just survive.
Jul 2, 2019
My Motto for the last two years
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson
– Robert Louis Stevenson
Jul 1, 2019
Keep Your Own Company
“Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.”
―
―
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